The trouble with 'keeping' friends.

Post Reply New Topic

my problem is not answering their phone calls/knocks on the door. it's not that i don't want to speak to them, but the need for "me time." furthermore, i am not the best conversationalist.

I struggle both to make friends and keep them. I am grateful for the one's who have managed to stick with me.

When my parents divorced I realized that some relationships are shorter than others and that it's not always a bad thing.

So, the fact that some of my friendships have been brief hasn't really been a problem. Some of them I have even purposely neglected so that there's less pressure on me socially. The people I'd consider friends are people who understand and don't mind if I don't contact them for long spans of time.

I can't keep friends, either, for some reason. Weird thing about it is that I reconnected with some old friends from high school (and there were only 3 of them) on a social networking site, and even though I got along with them pretty well back in the old days, these days I talked to them for maybe 3 weeks and conversation dwindled to nothing after that. Granted, I haven't talked to any of them in maybe 20 years, but I figured it was because I've changed over the years and so have they. We don't speak much anymore, even by PM. I have acquaintances these days, but no real friends to speak of. I've become more of a hermit in recent years because befriending someone takes too much work, causes far too much stress, and provides too little payoff for what will inevitably be the same outcome: They just stop talking to me. The reason, I suppose, is because sooner or later I say or do something that irritates or angers them and they soon stop communicating with me. This happens to me on chat forums, too. Within 3-4 weeks, people usually begin avoiding me. I've quit trying.

E333

I have no problem *acting* pleasant, happy, chatty, smiley for a brief period of time. I had a VERY extroverted (Life Of The Party - LOUD - people person- work the room) father and I think I learned alot from him about how to interact with strangers. I've had many comments from people about how I can strike up a conversation with anyone and laugh easily, etc.

I think of this as my Force Field. I can put it into place and it drains my resources to keep it up. It can stay up for a few minutes to an hour or two. Then I'm down - for days or weeks. If I have to use it again or continue to be drained I get physically ill - like bronchitis, colds, flu. When I worked in an office I was sick regularly. I would put out too much energy to maintain the force field and then collapse with migraines and many other illnesses.

My problem is during the Force Field period I can be pleasant and of course am overly focused on who I'm chatting with which seems to flatter them and make them believe I'm just entranced (or worse yet in love with ) them. This leads many times to them wanting MORE of me it seems. They aren't happy with accepting that we had a nice chat and okay, goodbye. They want my number or email or way to call or contact me and they want to continue on. Sometimes they want to continue on the very next day.... where I'm thinking I've done the BIG EVENT - the BIG force field - and should be good for a month or more and can now go home and crash but no, people want to start making demands on me now.

That leads to me being unavailable when they do call (I don't answer the phone) or giving excuses why I can't go or won't let them come to my home (NEVER) and it's absolutely uncomfortable and weird from then on out. I have to avoid them, try not to run into them anywhere, etc.

For people I really do want to be friends with, coworkers in the past, online friends I meet, it always is lovely for a short time and then rapidly goes downhill. I ALWAYS say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing it seems and the person ends up hating me. Not just drifting away but many times really hating me or even being out to harm me in some way.

I find that most people want to be friends only with someone who agrees with them on EVERY issue ALL OF THE TIME. I believe that's absolutely impossible, so I can't figure out for the life of me HOW any one ever has friends. EVER. Even NTs. No people agree on every issue all of the time!

Example - on other message boards I spend alot of time at - over time many of us regulars have gotten to know one another. We've exchanged emails behind the scenes even. We have chatted nicely or agreed on some things and are considered at least 'friendly' if not 'friends'. I see this behavior all the time with these NT people on that board - they get into an argument on the board with someone else and they write me behind the scenes asking me to jump in and support their side.

IF I agree with their side I jump in and support the discussion. If I do not, at times I have remained silent and at others I have voiced my opinion, apologizing that it does disagree with them, but stating why. They get angry. They often say I have turned on them or betrayed them because I don't think exactly the same way they do on every single issue! It's impossible.

Can't people disagree on things and still remain friends? If they cannot, how in the world can anyone be friends with anyone? We're not clones of each other, we have our own minds.

I'm very careful not to be too blunt, not to insult (I reread my posts ahead of time and truly try to remove anything that sounds harsh and I add in little things like I'm sorry to have to disagree but this is my opinion....) but the same thing happens again and again and again. I'm supposed to think just like the person who is my 'friend' and I'm supposed to hate every other person that this person hates, even if I have no problem with them.

I don't know.... I do know that I rub people the wrong way and every friendship I've ever had has gone terribly wrong. I've learned if someone spends any amount of time around me or getting to know me they will soon be gone. The only relationships I've maintained over the years are very superficial with very very limited interaction.

In some ways I'm very sad about that and I envy people that I see having fun in a group or having dinner or enjoying themselves with others. In other ways I'm so relieved that people are not calling or bugging me or being a drain.

I could never keep "friends" my own age. My first real best friend is eight years younger than me and I wonnder how long it will be before she gets weirded out by me.

It's not me, it's the type of people I get mixed up with. My social worker has even told me that once I find descent mature people as friends I will probably be friends with them for life. But it's finding these people which is the problem. I know who's nice and descent and who isn't, but the non-descent people seem to catch me first, and I don't like to turn down any friends until I actually get to know them properly.

When I was at college I met a girl who didn't have AS - well, since we're all different, I'm not sure, but I don't think she was an Aspie. She had some learning delays, and felt more comfortable hanging our with others who had a disability (like me). But she chose me as a best friend, and liked meeting up with me on Saturdays. But after a while she began bossing me around, and (being silly old me), I let her do it. Well, each time I did say ''no'', she'd have a really good way of getting round it, like saying, ''ohh, stop moaning!'' or, ''why not for christ sake?!'' or, ''just do it for me and stop wasting time! God!!'' or anything like that, and when she spoke to me like that in front of my other friends I felt embarrassed, so I just gave in to her all the time. She has such a loud voice aswell, and when she spoke to me rudely in public, people seemed to look at me like I was the stupid one, so that made me give in to her quickly without no choice. (Oh, I've just thought of something there to write in the List One NT Thing You Do Not Understand thread - I will do it now before I forget it ).
So after about a year or so of being her best friend, she ended up letting her younger (but more rough and nasty) sister bully me over the phone, and threatening to corner me when I'm on my own in the street and punch me, so I got my number changed quick and....I can't be bothered to write what happened after that, so long story short, fortunately they're being nice and civil to me in the street now but that's as far as it's going - I am not going to take her or her sister back as close friends.

I'm crap at keeping friends but it's mostly my fault.

I just get tired of constantly interacting with them, so I withdraw for a while and they (rightfully) get offended.

I think it's the way I cling on to them.

NTs are impossible - they don't like it if you don't get in touch with them, they don't like it if you cling on to them - what the hell do they want?
How come sometimes there are 2 friends who are really close and spend every minute of the day with eachother, and they like it, but if I try doing that to someone it's a different story???
I hated it at school when people said, ''stop following me!'' and I was always like, ''but I'm not following you, I'm just being friendly - give me a chance!'' or, ''if that was somebody else wanting to be your friend, you'd let them hang out with you, but when I try to be friendly you don't like it! Like what the f**k have I ever done?! Grow up, mate!''