How does AS affect friendship?

Post Reply New Topic

I have trouble maintaining close friendships despite my efforts. I have a few people who I feel are sort of casual friends; if I run into them I am quite capable of talking about trivial (meaning here "non-personal") things like uni or movies or whatever. I really only have like two close friends, though I haven't mentioned my Aspergers to them. Thought I had another close friend, but turns out I was wrong about her 8( She's sort of just stopped talking to me and inviting me over to get-togethers and movie nights, which I always used to be invited to and would happily go, so I am all "whatever". I had to find this out from a mutual friend too, though he doesn't know her reasons. As far as I know I haven't done anything major, so maybe she just got sick of me

Hi, NT here and best friend is a guy with AS.

To me, its all chemistry. He has charms and he is really witty. Very narrowminded in his intrests, but fortunally I shared 1 of the two major intrests of his, although maybe on a less obsessive level and thats how we met. As we grew closer I started diving into his second intrest... something that never caught my attention but its fun now to pay attention to, read up on and discuss with him,

Also, he loves the fact I take intrest.

To me the AS affects our friendship in a way that focuses very much on "him and his". But after years of friendship I know he trusts and likes me and its mutual. I can tell him anything - but not at any time. I have to prod first. And check the mood and "mode" of the moment to find out if this is the right moment to discuss shoe choices with him or if I best wait.


To some (for instance my sister) she thinks it looks very one sided. From outside maybe. But he listens to my rants, he cheers me up, makes me laugh and he is always right there - reliable and trustworthy. Couldnt conjure up a better friend. Perfection makes things boring and his quirks is adorable.

Thanks for posting that Thellie. I enjoyed reading your positive take. I always feel I have it in me to be a good friend. Loyalty is one of the positive friendship traits that often comes up in regards to aspies.

I've always found it strange to have friends or even want them. It makes me think of that Invader Zim eppisode where Zim thinks his cover will be blown because he dosen't have any. I find it weird that other aspies want friends.

not done this and id be hesitant to say anything to avoid rejection

I had difficulty with making friends when I went school. When I had a friend, I frightened them off by having the general meltdown or being ''too eager''.
Back then though, I didn't understand. I thought I was such a horrible person that they didn't want to know. When I had a friend I would go literally out of my way to try to keep that close friendship but it always failed. I am not sure if I want friends or not now. Sometimes I want a friend who understands and who doesn't treat me as though I'm a slave (because that is what happened).

The internet is a much better way to ''communicate'' because it's not a face to face conversation. Just words on a screen and that's basically the only requirement unlike the eye contact, social queues, gestures etc in real life.

Even then sometimes I am not sure what to say so I ''babble'' or have long awkward silences. I don't know what is worse, so then I feel pressured into saying something (normally stupid) so the person doesn't think I'm boring. But then, I suppose I am boring.

When I go out sometimes and I see a group of people who are around my age, I avoid them. I take the action to cross the road, circle them...I fear them. Does anyone else do this? Or is what I do somewhat silly?

My sister, whilst supportive and understanding does think this is a bit extreme but these types of people have been the ones to hurt me and I can't go through that all the time. So if I can I will avoid. But I can't just keep fearing and avoiding people. How do you (if you do this) cope with it?

i really like this lol

I always wanted friends not for the emotional connection but for the ability to freely discuss whatever I felt like discussing, whether it's the problems I face in my personal life, movies, TV, history, physics, maths, politics, etc. In my opinion, there is little more valuable than the free exchange of ideas between openminded people and I've always looked for that handful of people capable of such. They're rare, but they do exist.

Most of my friends were not really my friends - they were either using me or simply did not treat me well. I was often the butt of their jokes and excluded from outings with their better friends. And even as far as bad friends go, I didn't have many.
I have had a few real friends over the years. A very religious girl from my old church and a neighbor of mine. I also met another girl, who underneathe it all was very sweet, but suffered from severe mental illness which made our friendship very limited.
As of now, I don't have many people at all. No one I can e-mail or call. I talk to one girl at school, but strictly during lunch or in class. We don't ever see each other outside of school. I was talking to two other kids here-and-there, but they're both very social so maybe it wasn't anything at all. I can never be sure. But it doesn't really matter, they stopped talking to me all together. And once again, that was only in one class.