How do you maintain friendships?

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How do you maintain friendships?

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I don't. Most of my "friends" quickly melt away when the situation we met in is gone (school, university, work etc).

I'll second that Cernunnos. What I really dislike is when you're the one giving 100% to the situation and they act like a friend, but in the end could really care less.

Niceties perhaps? I don’t quite understand why someone would claim to be a friend only to snub me later on. That’s why I try to keep a distance between myself and my ‘friends’ or maybe I should just refer to them as acquaintances? I’m not the greatest on maintaining friendships.

i was gonna post the same question...
when you find out, i'd love to know...
(i apparently have a problem with doing this...)

Don't tell them you love them... even when you do.

Don't divulge something personal(even if it's just your opinion that they have AS) about them to people at work (providing you two work together) on an impulse during conversation, without asking the friend about it first.

I can guarantee you these two things can break a friend's trust in you and things will never be the same.

Ditto. In real life, I think someone is a friend, but in the end I find out that they either were using me for money or pretending to be my friend because someone asked them to invite me to talk with them. I try my best not to lose these "friends", but I still do.

Online, I maintain friendships by just talking to people when they come online. Quite easy really. I have never met these people before, but they are better friends than those who I have met in real life.

Ditto. On my MSN I have such people listed under "Acquaintances" on MSN. Some who have graduated have disappeared off the face of the earth - one of which I was once madly in love with... oh well.

Mine that I speak to on a regular basis are still listed under “Friends”, but some of them have been moved into a little slot I call “The Graveyard”. I haven’t spoken to them in months and they show no interest in communicating with me.

That's exactly how I am.
As for real life, I've never stayed close to anyone for very long. I get that regretful feeling every time I see them after we used to be close and I ponder what may have happened...

Okay, shoot me. I have to start with some basic truisms that help me some

-shared activities are one basis for friendship but not the only one.

- friendships are hard for everyone, even for those we all might think of as normal

- friendships are harder for me, because as an individual with AS that sucks at typical social interaction, I want to rapidly graduate to blatant openess which scares even the most stouthearted. I haven't spent too much time with online social interaction, but its possible that the electronic interaction moderates that somewhat. I'm certainly less concerned that someone will reject me for putting these words on a website than I would be if I spoke to them directly. Maybe I haven't developed close enough online relationships or I'm not sensitive enough. (I hope not)

- with the fading of shared activities friendships are maintained through continued communication and personal concern (even on one side)

The reason I am posting to this thread is this. About 2 years ago I made an explicit attempt to develop friendships with 2 people. The basis of the friendships was getting together on a weekly basis simply to talk and share what was up along with sharing encouragement.

One of these 'friendships' continues to this day because, in my perspective the other guy wants it as much as I do. He schedules explicit time with me every week and will call me to confirm.

With the other guy, Don, I got together with him weekly over a period of 9 months and during that time we shared a number of very personal things. We both have teenage sons who were having some problems. However, he never made our weekly get together a part of his schedule and every week I had to call him to see if he was available. After the nine months his schedule got busier and busier so eventually we stopped getting together. I still email him about once a month and talk to him for 5 minutes when I see him at church.

Despite the fact that the friendship seems to have faded since it doesn't meet the criterion I initially established I still think of Don as my friend. Today I learned that his son died yesterday. I am very concerned for Don and will hope that even with my socially challenged manner that I will be able to be an encouragement to him and his family.

I try to spend time with my friends, and befriend people who have similar interests. I try to offer up somethin, usually friends have something to contrbute, so I also contribute. Thats really all I have and it sorta, kinda works...

I write monthly letters. I'm a much better conversationalist on paper than I am face-to-face.

Definatly, I cant stand talking on the phone, and when someone calls me I tell them just to IM me instead, much better, on the phone I can talk only a few seconds, on here I can talk for a while.

Its called have the same interests.

I don't...it might be nice to be able to though.