Mismatched intimacy

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One of the things I struggle with is the ability to know how close I am or should be with someone. When I was younger, I used to think that I was closer to people than they apparently thought we were, which lead to embarassing situations, and people avoiding me. It seems like now, because of my earlier experiences, I have to opposite problem. I can know people for a good long while, but not feel much closer to them, and never fully open up and and joke and be myself. I guess I have it ingrained in me that people don't really want to know me or get closer to me. I'm not sure if it's because I simply misread normal interpersonal cues, or I'm just really weird, and it scares people away, or I'm just too closed off now, anyway, to form connections with people. I feel like I've lost whatever social compass I ever had.

I can totaly relate! I still havent figured it out, and when i try to expalin that to NT people, I come off sounding insecure and pathetic, cause they've never had the same problem. Its worsened by the fact that most my friends are guys, and there are even more socially acceptable and un acceptible ways to act than with same gender friendships.

Yeah, it's not something you can actually address with people, because they'll just think it's weird. You're just supposed to know these things. It'd be so useful to know what people actually think of me, though, to compare with my own conceptions. I need friendship exit polling . I've met a few people who I relate to well enough that I feel open with them, but they're pretty rare.

I have a couple of opposite gender friends too, I think primarily because it's easier to be myself around them. With people of your own gender, there's a tighter set of rules as to how you're supposed to behave. Girls don't know how guys are supposed to behave, so I don't feel pressure to be normal in that regard. They're not as much my peers.

I've been wondering about this stuff myself. Like, how do I know if {Person X} thinks I'm a friend? How close do they think we are? For me, not knowing that makes it difficult to assess how much 'personal' stuff I can/should talk about. Or if I should invite them over for no reason at all...

My best rule of thumb is to mirror whatever the other person is doing. If they've invited you to their place or joked with you, you're not out of line to do the same. I still misread things, but at least I know I'm not alone in my actions. My problem now is that I'm way too conservative in my mirroring. Someone will have to invite me to their house 5 times before I'll reciprocate, just because I don't trust that the first 4 times were genuine, or they didn't regret it. People's actions don't always reflect their desires, though I'm sure that's not news to anyone here.

At least 80% of my friends are female. I don't quite understand why. Its both a blessing and a curse, because while I have a lot of female friends who I get along with generally very well, I don't have any ability to get a girlfriend >.>
But back to the issue, I sometimes have acted inapropriatly, but its fairly rare for me to do so. Although when meeting new people I adopt a 'front', which is basically a much less defined version of myself, until I can gague which parts of my personality can interact with that person to best effect (To my mind anyway).

I wouldn't invite anyone for no reason. I would invite them over for casual activity, unless that of course is what you meant, because then you have a reason.
People have many differnt descriptions of a friend. I consider an aquantance somone I talk to occasionally, or say hi to when I pass. A friend might be someone that I associate with, stop with for conversations. A close friend is someone that I talk about my problems with, and my best friend I talk about anything with.
But then again a friend of mine only considers 3 people in the world his friend, because he has known them for over 10 years. He considers everyone else to be just people he knows. But thats not to say he doesn't talk about personal issues with only his friends. We have had conversations regarding his religion and his politics, and such.
Again, what is personal and what is not depends on how extro/introvert the person is, and their general viewpoint.

I guess my point is that there is no way of knowing exactly how to act, its just trial and error.

My only long term friends consist of a family I have known for over 15 years. I have made friends throughout my life (ok maybe 1 every 3 years) but they never stay long term. Friendship maintenance is very socially draining for me. It doesn't help that I move around a lot either. Sometime I wish when I was younger I put more effort into finding people who shared my interests and actively worked at maintaining those friendships. It's just a conundrum for me.

I can totally relate to all of your posts. interestingly, most of my friends are guys too. I am not a 'typical' girl so it makes it hard for me to relate to other women. I don't give a damn about my appearance, I hate shopping and makeup, etc. I freak other women out. Guys either lack the social skills to tell me to f**k off, or simply get used to my presence. My problem is that I like to express my feelings, and I know that guys don't like that kind of stuff, which builds pressure on me to look 'tough' all the time. Then there are times that I really want to hug my friend, but I know that he'll misperceive it as something sexual and get freaked out, so I don't do it. I used to have this problem where I'd open up and tell someone a lot of personal stuff, and then would assume that she's my friend, only to discover that she's avoiding me. My rule of the thumb is actions speak louder than words. People often say things like "we should hang out some time," but never act on them. If someone invites you somewhere two or more times, it's a good sign and it's time to reciprocate. Also, if a friend sees that I clearly need help but doesn't even offer to help me, I know for sure that he is not a close friend and I can't trust him.