Is it weird to have younger friends?
Lately I've been thinking about specifically seeking out friends who are younger than I am. I feel like I've missed out on so many things that people typically do and experience in their 20s due to depression / burnout, and I have this weird restless feeling like I should make up for lost time, and connect with people who are just starting that phase of their lives (late teens early twenties). My nesting partner is significantly older than I am, so I'm sure that feeds in somehow.
Further motivation comes from the fact that I've lost touch with my friends from college, and they are all starting to have children, anyways.
I have a fear of pregnant people, very uncomfortable around children, and am decidedly childfree.
Reading through this thread, and I can't even decide who to quote because I connect with so much of what you all have written. Also got me thinking... when I was late elementary school age, I spent more time with my younger sibling's friends than my own friends. I also used to hang out with the woman who lived two houses away with her husband, dogs, and no kids. She was probably ~late twenties at the time? (though my young child brain just put her in the "adults who are all much older than I am" category, so I don't know for sure.) I can't even remember how that happened, and she moved away a year later so I lost touch. I wonder what her story was and why she was hanging out watching 101 Dalmatians over and over with a kid - maybe she was also on the spectrum.
I'm pretty immature for my age, and this is common with ASD due to generally below-average life experience and usually a retained child-like sense of wonder. Because of all that, most of the friends I've had have been younger than me.
Even before I was diagnosed as autistic though, one of my best friends growing up before our families drifted away from each-other was my babysitter's son, who was four years younger than me. Also when I was dating my NT ex-girlfriend, who was also four years younger (22 and 18), I got along ridiculously well with her friends. They were basically my main social circle for a while and nobody saw it as strange, we all had a lot in common.. So, it's not really weird at all.
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Don't believe the gender tag. I was born intersex and identify as queer, girl-leaning. So while I can sometimes present as an effeminate guy, that's less than half the time and if anything I'd prefer it say "female" of the two choices offered. I can't change it though, it's bugged.
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