Published on 12, July, 2020
An informal thread for all misfired and miswired women on the spectrum...,(and guests). A new thread as we can chat away but are not so good tidying up after ourselves....too busy being awesome..,,
This is a new iteration of many long and warm and welcoming contributions. This is a happy and supportive place x
Hi fellow mis-wired women .... I wanted to ask you a question. Do any of you have any female friends? I have always found it far harder to deal with women than men. Men tend to say what they mean far more than women do, so they are easier to figure out. Women seem to have a lot of hidden meanings, little tricks and in-jokes going on, some of it probably designed to exclude, especially when young. So in short, I have never been able to figure out how to do it.
The thing that is bugging me since my diagnosis is that I have been forced to accept that while I at least thought I could do 'making friends' with guys, I haven't actually ever managed it at all, in my entire life (now 46). What I was able to learn how to do is seduce men, which is far easier to understand and learn the rules for than making friends with NTs will ever be, but clearly not the same thing! This is why the few people who I think of as my friends are all ex-lovers from way back. They were people who I spent long enough together with to form a connection, which endures to this day. It is probably also why there is a trail of break-ups behind me, instigated by me. I met guys who I found interesting and nice and fun and wanted to be friends with, but I had no idea how to do that, so I took the easy way out and became more than friends with them. I now feel like a bit of a s*&t because they were all good, nice guys, who often didn't understand why it didn't work out and what they did wrong. And yes, I do feel bad about that. Probably 3/4 of them should have been friends, not lovers, but I didn't / don't know how to achieve that.
I am not sure I understand NT friendship either. I have been involved in 'friendships' with other couples, instigated by my ex-husband. In one case, we travelled an hour each way to visit them, almost weekly. They pretty much never made the effort to come to our place. My hubby didn't seem to be particularly bothered by this. If I had been navigating that one without his guidance, I might have driven to see them a few times, then would have waited for them to call me and/or visit me. If they never did, I would have assumed they weren't that interested in being friends with me. To my black and white Aspie brain, no effort = no interest. Is putting up with this kind of thing normal in NT friendships, I wonder? (rhetorical question - I'm sure you can no more answer that than I can). My sister, who has loads of friends, seems to put up with quite a lot from them at times, including at times the sort of behaviour that would make me have nothing more to do with someone.
Anyway, I am not asking this because I want to be able to make friends. Luckily I am very happy with the ones I have got, because after my post-diagnosis introspection I doubt I could make any new ones if I tried. I am just curious to know if any of you find NT women easier going than I do, and whether anyone identifies with the any of the above.
Hi moggsy, I have never found female friends easy and have hung out with guys most of my life. Even now, I go to a sauna night sometimes at the gym, they have ladies sessions, men’s sessions and mixed sessions. The mixed night is basically men, and me. I tried the women’s night a few times, made some ‘friends’ with some of the other regulars, but it was so painful and torturous, that I don’t even go now. I stick to the mixed aka men’s nights. I hold my hands up where friendships are concerned, I can’t do them and neither do I particularly want to any more. However, I do have a couple of female friends, they’re both undiagnosed autistic, and they both come from my ‘old’ life, from years ago, and it’s ok, I see them sometimes and I’m working on developing more of a friendship with them, whatever that means! It’s getting tricky with male friends now, as they all seem to want some kind of relationship with me, so I’m not gonna deal with that, unless I met someone I wanted to have a relationship with. Instead, I’m going to meet people through activities I like, such as an art group I recently joined and I’ll keep the ‘friendship’ confined to the group. The best thing I have ever done is join a local autistic Support Group. Here, for the first time ever, I feel at home, and already I feel like I’m developing true friendships, which is kind of weird, but I love it there. It doesn’t matter if they’re male or female, young or old or whatever their likes or interests are, I just like being around them and we all get on, in our own way. We can be ourselves and there’s no judgement. It’s so freeing, all those hidden rules are not there, that NT’s seem to know, and I’m really enjoying it. They make me feel normal, whereas, nt women especially, make me feel like a second rate citizen. Not because they treat me that way, but because I don’t understand them, particularly with my black and white thinking.
I made a ‘friend’ with my neighbour. Now I can’t stand going over there, I feel like it’s eating into my ‘me’ time! I guess I’m just not very good at friendships unless I’m getting something specific out of it. That’s not to say I’m not friendly, I am, but friendships seem like too much effort for little or no reward. I am cultivating some level of connection, with my son’s in laws, which is good, but I like my own space or I’d rather be around people who like discussing what I like to talk about or do things I like to do. Even that’s limited, as I like to do most things by myself! Lol!
Interesting, the only 'friends' I have from work are geeky (I do work in tech), possibly undiagnosed autistic types, so I can see where you're coming from with your love of the support group. It is simply nicer to be around people who accept you as you are. The geeky types tend to know that others find them a bit weird, so they are not about to starting saying others are weird!
NT women make me uncomfortable. I have always felt like I am faking it, and that they know somehow. They can always tell I am not the same as them, by some magical 6th sense. So I guess they kind of make me feel second rate too, for not being able to do what they do (or how they do it at least).
For years (before I knew I had Asperger's) I always said that I didn't know how to be a proper girl, and felt like a fish out of water if forced to mix with proper girls. I never understood why I felt that way, because I didn't feel like I was born in the wrong body and I am not gay. I have friends who are (both) and what they described about how they felt growing up was so close to how I felt .... but the reasons clearly weren't the same. It was a big light-bulb moment when I realised that I was simply trying to copy 'NT' and chose 'NT woman' as my model, because I am a woman. The realisation that I am not rubbish at pretending to be a woman, just rubbish at pretending to be an NT woman, was a bit of a relief really!
Hahahaha I like that and I like that some of us are extra special :-)
Lol....to misquote Orwell.... “we are all special, it is just that some of us are more special than others”
lol, you always make me laugh. On a different visit, without me even saying anything, the work coach pointed out the security guard and said how weird and eccentric he is and said you think you've got problems! lol
They obviously got tipped off that you were on your way there! X lol
Yeah, same at my job centre. It’s swarmed with security guards and the same at the council offices! The advisors used to sit behind windows and you would speak into a microphone thing so I guess they wanted to remove those kind of barriers but found that the staff still needed a level of protection when people start kicking off.
My job centre has usually 2 or 3 security guards on the ground floor reception. Another one at the bottom of the stairs. I sign on upstairs. Another 2 there.
At my council offices where they deal with inquiries from the public and I see another work advisor. Plenty of security guards & CCTV. The staff have panic whistles around their necks.
I was chased across the job centre by one of their security guards. I was walking fast but the guy was small and very heavy so although he was running, he couldn’t catch up to me, until I sat down. But yeah, I’m sure they would manhandle me if I started kicking and screaming or they would at least call the police, which is a fairly common occurrence at my job centre. We regularly get locked in, until the police have been and cleared the area!