How did you make friends during childhood?

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A lot of friends I've had over the years have either drifted away from me, or vice versa. The closest of friends I've known for over half of my life, but we rarely meet up.

It's those sorts of friendships though, where when we meet up, we pick up where we've left off as if no time has passed.

A lot of the lost friendships due to misunderstandings and falling outs have been through trial and error. People seeing me masked or unmasked, honing at my social skills like a second language.

Takes a lot of work, but I eventually found a rhythm. Problem is, I don't want to keep making new friends now, when I've spent all that time investing in the longer standing ones.

In hindsight, it's actually not as hard as it seems. When I was a kid, I overcomplicated it and thought it was way harder than it actually was.

Be friendly and polite. Smile. Ask people questions about themselves; don't just talk about your own interests. Be genuinely concerned about what they care about.

Presentation matters, especially in high school where people focus on the superficial things yourself well (shower, groom, haircut, clothes that fit well, etc).

Introduce yourself with people. Start with classmates, talking to them in the hallway before or after class. You could start with asking a question about the course and then go into more interesting topics.

Have a good self-esteem. Yes, there will be immature people who will reject you no matter what, but focus on the people who are a good fit for you. Don't hate yourself or be misanthropic toward other people just because of past bad experiences. This will make it harder for you to befriend people who will have a positive impact on you.

During childhood, I met my childhood best friend at daycare and we first fought over some crayons one minute and then the next we kissed and made up and decided to get to know each other. I also met my other friends in the neighborhoods that I lived in.

My parents were also good friends with another couple who had a son who also was neurodiverse. We hit it off from day 1 and were best friends. I even had a plan to marry him which went through. .

I would literally ask people this: "do you want to be my friend" sad. but true.

I didn't have any friends at all until high school, and then I was briefly friends with a few fellow oddballs. Didn't make any lasting friendships until my twenties.

I had a “best friend” in childhood. No other friends. I didn’t make any effort to make friends.

Mostly, us kids would play sports, I would try to win at all (legal) costs, though I wasn’t any good at any sport. I didn’t make friends through sports.

My “best friend” realized I was behind the eight-ball, and dropped me for more “normal” kids.

I never really tried. Everybody seemed to like me and I liked everybody, but there always seemed to be a wall. In school and at work I now realize people were always trying to figure me out. I don't think I talked until 26 months old. I miss every social cue thrown at me. I can stand people for a while then have to run away from them, hehe. It reminds me of that scene in Joyce's, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." I still feel that way and I always try to make people laugh, it's a way to relate. I am happy to be alone and I never feel lonely. I have no friends that I have contact with outside of the family. I see one friend from first grade only at funerals which could be ten or more years apart. He's a marine and retired state trooper, he's 5 days older than me and married. We'll still send Christmas cards with a short note. It's even strange to me that I still consider him my best friend. I don't think asperger's was understood when I was growing up. I'm ok in small, informal groups, and I'd rather go to a wake than a wedding. I'm a social caterpillar. I was a top writer and cartoonist on the HS newspaper, not good with rules in sports, good shooter on the ROTC Intercollegiate Rifle Team and a Food Inspector in the army for 3 years. I graduated number two in a two week leadership school at Fort Ord because I can focus when I need and want to. I must be as high functioning as it gets. You see that I ramble too much without caring about others' reactions to me. I couldn't interpret them anyway. I watch people talking to each other and it looks like their gears are always meshing, I try to jump in but I'm like a monkey wrench, so I'll just quip for a laugh and let them continue. I just finished 9 weeks of radiation and got to ring the bell, woohoo. They were so nice there, I wanted 9 more weeks. I hate morning people, and mornings, and people. hehe. Just kidding, I feel like I'm everyone's friend, except Putin right now. I need routine and make art.

They usually when I was much younger happened by association and besides that I was mostly excluded from everything. No one stuck past high school and I quickly became a complete outcast after that. There just isn't much for me here and more people leave by the year as I also just get even older. I just feel rather abandoned, besides peak hours when everyone is getting out or going to work it feels very ghost town-y especially on quiet Summer days but I have a love/hate relationship with that aspect of things.

I don't know if this the right threat for this really, but I know a lot of places (schools, community/health services) offer social skills groups for young children and teens. I suppose this can vary place to place (some are not specifically for autistic kids, some are), but I've often wondered whether people find this helpful? Or if people think this is a good idea?

I used to just passively wait and never made any effort in this matter. I had one best friend since we were 4 yrs old, but we slowly drew apart and lost touch with each other as we headed to different high schools. Kinda unfortunate cause I liked hanging out with her and she didn't mind. Sometimes we talk on the bus, tho. I didn't have much time then and socializing was difficult in my adolescence.

I have one friend at school currently. He just approached me one day and something clicked. We understand each other and I'm sure he's NT, but a Highly Sensitive Person.

I made friendships very easily as a kid. I guess I was just into things other kids were (playground games like 'tig', playing football, videogames) and just joined in. when I was about 7/8 there was a group of boys I targeted as potential friends, can see now that I mimicked their behaviour.

secondary school was when I began to really struggle (was bullied quite badly - even by friends - for having goofy teeth, being overweight, and being considered overly sensitive. however, I wasn't above the occasional bit of bullying myself) and can see that that's when I started to show more signs of AS. I was still quite popular though and made another set of friends once I really got into music around 15 or so.

Still friends with a fair few people from school but wouldn't know how to make a new friend now (I've only made 2 real friends since the age of 17, both musicians that I made music with at various points in life) and my social skills feel to me like they've completely gone, especially since giving up drugs & alcohol.

Whilst I do consider myself very fortunate to have the friends that I do, i feel like they don't know me well at all and I often feel like a fraud. I guess this would be the main reason I pursued my ASD diagnosis.

I'm NT as far as I know but I will share my experience because I think its similar to some people who may have ASD.

Growing up I was a huge introvert. My first friendship was my neighbour who was a girl my age. We were friends because our moms were friends so we were always at each others houses with our moms.

When I started kindergarten, we were in the same room. She was my only friend and I was super clingy to her.

I then moved and started school.. a girl growing up without a father befriended me because she thought we were similar. When she found out I had a dad she no longer wanted to be friends.

We moved again, I started a new school, I had some neighbourhood friends at this school. The kids all went to the same school so I had friends before I started it. This was a great time in my childhood.

Come grade 5 when we moved again. I didn't know English and the only girl who knew the same language as me had no other friends. We became best friends because neither of us had any other friends. The whole school hated us.

We were friends until high school when I made friends with 1 other girl and we were friends through out whole of high school, just us two. She was "weird" like me and we were both immature and not into make up and fashion the way other girls were.

That friendship fell apart after hs.

I then proceeded to make friends after school but I started treating everyone on a more superficial level. I decided that I would treat people like resources rather then get attached. Everyone could be my friend and I wasn't fussed who left and who stayed... dont get me wrong, I do care for the people I consider friends but not past a certain point.
The only people really important to me are my family.