Ruining friendships by trying too hard

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that's very true. I wish there was some way to highlight or save posts that you'd like to come back to later. I keep on falling into that trap and could never quite pinpoint the reason before.

Another thing is a 32 year old man who likes to hang out with an 11 year old not related to the family could be seen at best weird and at worse, a dangerous red flag to the kids mom.

This only tends to happen when I have a romantic interest in the 'freind' that is presumably not reciprocated. In the first such occurrence when I was fourteen/fifteen, rather than getting freaked out and distancing herself which seems to be the typical reaction, this girl reaped the benefits which took the form of free cinema trips, coffee and meals, and employed some pretty obscene tactics to prove my utter devotion to her which included f*****g me about over arrangements like you wouldn't believe (she stood me up a fair few times, claimed to have misheard or misunderstood me when said arrangements were being made, turned up four hours later than planned at my place on at least one occasion). Then again, I do suspect that she had a narcissistic personality disorder, so that probably explains why she deemed that friendship worth maintaining, or rather allowed me to maintain it .

Subsequent infatuations with male acquaintances who have initially been friendly towards me or shown signs of liking me have panned out more like the friendships you describe - there was one guy when I was 17 who I bombarded with lengthly emails despite the fact that I saw him most days , and I never understood why he started treating me so coldly until a friend revealed to me that my 'stalking' of him had been a popular subject of gossip and ridicule in the common room. More recently, I developed a crush on this other guy and rather than pursuing him obsessively, I found myself clamming up around him to the point of making him almost equally uncomfortable.

Nightwulf, as other people have said, you shouldn't give up on your friend but I think cutting back on contacting him so frequently is probably really sensible. The fact that he's let you live in his house and suggested living together if he left his girlfriend suggests that either you're not behaving as obsessively as you think you are, or that it doesn't bother him. His son could have been influenced by other family members who don't like you, but teenagers as a rule don't want to associate with friends of their families, so that's probably all it is. I know I see my best friend at least once a month, and finding a hobby might be present an opportunity to meet new people. I know it's hard finding the balance between not bothering with someone and pestering, but I think it'll improve vastly if you take other people's advice on board and don't stress too much about keeping the friend. I find that this is the key to not doing what you describe.

This is exactly why we started referring to me as his "uncle." The parents have no issue with it, knowing me well enough to know that I don't have bad intentions, and even encourage it as it gives them some free time and I do my best to keep the kid in line and away from his family's drama. The problem was some of the other people around town understandably had sort of a "WTF?" reaction to me doing things with him. "The guy" has gone so far as to say he considers me family, and hell "the woman's" parents (not the side with the bitchy grandmother) always invite me to join them for Thanksgiving. People who know the situation understand it, but I'm sure it looks fishy from the outside.



That's a tremendous idea, and one I hadn't thought of. It's not that they're my only friends. I do have four other people I consider good friends, but the closest is a three hour drive away, and the farthest is a three hour plane ride away. I have a cousin somewhat close too, and I see him when I can, but he's got a new baby and frankly his girlfriend irritates the piss out of me so I don't last very long. We also live in a small town of under 1500 people, so it's not like there's a lot to do around here. The guy has the same issue I do -- we're just not "social butterflies" and don't go around keeping our finger on the pulse of the town. Excluding this family, I think I can name half a dozen people I know around town, and I'd bet "the guy" couldn't come up with that many.



This again is fantastic. You're absolutely right ... it's always been one small group. I think my main issue is just not knowing where to begin. I just don't get invited to go out and do things by acquaintances like "normal" people do. I can't really say why either; I'm constantly observing the behavior of other people trying to determine what traits make them "normal," but I'm coming up empty. On the odd occasion that I do find myself at a social gathering, I interact with people fine, but I never seem to make connections with others.

I'm also starting to wonder if I'm just overreacting, but at the same time this would be the time to take steps to ensure I don't blow yet another friendship. I've got a stack of Wii games I haven't finished, and those Rock Band songs don't play themselves ...

I don't really have any advice, however, I would just like to say how sorry I am that you're in this situation. I think alot of us have been there, and it is very painful. I hope things work out well in the end.

I'm in the same boat you are. When people meet me, they like me just fine. After they've known me for awhile, they start to see how weird I am, and then they don't want to be around me anymore.

The one exception is this guy I met at a Christmas party in December 08. He is around 50 and I am 18 going on 19. When we first met, we got along great despite the huge age difference. Since then we have kept in touch through e-mail, and have met in person a few times. Whenever we are together I use profanity and make a lot of smart-ass comments. He thinks the stuff that comes out of my mouth is amusing and laughs at almost everything I say. Once I drunk-dialed him at 1 AM. Next time I saw him, I said I was sorry. He smiled and said "OK!" in a cheerful tone of voice. No matter how annoying I get I can never piss him off. It's amazing. I've known him for six months and I keep joking that one of these days he's going to start hating me.

Although lately I'm begining to worry that I might be trying too hard to stay friends with him. He lives six miles away from me, but I rode my bike to his house several times. His wife saw me and got worried. Today I got an e-mail telling me to not go by his house anymore because his wife thinks I'm a stalker.

I have thought about friendships a lot. I have carefully studied them and still don't quite understand how they consolidate.

I have tried being authentic, nice, helpful, funny, etc and it doesn't quite jell relationships. I have seen friends be selfish, backbiting, jerks to each other and still be friends.

I have decided, like the mystery of nonverbal communication, that there is a subtle consecutiveness that happens between NTs that stronger than the negative behaviors I see in their relationships that doesn't seem to happen between others and me. It is elusive and I cannot figure out how to harness it.

It’s the same way with nonverbal communication. "They" say it can make up 60% of a conversation (how do “they” measure it?). Its like reading a book that someone has randomly and extensively cut out holes throughout the pages.

I read today on one of the threads that people who have a hard time looking another in the eye are considered suspiciously. Maybe it is the illiteracy with nonverbal communication that inhibits the formation of the bonds of friendship. Maybe talk and overt actions are superficial and nonverbal runs deep into the subconscious where bonds are formed…?

Similar thing happened with me.The guy was also about 50, but when I met him and befriended him, I was 22.I worked with him at the same workplace until I got laid off a few days later.I then got nasty emails from another friend of his accusing me of stalking etc.Since then, I have avoided him like the plague.

I think the over-reaction of family and friends of these two 50-year-old men suggests that the two guys have gotten into predicaments with handsome young men before. Much easier to to do the ostrich thing with their family member.

Janet, I think that what runs deep in them is the similarity between them, and what breaks our relationships with them so very easily is the fact that we're never similar enough, we somehow don't feel to them like we're on the same wavelength. We don't hit home in them, so to speak. I think it's more about values and priorities, than about body language and non-verbal communication, that creates that strong bond that's stronger than the bond with us, even though they betray each other, steal from each other, lie to each other, as you say, all kinds of nastiness between them, but they still feel related to each other strongly beyond those things.

Yeah, you're probably right. My interst in NVC was recently sparked and I had fantasies of it being a cure all.

Do you think we can form strong bonds between each other or are we missing that bonding thing altogether?

I haven't seen particular affinity between Aspies on here or in real life. Aspies don't tend to find a common lifestyle between them easily.

Sounds like the story of my life as well!

I only had a rare few friends in school; usually when I did the relationships seemed one-sided to me, and I was very focused and intense on the person, always second guessing what I was doing, what they were doing, if I was doing it right. My first friend was just too nice to say anything, and instead just cleverly allowed herself to become involved in other things with other people; the second friend, from Middle/Junior high school, flat out dumped me, because people accused us of being gay, and because she just couldn't handle it, or my obsession with our friendship. I didn't make any close friends after that, although in my usual fashion I did find folks from time to time to count as friends and I would obsess/pine over them, though for the most part I managed to keep it in check.

My most recent good friend I've been best friends with for 10 years, and I often refer to her as my little sister. Our relationship is very odd; we met online years ago, when she was 16 and I was 20. It was my first online venture really, and I fell easily into conversations as online, you have time to really stop and think about what you want to say. Anyway, we grew close, and at one point I came down to visit/meet her, and after that, she asked me to stay, so I did; it was hard for me to do, as I had horrible anxiety about being on my own, but I loved her that much that I left behind everything to come be with her.

It didn't stay rainbows and sunshine for long however, and to make a long story short, there was a big blowout involving her family, her first/new boyfriend, and her other "best friend" at the time. We're talking about a horrible drawn out affair that involved her moving out from the house we rented together, her family turning against me and restraining orders she was convinced to place on me because my behavior was so out of whack. Eventually the lies against me came clean a few months later (they had all been courtesy of her other "best friend") and it "all came out in the wash", but I was also forced to step back and look at my behavior for those months we were separated (which were torture on me) and really question who and what I was.

We slowly rebuilt and now she's the closest person in my life (despite the fact I'm engaged to be married, I feel closer to her than my fiance), and has come to understand I'm just a bit off. She knows when to tell me to back off, or when to let me know that it's time to go home, etc; it was very strange for me when her stepson was diagnosed with Asperger's and, having told her for a very long time that he reminded me SO MUCH of me as a child, I was faced suddenly with a probable answer to what was "wrong" with me, and how it all came together. He was diagnosed no more than 3 weeks ago; no more than 5 weeks ago we had one of our usual discussions where I again reminded her that I didn't always get it when people were hinting that I wasn't welcome, and to please just tell me flat out. Odd how that worked out...

moon, that's an amazing story that warms the heart. Proof that when people want it enough, there's a bridge between NTs and Aspies, and that it enriches the lives of both.

Hehehe yeah, it's definitely a doozy of a story.

I mean, don't get me wrong, even now, 10 years down the road, I sill have my bouts of "I'm doing it wrong" with her, and I'll go into frantic fits of depression and doubt and despair--usually brought on by unusually stressful social situations I'm sharing with her/her with (like the birth of her baby recently); but she always manages to pull me out of it. "Don't wear me out" she says.

I think because she's just a very naturally nurturing, overly selfless person (as compared to me who can be a bit stifling and overbearing) we balance each other out fairly well. The badness from back then still haunts me, though, and every once in a while it will come up in conversation; I think if I manage to get an affirmative diagnosis of Asperger's it will help me to finally close the door on that chapter with her, because my actions and they way they were perceived by others still haunt me to this day, and here even 10 years later I can easily find myself mortified and embarrassed by it all, even though I felt like I couldn't help the way I acted (which wasn't "normal" for a 21 year old female to be).

Only time shall tell!

We have a thread here about how looking back we cringe at things we did in the past when we were much more clueless than today. I guess it's a typical thing among Aspies...

Interesting that this doesn't happen to you with your fiancee... Same happened to me when I was in my twenties, I was more concerned with closeness to my best friend than my boyfriend.