unusual friends

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does anyone else have a tendency to be friends with people that no one else is friends with?

example 1: when i was a kid at daycare no one was friends with me but i sort of made friends with this kid who didnt even speak english he only spoke farsi
the most talking we ever did to each other would be he would say a word in farsi and i would repeat it and he would get really excited
we were perfectly happy just kind of doing stuff together (eg going on the seesaw) but not talking bc we couldnt talk to each other but i didnt have a problem with it and i figure he was also just happy to have a friend

example 2: in high school i was Sort of friends with this other kid who was also autistic but he was also mean to me sometimes (not always) however i couldnt stop wanting to hang out with him even tho he would do things like confuse me on purpose

anyways i was just wondering if its more likely that we as autistic people when we make friends tend to gravitate towards other people who are outcasts

Very few of my friends are the “usual” type of people.

Actually at my most recent job before retirement, the two people there who I would have guessed might be autistic were people I had nothing to do with. Both of them had complained I was "rude" to them in one way or another, so I had no desire to befriend someone that was such a special snowflake.

I guess after a lifetime of assimilation, I was acceptable enough that I had a few mainstream friends and did not need to go after outcasts.

I can relate better to unusual people because I'm unusual, so I tend to make friends with them more. My closest friends tend to be neurodivergent or otherwise odd.

me too my closest friends are all nd in some way

do you often get people saying things like that but not explaining how

i feel like some people especially nts dont like to explain what someone did to them as if it should always be obvious

i have asked people who i supposedly wronged what exactly i did so i could apologize and know not to do the thing in the future but they refuse

Look, I sometimes rub people the wrong way, and in my many years on earth I have learned to just not give a s**t.

Yes one of my managers told me an email was rude, and when I replied that I wanted to understand what was rude about it and would he please be specific - no answer. I could have made an issue out of it, but didn't.

i wish i could not give a ____ as well but i likely need to work on it for many many years like you did which i think would be exhausting as all my life ive cried easily at things and people tell me i get upset at nothing but it feels so intense for me

i feel weirdly comforted in knowing its not just me who has to deal with people like that being frustrating and not wanting to explain themselves about stuff like that

Indifference is often mistaken for serenity in people my age.

From my perspective outcasts and unusual people usually are much less weird

very true i feel that way as well
its refreshing and usually the people others consider weird are like me


i guess i also meant that i am also more likely to try and be friends with people no one else wants to be friends with, whether its because i dont see why no one wants to be friends with them (usually the same reasons nt people wont want to be friends with me) or just because i gravitate towards them since they are like me even if its just in the sense of being an outcast

I have a new friend in the mental health group we are a part of. We go walking and don't stop talking, I find her easy to talk to. She's religious but she doesn't push it on to me. I just find her to be a nice, kind person with a quirky sense of humour and I'm attracted to that.

I can only think of one "unusual" person I've befriended. Even then, there's nothing hugely unusual about her aside from a mental illness.

Definitely! I grew up with a childhood friend with obsessive tendencies who always had problems with society, later befriended people with various learning disabilities and outcasts.

Yeah. For better or worse I tend to befriend fringe people. Sometime actively. Sometimes I just allow them to bond with me (folks no one else would allow near them).

When I was in gradeschool I either had no friends, or played with younger kids on the block. That was a sore issue with my parents.

Later in life I tended to bond with odd adults. Oddly my parents were rather cool about it by then, but my few "normal" friends were often quite judgmental about who else I hung with.

Wow...I LOT of issues, past and present, are coming out of the woodwork of my memory related to this. Too much stuff to enumerate.

Not outcasts per se. My friends are geeky and fun to be around with. But they are certainly not normies.

Also they are childlike like me. I like that alot.