Making Aspie friends

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Do people here find it easier or more difficult to start real life friendships with other aspies? I've never to my knowledge met another aspie, although I have spoken to a lot on the internet that I thought I got on with pretty well.

I know there is a lot of stuff on here written about aspie/aspie relationships but what about relationships of a more platonic variety?
I do have some friends who aren't aspies and whilst I do sometimes feel quite close to them I also sometimes feel as thought there is a certain distance between us that can't really be breached. And I'm also just a bit bored of seeing only the same people in the same places, I wont to broaden my social circle a bit and I'm wondering weather in people's experience it's easier to have a good friendship with another aspie . I know it would obviously depend on the aspies involved but I'm just looking for a general impression.

I've talked to aspies before. They were all obsessed about Pokemon and telling me every tiny little thing there is to know about every single Pokemon in existence. They bore me in reality.

so that was a negative experience then? anyone got any positive ones? or should I resign myself to a liftime of Nts

I've only met one. He seemed normal enough to me.

I have met one socially and a few others in a workskills group.
I did not find it especially easier or harder.

Individual differences make far more of a difference as to how easy I find it to start a friendship with some one than AS does.

Hi oli234,

I've met quite a few Aspies (well, only 1 was officially diagnosed, but the others I'm very sure were on the spectrum), and for the most part I was able to get along with them or at least find a kind of closeness that I had a lot of difficulty finding from just about everybody else. Some of the them were quite socially progressed, while others were struggling a bit, but nonetheless I was still able to connect to all of them in some way, like in a family member kind of way.

On the other hand, I've met a few Aspies (relatively rare compared to the aforementioned group) who were frankly selfish as*holes. They did not stay in my life for long. If I were to make a guess, probably those folks either did not have the social competence for friendship, or they had a defense mechanism in place due to prior trauma involving socializing.

Although I usually have to engage in some level of smalltalk in order to break the ice with a new person, AS or NT, I notice that I can quickly drop the smalltalk if I'm talking to an AS person. Thus it makes it easier for me to develop a friendship with that person. With an NT, I could go the entire night with smalltalk and still not feel like I've made any progress in making a real friend.

I would actually like to meet other aspies in person, just for the experience of meeting some.

I've met lots of aspies in person but currently only have one aspie friend. The rest tend to be too loud and/or abraisive for me to spend a significant amount of time with although I hope that changes as I meet more people

I have made at least one friend in real life who I think may be an aspie (I would not be surprised) and have become very good friends with him, before I even thought that I had AS. But now that I'm researching AS to see for sure if I have it, I've seen a lot of the qualities I've read about in him as well as myself.

To most people, he's quite the odd duck. But then, aren't we all? But to me, he's one of the kindest, most intelligent, funniest people I've ever met. And he understands me better than most people have. Which is a lot of why I think that, at least in some cases, an aspie friend is the best friend you can make. At least in my experience, they tend to be the ones who think on the same level as you in a number of ways. And they respect the issues you have with social cues and such because they have the same problems.

Another good friend of mine is also a recently-confirmed aspie and he and I have become good friends over probably the last year or two. That's different because we talk on the internet, but I have found him to be one of my best friends and he feels the same way about me.

I've made about 5ish aspie friends, and most of the time I didn't find out till after I met them. It's like we just seem to be drawn to eachother get what I mean.
One of my friends I have known for about 4/5 years, and we're really really close, we have a similar sense of humour, but we're also quite different because I talk really loud, and he's really softly spoken.

I see varying degrees of positive and negative experiences with meeting other Aspies in this thread. This is logical because you can't generalize Aspie to Aspie compatibility when not all of us are the same, have the same interests, etc...

Don't let negative experiences discourage you from meeting new Aspies, as well as not assume a positive experience means that all experiences will be positive. The important thing is making connections. You're more likely to find more in common with someone who's an Aspie (or an NT with like traits of the spectrum), but don't count out all NTs. Sometimes getting through the drawn out small talk can open up deeper discussion once it's out of the way. After all, an NT only does it because they're wired to do it, so they may not know that it's okay to skip, or even that it's something someone would want to skip.

I've met some Aspies at GRASP Philly meetings. All seemed really nice. Not all of them shared the same interests or ended up speaking with me at length, but they were valuable encounters nevertheless because of the common discomfort with living in NT society. It's nice to have that feeling of solidarity, even if you don't get to know each one on a personal level.

Would be nice to meet some aspies whom I can actually relate to, but they seem to be rare around here. Even rarer if they are female :-p.