Can't imagine having successful "close" friendship

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I've been working on my social skills a lot in past couple of years, and I feel like they have improved a lot. I can now initiate conversations with people and keep a basic conversation going. I have learned to speak loudly enough that people can hear me. When social anxiety doesn't get the best of me, I can even send text messages/facebook messages/emails to arrange to go places with people. So, all in all, I feel like my basic friend-making skills are pretty good now.

However, that has lead me to my current problem: close, long-term friendships. I used to think that if I learned to make conversation my problems would be solved, but now I realize that there is much more to it than that. I am beginning to feel like I should just give up on having close friendships, but I guess that is premature since I have only been working on this a couple of years.

I feel like there is an emotional barrier between me and everyone else. Some people have suggested to me that I am too afraid of being vulnerable. Maybe that is the case; I don't know. I'm not necessarily afraid that the person is going to hurt me; I am afraid of the emotional contact itself. I don't like to show emotion in front of people, and talking to people about my problems doesn't make sense to me unless the person I am talking to can fix it in some way. I hate having people be emotionally attached to me, and I don't usually get very attached to people. The only things that I get really excited about most of the time are my special interests, but my friends don't want to talk about those subject most of the time and most people would probably think I was crazy or just plain weird it I told them about my interests. Plus, I am extremely sensitive to conflict, so if a friends gets mad at me I can't handle it and often feel as if our relationship is irreparably damaged.

Right now, I am pretty discouraged about this whole thing. I don't want to give up on having friends, but to be honest, the idea of being in a close relationship scares the **** out of me and makes me feel like crying.

Perhaps this problems is made worse by the fact that, as I was improving my social skills in college, most of the people I made friends with were foreign exchange students who left after one or two semesters, so I'll never know if we could have had long-term friendships or not. There was one friend that I got pretty close to because he was very proactive in approaching me, plus I had an obsessive interest in his country and culture (I didn't tell him that, though). I got rather obsessed with him and was very sad when he went back to his country, but after several months, I moved on; now he still expects me to keep in contact with him and, I try to, but it feels like a chore.
I know it is normal for long-distance friendships to fizzle out after a while, but it is still pretty discouraging. I feel guilty because whenever my international friends leave to got back to their home countries, they tell me they want to keep in touch, but then I never do.

Sorry, I know this is a really long post, but for those of you how have time to read it, have any of you been able to overcome these sorts of issues?

I have many acquittance that enter my life but I don't make many friends. However the few friends I have are very close to me. They understand me and I don't need to be vocal to understand me. He also doesn't judge me. He is the epitome of a great friend to have. It is very rate to have NTs understand what goes though our mind but there are people who do, just not too many.

I've never gone looking for real friends, but I still ended up getting some. I just made sure I was personable with people. There are a LOT of people out there with whom I am friendly, but only a couple that I'm actually good friends with. I have no way to explain what makes us "click", but it's that click that makes the difference, and you can't really go looking for it. It just shows up and happens. I'm sorry that I can't be any more specific, as I really wish I could be.

It's fully possible to have a close friend. My Dad ( who I suspect to have AS or some social "disorder") only has 1, at most 2 close friends, (this is excluding my mother). Anyway, his friend is one he has known since middle school, and they frequently hung out together. Considering he was in boarding school at the time, he and his friend became in a way "brothers." Even after 30 years they still keep in contact, helping each other out.

Okay that was an extreme example, but yes it is possible to have a close friend. While you probably won't find yourself in a situation like my Dad, nor is it extremely likely that you will suddenly naturally gain the ability to have close friends; so you will have to push yourself into the initiative. I know it's scary, since I have the same problem, but instead of the attachment issue, I can't tell how close I am to someone, so I'm too scared to push forward without somehow misjudging the situation. But, a very important thing is to feel comfortable around the potential close friend, if you aren't comfortable the person really isn't that close, are they?

The thing about close friendships, it isn't only talking, which I believe you already figured out. But, it's not like those stories where the people are spiritually connected and communicate telepathically. My interpretation is that the two people enjoy each others company and would do things for each other just for the sake of "they are just that person..." Idk if I phrased it right, but just someone you would help and vise versa with no qualms.

Opening up at the emotional level is something that shouldn't be rushed, and something you should slowly develop when you feel the time is right. Then again, you don't have to open up emotionally. But remember to be yourself and make sure the person accepts that, and make sure you accept the person. If you don't accept them, then they can't be close, nor do I think you would want to be their friend in the first place.

Anyways, the thing about the anger part. What I usually do about anger, is from all the years of dealing with my Dad's tantrums, remain calm and don't let your emotions run like wildfire. By remaining calm the situation usually doesn't get worse, unless the person is more aggressive than an enraged bull. Try to calm them down: give them a hug, ask if they want a cup of tea or something, alleviate the tension with a joke. I hate conflict and what I've seen from anger is just stupidity and "irrationality."

Work through this step by step. Remember all the small things make up the bigger picture, so try to do what you think is managable, and eventually you will get somewhere.

I'm not sure if this post was helpful, afterall I'm just a teenager, raging with hormones, that hasn't seen this world. If I'm spouting more bs than a politician, then I'm sorry and if you be so kind to point out any flaws in my suggestions; please message me about it.

I don't really have any long term friends either. I think the longest are my kids and my first ex-wife. Although the Ex is really a friend of convenience due to raising the kids. I really have no disire to keep in touch with her once they are off to college. I am Facebook friends with my best friend from high school. But, he's not really a friend either. I mean, I wouldn't make a special trip to go out and see him or anything. I have worked with the same group of people for the past 7 or 8 years, and I still find people that I knew when I was in the military (I work at a military hospital now, so I come in contact with people I knew in Germany back in the '90s.) So, all in all, I feel lke I do have a kind of LTR with these people. Now, none of them are people I would choose to hang around with outside of work on a regular basis though. And thats by choice; I need my alone time and am very choosey about how it's spent.

Disclaimer: "i feel" i have traits of being on the spectrum, but i am not diagnosed.

My situation is similar in some parts to you and different in some parts. You can take what you feel helps.

Till 5 years, i kind of went with anybody my mom told me to go with. From 5-21 my "friends" were people who kept me around for their use or reasons i know nothing about. I just responded to them but never initiated anything. They fizzled out, with no upset on my part. So, I started to consciously work on my "friendship" skills around 8 years back, when i realised my brother has friends and i dont. Initially, i just forced myself to keep in touch with my undergrad classmates. One of them was going through issues, so i was a welcome listener. She dropped off the moment her issues got resolved, although she does inform me major stuff.

Then i decided i need to respond to people when they made effort. I had 2 occasions over the 2 1/2 years when someone asked to spend time with me outside work. It discontinued once i left the job.

In my last job, i decided i will work on it aggressively. So i started with talking to people next to me. I would talk about whatever struck my interest, help them out when they needed it, did the facebook, email, sms, thing, forced myself to go out with them etc. I worked on that for 5 years. I kind of got stuck in this routine that i created for myself. I made a lot of mistakes like e.g. talking about personal stuff. Things spiraled out of control, so that i was not sure if i was doing okay or not. I started getting into trouble, not for my work, there were people getting me to do their work etc. All of this was done in the name of friendship.

In midst of it all, i was still not enjoying being with anybody. Then i took a step back and thought what do i enjoy. Like you, i hate it when people profess undying affection, but for me it is because it is rarely consistent with their behaviour. I can be supportive, but I can start feeling my head buzzing or wanting to run away the moment they start to stick. But i dont like the idea of being completely alone.

So i took a study break in a different country. I started with only approaching people if i wanted to and not doing more than i need to. I work hard on keeping a track of not letting myself go overboard. My successes have been small but present. I have 2 people i like being with in short bursts. I know for a fact that they will forget me after the year. But knowing it means i know what to expect. I no longer analyze my conversation with them over in my head. Overall my hours of socializing have gone down but my stress levels are within limits.