Obsession with Friends, healthy? Even for NTs?

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blackcatz1
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20 Jun 2012, 12:52 am

Do you think that being obsessed with making friends is healthy? Is it even healthy for NTs? I know many NTs are totally obsessed with making friends, and many, like probably most are lonely...I heard that people have only .75 best friends in society today, so that would mean that 1 in every 4 do not have a close friend to relate to and 1 in 4 do not feel accepted or understood. Do you think it is easier for a NT with no friends to feel accepted and understood simply because they can relate to the majority of people in society? So they deal with loneliness better than aspies? Your thoughts please???



WerewolfPoet
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21 Jun 2012, 5:38 pm

I would actually assume that neurotypicals find it more difficult to deal with loneliness than we Aspies are, since their brains are geared to require socialization. This is the reason that many teenagers (and adults) resort to drug usage, crime, and other deleterious social activities: just to find someone, anyone, that they can be in contact with.
Is the interpretation of the 1 in 4 people not having a best friend the interpretation provided by the source of the statistic, or is it your own interpretation. As I do not have a prodigious knowledge of the intricacies of the NT population, I do not claim that your interpretation is correct; I wonder, though, if the true meaning refers to the fact that 1 in 4 people cannot designate one friend out of all of the friends they have to be their "best" friend. Some people simply have too many friends to have a "best" friend.
Of course, there are a lot of extremely lonely people, both on the autistic spectrum and not on the autistic spectrum. The existence of such memes such as "Forever Alone" testifies to this.
While I do not know the answer to your original question, I caution you against expending too much of your energy on the art of "friendship." Friendship isn't something that should be forced--it is supposed to come naturally. I think.
Best of luck to your in the art of acquiring friends. :)