How difficult is making friends for you?

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Developing, and maintaining friendships with NT people who have some understanding/experiences with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) is doable.

It is naturally asked, "how can NTs and HFAs develop friendships....despite such friendships seeming to happen only by "chance and accident?"

I won't get all preachy, and repeat what many counselors (the thoughtful NTs) say about how painful it is to take those first difficult steps "outside our comfort zones!"

From my own personal experiences, and reading WP posts, there is that tiring feeling of "spinning our wheels!"

Anyways, a novel "ice breaker" exercise is in order: What are sleep-dreams we've had involving positive social interactions? In the dreams, we must be the active participant, not a spectator, or focused third-party observer. Whether or not, these dreams are based on real-life, or are recent or long-ago......it doesn't matter!

Here is my dream example: I was in a restaurant in a booth with four or five people. I was sitting in the inner part of the booth sharing pizza, and drinking beer. We all had our own individual glasses of beer. No common pitcher of beer here, as pitchers encourage too much drinking (these thoughtful NTs are careful with alcohol consumption).

The interior design style had wooden-planked walls e.g., our booths felt like open ended crates (this is significant as I dislike booths; as booths are too confining (the open-ended crate design also seemed to feel space limits).

Anyways, we were enjoying our ourselves being reasonably quiet. Yet, I spotted our server quickly walk to our table, and sensed that she was irritated (at our albeit "reasonably quiet") conduct. Sure enough, she sarcastically said, "excuse me, can you please keep the noise down!"

As this was one of those places where patrons are allowed to draw on paper covered tables, our server proceeded to reach for colored markers at our table, and sarcastically say, "please QUIETLY draw-out your feelings on the paper, and markers we've provided.....thank-you!"

Okay, I decided that the wise thing to do here was to wake-up from this dream, and feel that I can use this dream as an example in counseling (I was having at the time) - as my awesome therapist wasn't surprised by this dream stemming from concerns with social situations, and developing friendships.

After writing-out this dream into articulated text in.........this post, I really, feel that this novel exercise of describing sleep dreams can be that initial "ice-breaker (a first step of sorts) to eventually develop awesome friendships.

P.S. In real-life, As far as I know, I've never experienced visibly irritated servers at eateries. As a matter of fact, Iv'e had good experiences with small-talk at places where I was 'a regular.' Again, the purpose of this ice-breaker exercise is to progress beyond small talk. A dream exercise involving an irritated server is a tiny price to pay to....."break the ice!"

Any other noteworthy sleep dreams?

I had a dream involving one guy I'd met recently, my car, a familiar-looking neighbourhood, and two girls I didn't know. Two weeks later, I found myself there with those people. I was remembering the dream, and wondering if I should say the same things, while watching myself say them. The sequence lasted about 30 seconds. Shortly after, I turned down my first chance to lose my virginity.

I am too quiet and I do not make friends. People always show an interest in me but I do not know how to maintain the required small talk. Men show an interest in me but it is not for friendship really.