do you feel...

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In terms of friendships, do any of you feel like something is missing? I constantly feel like I am missing an essential part of the friendship formula. I do have friends, but I feel like something is lost, yet I have no idea what that thing could be.

Can anybody relate, and furthermore, does anybody have any ideas as to what this important ingredient in the friendship cookies may be?

What coud be missing is dependant upon what you already have. Could you please elaborate on what asoects of your friendships you find fulfilling?

I know there's lots of stuff missing from my friendships. I just don't know what.

Do this self-test: ask yourself the following questions.

1) Do I see these people on a regular basis outside of school?

2) Do they seem to enjoy my company, rather than "tolerate" me?

3) Am I relaxed around these people?

4) Do my ideas get accounted for in my group of friends?

5) Do I feel like there are too many things I can't talk to my friends about?

Look at the results, then decide for yourself. I can't make that decision for you.

I have friends. A fair amount for who I am. I however, have always found that no one friendship is completly fufilling. I find that every friend supplies a little of one thing and another supplies something else. I don't have any friend that can keep up with everything about me but everyone of them together almost can

I think what I've been missing in my friendships lately is that no noe feels comfortable around me due to past experiances and my condition.It's like',Oh,my God,there's something wrong with her,we can't invite her over or call her or joke around with her,just be nice to her."

That's so stupid...

SpaceCase

With my friendships, although I've had probably more odd/something's not quite right friendships, I have a few good friends I met in ninth grade last year. I find that some of the qualities that make these more recent friendships more solid are:

they don't mind my bad/cryptic jokes
personality similarities
common interests
they don't mind it when I stim or steer the conversation to my topic of interest and are sensitive like friends, not sensitive in a, uh...condescending way.
they don't think of me in terms of, "oh, that poor girl;" they embrace my positive traits.

That's what I can think of at the moment.

PS, they don't mind my phone-awkwardness.

I guess that if there is something missing in friendship for me, it is closenes and satisfacton. There are a few people whose company I enjoy, but even when I am with most of them, I don't usually feel truly close. For me to feel *close* to someone is rare and precious tome....and unfortunately, soemtimes the "friend" or other party doesn't feel the same way about it, and when they treat me as a casual, disposable friend/person, it is heartbreaking.

Short answer, yes.
Long answer, yeeeeeeeeees.

I think whatever that "ingredient" is, it defines the difference between an acquaintance and a friend. Around all but a select few people, I act reserved out of fear of doing something stupid. To me, it's like being constantly dishonest with them, and that kind of thing keeps me from calling them real friends. But there have been people who I can immediately get by the initial barrier and completely relax with, and it's those who I really consider my friends.

Perfectly stated!!

You all sound much like me...

I get "close" to very few people, but I'm still reserved to an extent around them and that does make me feel like a liar.

I've noticed that most people here are better than I am at indentfying their frustrations as well as the things that they like about their friendships, but don't seem to see what's missing. My friendships seem to be largely interest oriented. I almost always share several similar interests with them, but still have problems relating on an interpersonal level. Even now, what I wrote seems so abstract that I'm not sure I've described it right.

I'd really like to meet a bunch of people here some day!

Initially, no.
Then people started to feel betrayed when I didn't go along with everything for the sake of it.
Then I became aware of not feeling I should.
Now I anticipate that and don't cultivate friendships,it's too much work, and my interests are pretty ephemeral to most others, but thats just because I can never explain the thread running through them.
I wish I'd developed the social tricks to get around the differences with others, but personally not having friends is no big thing in the main.

For me, there's one key thing missing in my friendships: Longevity. Everybody I try to make friends with goes away before I can make any significant connection with them, and they always go away too suddenly. There may be a lot of other things missing, but my friendships don't last long enough for me to know.

Sort of makes me wonder what the point in making friends is when they're always going away in a few months...*sigh*

Because you can harvest "coping " strategies for social situations from them, and one day....

To be honest, that sentence doesn't make sense to me. I am trying to analyse the words and figure out what you mean but all I'm getting is "DOES NOT COMPUTE - DOES NOT COMPUTE - etc.".

I think he means 'harvesting' as 'gathering' or accumulating 'coping strategies', which means using the friendships that you do make to learn more about making friendships for the future and that future friendships that last longer will benefit from what you have learned.