Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, my name is 'Aarlla', I'm 19, and I have no friends. Back in high school I hung around with a group but I never really considered most of them to be close to me, except for one. After high school, we moved to college, I met my boyfriend and we had another group that we hung around with, aside from my boyfriend I never considered any of them to be close to me. Upon leaving college, the only person I have left is my boyfriend. Nobody I met along the way has ever stayed.
I'm not sure how to make new friends. I don't like social events and I'm far too shy. Even my colleagues at work leave me out of things they do together outside of work because I don't speak much, unless it's work related.
I have online friends but it's not the same as being able to see them and spend time with them in person.
Please, if any of you have any advice, I'd love to hear it. I'm starting to feel very lonely and very sad.
Hello Aarlla, nice to meet you.The making friends thing is typically a big challenge for us so if you are up for investing time and emotional energy then there are quite a few books to help you work through ways to do this:An Aspie's Guide to Making and Keeping Friends - Attwood, Tony, Evans, Craig R., Lesko, Anita (2015)eISBN 9781784501259Friendships The Aspie Way - Wendy Lawson (2006)ISBN 184310427XYou may find the IRL friendships are much more taxing mentally than online ones so make sure you have capacity enough to take this on.Setting a few ground rules will also help - things like be explicit with requests and asking what they mean rather than expecting you to read between the lines will help.HP35 is right about using shared hobbies as a common ground - a big chunk of the small talk is already sorted as are ideas for shared activities.Good luck and stay optimistic.