Some thoughts on friendship (long rant, basically)

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I have no friends at the moment.

Usually, when someone says that, I imagine them as completely lonely, having noone to talk to, always being alone. But that doesn't apply to me. I have people in school that I like to talk to, and they like to talk to me as well. I even have 3-5 people I sometimes go out with, and a few months ago - in my previous school - it were even more, maybe 8-12.

Something I've been confused about my entire life is: When is someone a friend? Other people always seemed to define that more loosely than I. I think I had.. two or three friends in my entire life. And even then I felt like I did not actually know those persons really well. Maybe that's because I always had problems with the sort of "natural connection" that NTs seem to feel to other people. I always felt as if other people were not entirely real - well, maybe "real" doesn't describe it. More like other people were really hard to grasp and could not be defined. I was always uncertain about what I felt for other people, and what they felt for me. It got better in time, but as a child I was absolutely clueless.

When I really cared for someone (well, as much as I was able to), I usually didn't even realize it and just lost contact with that person somehow, only to notice that I really missed them some time later, when there was no way to contact them again without looking weird or needy. This lead to me losing the best friend I ever had. She was someone who was really popular everywhere she went, the kind of girl that's slender, pretty and socially very capable. This was a source of constant uncertainty to me. At the time I knew that I was uncool, weird, and awkward, so I always wondered why she would want to be with me. I was jealous of the gazillion people she knew and called friends as well. She did sometimes tell me that I was her best friend, but I somehow refused to believe it and kept looking for hidden signs that she didn't like me after all. Well at some point she had kind of a personal crisis in her family, and I didn't get that at the time. I didn't understand that she needed help and acted very cold and selfish. I basically abandoned her, which I didn't realize until years later. The thing was, it didn't even come to my mind that she would need me. That my behaviour would hurt her. I expected her to just shrug it off and turn towards her other "friends", since I never really believed she appreciated me anyway. Now I realize that she must in fact have felt very lonely and that her other "friends" were just facade... and I realize that my behaviour was horrible. And I still miss her, which is very unusual for me because I rarely ever missed anyone, even if I really liked them - and it's been about 7 years that I last spoke to her. I now realize that our friendship was very real and unique and that I basically threw away something very precious, and that just sucks.

I don't feel like I can ever have a real friendship ever again. I don't trust people, and I feel terribly far apart from them. I don't believe them when they say they like me, and I don't even know why. Yes, my confidence could be better, but it's not terribly low, and I never really had any "traumatic event" of being betrayed or having my trust abused or anything. Besides, I feel like I'm too picky for this world. I don't believe you can be friends with someone just because you like them. I believe that you have to be very, very similar in some things. For me, "real" friendship is almost sacred. It's more important to me than love and, in my opinion, way more meaningful and durable. So people calling me a "friend" after having talked to me a few times almost make me agressive. In that case I think: "Man, you know NOTHING about me. How can you call me a friend. If you really knew me, you'd probably hate me."

Another big problem is that the part of my brain that creates affection is apparently too slow. As I mentioned, most of the time I only notice I liked someone after they're gone. So I don't even really have the opportunity to try to befriend them. Sigh.

Yeah. If you've actually read the whole thing, why don't you write a post about if you know what I mean, and if you feel this way as well.

Sounds a lot like how I've been living.

A lot of the things that people tend to take very seriously [1] are just lots of background noise to me. I don't want to insult others through disinterest of their interests. But it's hard to find common ground much of the time. Combined with my appearance, I imagine I keep many, many people at arms-length or farther.

In my case, I happen to be aware that I tend to have a very time-consuming, very private inner life. Near as I can tell, it's my way to cope with things that have happened that are still present today, but are beyond my responsibility to fix or change.

[1] career trajectory; romantic experiences; various kinds of group consciousness such as: popular music, movies, other entertainment, the superifical aspects of politics (this seems to loom very large for many of the Americans around me)

Hey there,
I completely understand how you feel. I think for Aspies our definition of friend is much different than a NT's. I have one friend at the moment who I hang out with about once a month. And whether I see her as a true friend or good acuaintance varies. I feel like she cares for me but only hangs out with me when it is convenient for her. As for me I always say yes to anytime she wants to hang out, so it can feel like I'm putting more energy into the friendship than she is. When I was 11 and younger i had a lot of friend and even a best friend. I "clicked" a lot with other people and considered people friend more. But when I moved I was bullied a lot and lost trust I had for people, then considering someone a friend became harder. I feel this is because Aspies just have a hard time connecting to NT's