How can anyone have no friends?

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Should i tell about how ever since i was 7, i've never had anyone come to my birthdays? (xcept my family, and they don't count)(parents invited other kids before that, obviously)

Should i tell about any of the people i know don't spontaneously call me for hanging out or wanting to speak with me? (or any social activities, basicly)

Yet, it seems i once won the title of most popular person in the end of the year book of my secondary grade... (most popular, as in, well-known, since i used to tell everyone hello and bothered to remember their names).

-sigh- The loneliness.

I've gone through periods of time completely friendless (Thank God for videogames), but usually, I manage to have 1 or 2 friends/acquaintances to at least go to a movie with. I've never had a circle of friends or anything. The most friends I've ever had at any one time is 4, but they weren't a group/circle that was connected in anyway. I'd pretty much get together with each one on an individual basis. Having friends is hard if you don't like visiting.

I had one friend from the ages 1 to 9. After that I was very lonely at school. When I was 13 I made another friend but after leaving the school she went to a was very lonely. Then I stopped going to school, tried home school again but by then my mother was sick of trying to teach me. So, I did years 10, 11 and 12 at college. I made friends but didn't hang out with the people. I think I spent one day with a girl who everybody turned against. I remember her saying 'I suppose you're going to leave me too?' But I stayed. Rather have 1 real friend than a dozen fake friends.
I made other friends in my early 20's but they too have drifted away. I talk to people online now and get along with them quite well, but we've yet to meet up.
I wouldn't say I have no friends, I just don't hang out with them.

My issue isn't that I'm incapable of making friends. My problem is that I don't know how to get close to people who I don't see on a regular basis. I have a resistance to just calling people up who I haven't spoken to in a week or more. I'm not sure exactly why it's so hard to get motivated but it seems like the effort vs reward ratio is too high. The whole issue of calling people up and planning to do things at a specific time that fits in with our schedules is just too much effort for someone like me on the spectrum. Then even when I do meet with people I often don't feel like I have enough time to get comfortable or open up.

It was easier when I lived in a dorm at college. I generally hung out and eat meals with the same group of people everyday and couple of them became close friends. Now I've moved on to a different location and stage of life and everyone else seems to have moved on to family and careers. It's not like people have any free time to give me anymore and I can't relate to people on short stints. I also don't know how to maintain friendships with people who move away from me. Again, it's that effort/reward ratio thing perventing me from acting.

Hope this explains it.

My amount of friends changes often, there are times where I've hardly got anyone and there are times where I have plenty.
I just have enough at the moment, but I hardly ever see them outside of school and my out of school of ones I haven't seen in yonks. I don't have too much trouble making friends as long as they start first and I see them often enough, it takes me ages to be completely confident an myself with a person. I have to see them virtually everyday before we become even slightly close.

This is a bit of a long story. Fair warning, guys

When I was very young, I was moved into a gifted class in another school. I was known for being kind of weird and excitable before then, but I had a few good friends. It never really occurred to me until much later that I wasn't very well liked back then either, but it felt sort of like my golden years compared to where I was headed.

These gifted classes were full of eccentric people, but none really like me. Everyone else pushed so hard to succeed and dominate in everything they did. They all wanted to be taken seriously, like adults. Me though, I just didn't get it. I never tried any harder at schoolwork when I got into these classes. I bemoaned the heavy homework. I only studied if I really just didn't get a subject. Which happened a lot, unfortunately.

Back then I wasn't diagnosed with AS, so no one really understood why I had so much trouble with certain subjects. My IQ was as high as all the other little geniuses, that should mean I was just as capable, right? I didn't ask for much needed help because it felt too awkward for me, I didn't ask questions in the middle of class because confronting everyone scared me, I never studied subjects I felt confident in, and my grades were very average. The teachers and my parents thought I was being lazy and juvenile, despite always behaving appropriately in class.

But worst of all were the other students. Though I was a decent student making mostly C's and B's in these accelerated courses, they were easily the worst in the class. They loved singling me out for that. I barely even knew these kids when they started making fun of me for being stupid. I was a walking punchline, and I was too shy to defend myself.

As I got more depressed, I started to have manic fits where I acted goofy. The other kids were annoyed by it, but at least they were acknowledging me. Little by little I started adopting stranger mannerisms in order to keep my little stage so I could feel special. No one was my friend for it.

Being part of these classes meant I had little time for extracurricular activities. The only other people I knew were in other classes at school. The same people that my other classmates knew, and my reputation grew fast. Even the ones I'd never met knew me and hated me like some kind of crazy bogyman. I couldn't talk to my teachers or parents about it because of my school troubles. I was a mess, with no friends to speak of. And all I wanted was for my other classmates to recognize and like me. Even today, in some of my darkest dreams, I wish to meet them again and finally, finally become friends.

This lasted three years before anything changed. Our class was mixed with another gifted class. Again they were full of eccentrics, but this group had one important difference. There were a handful of well-liked class clowns. My reputation quickly spread just like it had in our last school, before I had a chance to do anything about it. But here, someone accepted me. Their numbers were few, but the influence even got me on good terms with people from my former class. In the next two years I would still only have about a half dozen friends amongst hundreds who mostly hated me and my ability to function as a student irreparably buckled, and the days only got darker. But through those few friends I managed to make it through the worst years of my life, and even though we've been separated across the country these days, I'll never forget that kindness.

So, yes. It's possible to be friendless. But it depends more on scope. And through more trials during my life that I'll go ahead and skip here, I've determined that it's better to have a handful of true friends than legions of fair-weather friends.

I have no friends. I don't know why, if I did I might be able to fix it. It is possible to have no friends.

Dentu, I enjoyed reading your sharing.

my aspie friend says he only has acquaintances and has never had a real friend aside from me. i guess he can't relate to kids his own age. he's a nerd and his peers are all about being ghetto-chique. he will find friends in college in computer and math classes. high school kids don't relate to his geekiness and brilliance.
i'm 30 years older than he is but i'm also a big kid at heart. so his maturity and my lack of maturity (silliness) meet somewhere that works. i *know* he is perfectly capable of having friends and even having a girlfriend. i don't know if he's bold enough to ask for what he wants (as in , would you like to meet for lunch?) - i think he's just oblivious and doesn't SEE how many folks admire and respect him. it's all perception. he's also never had his peers visit him at home because his family situation is not good. he sees other kids going to birthday parties, having sleep overs, going to movies, hanging out, etc.. and he's never had that because of money and because he's aspie and kids think he's a wierdo. i imagine he WILL be able to cultivate friends once he's away from his crappy home life. once he gets away from high school (soon) and meets college and work folks with his same interests, i think he'll be able to make and keep friends. kids his own age are on another planet.

I don't seem to have much luck with friends.

When I was in preschool - I made a few close friends. But halfway through preschool, I was accelerated in to Year 1, and I made no friends. Although they came up to Year 1 the next year, so I was friends with them again. Over the years I made a few more friends. But then I moved 500 km away, and changed schools. That was the most lonely two years of my life. All of the kids were just so different.

Thankfully a few "nerds" came to the school in Year 8, and we got along very well. But then something happened in Year 9, and they all started to hate me (well, all except one did). In Year 10, I made a new friend in the grade below who I got along very well with. And now (I'm in Year 11), he is starting to dislike me too. I'm not sure what I have done, but ah well, I can't make them become friends with me.

It seems like I'm going through this cycle of making friends, and them losing them about a year later. Maybe I try and get too close to them or something. Or maybe they aren't really my friends at all. Or I might be missing something.

I hope my story (and others) helps rileyhitman understand what it is like for some of us. Not trying to be rude here, but most people just take friends for granted. It just seems to happen subconsciously for them. For many people with Asperger's Syndrome (like myself), we have to actually make the effort to have friends. It's hard for us - particularly when they are neurotypical. However it is easier when we have friends who also have AS.

I've got plenty of 'acquaintances', with people who are friendly to me when we meet at whatever group I know them from, but I only know ONE person who ever talks to me or ever wants to hang out outside of a group, and I see her less often than twice a month.



I spent a whole lot of time looking forward to 'not alone' days, when there's a group meeting. It's kind of sad, really, especially when I'm out in informal settings (restaurants, coffee shops, hiking, and so forth), and see a lot of sealed groups (like private tables/no outsiders), and I feel all the more alone. Especially in coffee shops, social venues that are increasingly built around private tables, so sitting anywhere outside of the couch area usually indicates that I want to be alone.

I have very few friends, and sometimes I do wish I had more.

I spent my childhood pretty much friendless. I had very little interest in other children in general. I did not play with the kids in the neighborhood, or even my little sister that I lived with. I didn't even understand the concept of friendship until I was about ten years old.

When I did, I remember being in the fourth grade, and I made friends with a boy who had downs syndrome in my special ed class. The other kids didn't like him because he looked different, I didn't really care. I didn't think there was anything wrong with playing toy cars on the pavement in the schoolyard with a boy, let alone a mentally handicapped one...apparently the other kids did. I was bullied viscously by the other kids that weren't in special ed, and even some of the kids in my class. I had to leave the school the following year.

In the sixth grade I was mainstreamed in school, although it didn't work very well and I ended up in "alternative school," which was a class for kids with behavior problems, but it wasn't special ed. I was the youngest and the only girl in the class. At first I was bullied by them, until something very interesting happened to me between sixth and seventh grade....I grew breasts....

So the next year at school, the boys in my class wanted to be my friend. My parents were so happy that I started making friends that they didn't bother to ask what I was doing with them. A group of 13 and 14 year old boys with behavior issues, don't make very good friends for a 12 year old pretty blond autistic girl....let's just say...they weren't real "friends."

In high school though I still hadn't caught on. I hung out with the kids older than me and mostly boys. I got heavily involved in substance abuse, and that's how I managed to make and keep my friends. When I stopped using drugs when I was 16...I lost all but one of my friends (we've been friends for 15 years). Also in my freshman year of high school, I met a much older boy who I began dating. That is my best friend and my fiance now, so I managed to make two friends in high school.

In college I had lots of friends, or so I thought. Really I just mixed up the concept of roommates, and kids across the hall with friends. I lived with them and I got drunk with them. I suppose they were friends by default sort of, not real friends. None of us kept in touch after college.

I managed to make one friend online on a forum. I don't know exactly how we became friends, we live 1300 miles apart. We just kept messaging each other and somehow started talking on the phone. A year and a half into our friendship we decided to meet up. Now we see each other about 4 times a year.

I made one friend at work about five years ago. she left the company and we stayed in touch. I was even in her wedding last year....but we've started to fall out of touch, and I'm really bad at maintaining friendships.

At work we have a lot of social functions and I do meet people in our industry. I know a lot of people and a lot of know me, but that's as far as it goes. I do know the difference between aquaitences and friends. I have many acquaintances....but very few friends.

I spent years feeling lonely and wanting to fit in. Became a guitarist in a popular band and found loads of 'friends' then immediately realised that I really didn't want to have them. As much as I try, I don't like people, I don't like how they act, how they think, and I'm thankful every day that I don't have to interact with them if I don't want to.

STF

I just don't trust many people, even when they are acting friendly toward me, and so I resist making friends.

I used to have real friends my age, but they were all into heavy metal, and motorcycles, and covering themselves in tattoos, and I realized over time that they weren't my kind of people. I'm not interested in trying to be "cool". I am a peaceful artist, and I love nature, and classic literature. I was putting too much effort into being friends with them, and not getting enough back in return. I've actually been happier without them.

The "imaginary friends" I meet online are sufficient to fill my friendship needs right now.