People liking you but not asking you to hang out with them

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I don't get this. I am told by several people that they like me as a person. People say I am nice, smart, caring and interesting but they never ask me if I want to go out for a beer or whatnot. I honestly believe they are telling the truth. It confuses me though because I have very few friends, and I just want people to ask me every once in awhile if I want to hang out and do something. I always have to intiate everything and I hate that.

When people say they like you, does that always mean they want to hang out with you? I don't quite understand this. I don't ask anyone if they like me or not, but that is how I sense things.

You might not be giving off the non verbal signals that you want to be included. They might assume you want to be alone.

I remember a comedian who said that there are people you love that you don't like....you know...like Christmas and Thanksgiving....You'll cry at their funeral but you don't want to go on vacation with them.

I guess where I'm going with that is that it is hard to believe a person really "likes" you when they seem embarrassed to be around you.

My best friend asked me to be at his wedding as one of his two "best men." He asked me specifically to try not an embarrass him. I was shocked that he said that, but this is what friendship was all about. He knew I would likely embarrass him no matter what, but rather than just invite me to attend, he invited me to be part of the wedding party. Many others wouldn't have risked that.

This is pretty much how high school was for me. I was in about a million extracurricular activities but never got to see people outside of school in a regular social setting.

I've always been totally puzzled by that entire process.. how you get to know somebody, how it progresses from liking to talk to somebody when you cross paths to actually making it a point, how you go about doing things that you both/all like to do so that it's still kinda like the beginning when it was incidental ('cause really, you have to have common interests and stuff you like to do, right?).. how to show interest in somebody without showing too much interest and being creepy... all totally perplexing..

In my experience, people are very cliquey in general. It seems as though the HS mentality just continues on ad infinatum throughout life. If you're not part of the in-crowd in any particular setting, then you're a nobody. The whole social networking thing seems to really exacerbate this. Lately it feels like I'm missing out on a lot because I'm not on Facebook, shallow as that sounds. Its almost as though if you're not on Facebook you might as well not exist, the way people are now. At least where I work that's how its starting to feel.

I have had this happen to me quite a bit. It seems that people have two different personalities. One personality shows itself when they are with you and other people, the other is when it is just the two of you.

I have had friends and acquaintances that are absolutely kind and congenial when it is just the two of you, but become a real butthead when you get together with them and their friends. I am not sure of what the root cause of this is in relationships, but it can be very confusing.

I know this may sound strange (and has to do with a recent forum on here), I think one of the signs of true friendship is how a person treats you when they are around other family, friends, co-workers, etc.

This has happened to me my entire life.

Yeah, me too. Only without the bit where they tell me they like me.

Have you tried asking them to hang out with you?

Exactly! I feel like it would be weird if I went and asked them, although the neglect has reached a point where I am so frustrated that I feel like it is my only resort.

Me too. In my case the people tell my mom how much they like/admire/whatever me, but they seem to be avoiding me at all costs.

You're lucky people like you at all. I'm the person who, when we do group work at school, will be the last person left without a partner, and then whoever is forced to work with me will make a huge fuss about it like I'm some sort of leper. And then I'M the one who gets accused of refusing to work well in a group!! !! ! Whenever that comes up on a report, I feel like going to the teacher and saying, "Look here, I'm perfectly capable of working productively with anyone in this school. It's THEM who are refusing to work with me. HOW is that my fault? If they'd grow up and learn that they can't always work with their friends, everyone would have a nice day. Put it on THEIR reports."

Anyway, as for having "sort of" friends like you describe: been there too. Sometimes I have friends who I can trust not to behave like the scum I described above, but who don't really hang out with me voluntarily. It's like, they'll put up with me in small doses, but they wouldn't eat lunch with me or whatever. I'm not so bothered by this, however, because I'm so grateful for anyone to even extend this courtesy.

You know what's the absolute WORST? People who act like your friends when it pleases them, and act like bullies the rest of the time. You just start to trust someone because they were nice to you one day, and then the next day they're teaming up with the bullies and/or ignoring you for no apparent reason.

I also often feel like everyone is deliberately excluding me just for being me. Actually, I don't just feel like that, I have evidence for this being the case. When some girl punched me and I had to go to English with an ice-pack on my face, everyone thought it was hilarious. Then a few weeks later, when some boy chipped a tooth, and I smiled at something unrelated that some kid behind me had said, people were accusing me of "laughing at him". I pointed out that these same people had near enough wet themselves laughing when I got punched, and they said, "Yeah, cos it's YOU. If it's happening to him, everyone feels sorry for him, but if it's you it's funny cos nobody likes you." Whatever. At my old school, half the class would have been after the blood of the person who had punched me. I hate this new school.

Wow, I appear to be in a ranty kind of mood today. I've not had a great day, TBH.

I pretty much lurk on this forum but felt compelled to register and post on this issue.

Basically I'm NT but have been lurking because I had a new coworker 'David' who I think is on the spectrum and I wanted to try to understand his behaviour better.

The reason I wanted to post is to say that this is so on point because this is exactly the issue that came up between me and him and I wanted to give the other side of it. You are not required to believe or give me the benefit of the doubt on this (having seen on this forum how badly people are treated, I'm not surprised that everyone thinks the worst of most people they don't know) but I wanted to try and explain the phenomenon a bit, as I see it. I don't know if the people you are around are being honest or what they mean and I'm not sure how clear this is but here goes.


I think it is possible to think people are nice people without wanting to be friends with them. In fact most (NT) people (I think) can maintain an easy camradarie with people who they know, like and think are nice without feeling the need to get to know them better. The thing is that a lot of friendship isn't necessarily about thinking someone is 'nice', it's about what you have in common with them. I believe that shared interests, sense of humour or something is the basis of a good friendship. Sometimes you think people are really nice but you don't have anything in common with them. So even though you can have a nice chat, you don't really have much to say or any need to take it further. I know that it's easy to think that people are being two faced or lying but (speaking for myself) I don't think they are. I think that the reason that we all have a small number of true friends (most people do) is that friendship requires a lot of work and time and effort and many people have limited time and limited energy and there is never enough time in the day. Everyone else, you smile at and speak to and then get on with your day. I don't think it's personal or that people are deliberately lying to you.

It's just that, to most NTs, having small talk with acquaintances is fun. And because of that, it isn't always seen as a means to an end. You can have random conversations with people and the conversation itself is the payoff. If you hate small talk or it's very stressful then it has to be an investment for a larger friendship. But if you enjoy a gossip or saying hi, then when you leave, the social obligation is fulfilled and both partners are happy. So someone on the spectrum may see the 'initial chit chat' as painful but necessary but the NT thinks that they get along fine.

I have to say that if talking to someone isn't fun for you, it may not be fun for the NT either. But they may not think 'AS', they may just think, 'oh, he's a nice guy but we don't have anything in common'.

The last thing is that I think that this happens a LOT between NT people (acquaintance level relationships) but AS people don't notice. They may assume that people are all hanging out together behind their backs, or that because other people chat and get on, they must be all doing stuff together. This is not always true. The bullying, being embarassed or rudeness I can't account for but I do think that if you really believe that these people like you, then it is possible that they do like you, just not in the way you want them to. I'm NT and there are plenty of people I talk to in work but never see outside of work even though I'm sure we'd get along.

I don't want to jump into a thread to try to invalidate your experience but hopefully this is one perspective and answer.

I have common interests with the few friends I have and I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to go out with me, and yet I'm in the same situation that the OP.

If you think they'd honestly be happy to go out with you then maybe you do need to initiate things. People may not know that you are even interested.

But if people aren't asking or responding to invitations, it may be for the reasons I've listed. The point I wanted to get across is that for a lot of NTs, the small talk is a form of relationship so it's not necessarily a given that talking to someone means they want to hang out more. But it doesn't mean that there is hatred or false niceness. Sometimes talking about the thing is not the same as doing the thing - like I have people at work who I chat to about a particular TV show. Now even though we laugh and really enjoy the conversation, I wouldn't feel comfortable inviting them over to my house to watch it with me.

Some of it may be reasons that have nothing to do with you but are not sinister - some people like to keep their friends separate, some people may have their own personal issues going on which you don't know about.

That