Is it bad to not want to be friends with...

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Am I a bad person to not want my circle of friends to be people with more severe disabilities? Now, when I say that, it doesn't mean that I would never want somebody with more severe disabilities to be my friend, but rather, I don't want that to be my social circle. Anyway, the reason I ask is because I have a counselor that is trying to set me up with new friends, which I wasn't sure if I wanted him to do, but seeing as I had no friends at all, I'm willing to keep an open mind about it.

The person he just recently tried to set me up with is in her 50s-60s, even though he told me before hand that she was going to be more my age. But whatever, I was willing to keep an open mind with this person, and she had me add her on Facebook. Shortly afterwards, she asked me to join the special Olympics. Which I REALLY do not want to do, and is already a first red flag for what this counselor is trying to set me up with. Just because I have a disability like autism, does not mean I want to join the special Olympics. The type of people I'd want to be friends with are people that would help me grow as a person. I'd even be okay with being friends with individuals who have high functioning autism like I do. Hell, the only other friend I have ever had, who is from another area, does have CP, but he's somebody who has a group of friends of individuals that are not just people with disabilities, and is not defined by that, and is not part of the special olympics.

Anyway, but even with that one person my counselor set me up with, I figured maybe this person who asked me to join the special olympics because she's going based on her own disability, and does not represent how my counselor associates me with. Nope. He called me this morning, and asked if I got an invitation to the special olympics, confirming my fear that he's lumping me into a category just because I have autism, and that he's going to throw anybody with any type of disability even if I wouldn't get along with them. When I told him I wasn't interested in joining the special olympics, he didn't take it well, and I feel like if I told him the truth, he would say that I was coming off as discriminating.

So my point is, is it bad for me to reject trying to make friends with people with more severe disabilities like what my counselor is trying to set me up with? As somebody with autism, one of the things I try to avoid is having this stigma associated with me, and I feel like this is going to place the autism label towards anybody. I also feel like they wouldn't be friends that would help me grow as a person, and that my counselor is giving me this group of people just because I have a disability, and I should be friends with people with more severe disabilities.

No, it doesn't make you bad. I would feel the same way. When I was 16 my social worker got me into this club for teenagers with disabilities. My mum encouraged me to join, as she thought it'd help me make new friends. But I seemed to be the most "high-functioning" teenager there. I think I was even the only one who attended a mainstream school. The others there had things like severe autism or severe learning disabilities (some had the mind of a baby or young child), or Downs syndrome that affected their behaviour and speech. Don't get me wrong, they were lovely people, but I felt I couldn't really relate to them. I felt like I was neurotypical compared to most of them, even the ones who weren't autistic but had other severe neurological disabilities.

I gave up going to the club after a few weeks because I just felt I didn't belong, and I hadn't made any friends anyway. Also I felt a little embarrassed being part of a group of people with severe disabilities. I wouldn't have been embarrassed if I was a volunteer helping them out, but actually being part of the group made me feel that other people will think I'm low-functioning like them, when I'm clearly not.

Then I went to college and I was in a class with other people that were similar to me and had high-functioning disabilities like dyspraxia, dyslexia, ADHD, mild learning difficulties, Fragile-X, anxiety, Bipolar, Asperger's and HFA. I fitted in much better and even made some friends, and although they weren't all on the spectrum I could still relate to them and become friends without being rejected.

I find mixing with neurotypicals much easier in the adult world. But anyway, maybe tell your counsellor what sort of people are right for you. Sometimes people like me and you get on rather well with people with things like Bipolar or other emotional sorts of conditions, if you catch what I mean. Tell the counsellor you feel you aren't on the same wavelength as severely affected people, and that you'd rather have him/her find friends that are more compatible with you. Compatibility is an important factor of friendship.

I dont think it's that you dont want friends with disabilities, period. It's more that you dont want to be lumped into a group of disabled people because of your autism. Realistically as a 28 year-old guy, you're probably not going to have much in common with a 50-60 year-old woman, and with no common interests there's not much of a basis for a friendship. Your counselor is probably just trying to match lonely people with each other in hopes of making them less lonely, but it's not a very well thought-out approach.

In saying that, if you don't like the people your counselor is matching you with, it's probably gonna be up to you to make your own friends.

As far as her being lonely, she has a lot of friends that she sees regularly, and she's getting married soon. So I don't think it's so much he's setting me up with random lonely people. But I do think you're absolutely right about me not wanting to be lumped with other people with disabilities because of the fact I have autism. It's a perfect example of why I have not wanted to disclose to the world outside of the site that I am under the spectrum, because of others labeling me. I also had that happen too with a place I applied for once, where the people interviewing me are talking down to me, claiming that I must really love transportation, throwing all the stereotypes of autism out towards me.

I was also thinking about how when my counselor tells me, "Don't worry, AutisticJar, I'll help you find socializations", I get a sense of dread when I hear that. I just mentioned this in another thread, but I think a part of where I struggle too is not just having trouble making friends, but it's also the fact that the idea of making friends and socializing is a really scary thing for me. Like, I want to make friends, but the idea of having friendships also feels like uncharted territory to me, especially since I have gone half my life without making another friend. That's another aspect that I think adds to my crippling inability of making friends. Even setting me up with any type of socialization, weather it be his really stupid idea of putting me in the special olympics (YUCK!) is not going to be enough. I feel like the fear of making friends is also setting me back as well. I don't know what the hell I can do to overcome that, but I know I need to overcome that fast.