How to make friends

I’m so sorry someone said that to you-that’s just terrible! IMO if someone has said that to you then you’re lucky they’re not your friend. You deserve better friends than someone who resorts to calling you names because you speak differently. You can speak-you just speak differently and that’s absolutely fine. I hope you'll find the right friends who treat you as you deserve to be treated. Xx

I struggle with making friends. Even when I'm honest about myself and my diagnosis people don't want to get to know me. 

I've tried masking, listening to better music everyone else likes, wearing more trendy clothes.

Still no one wants to be friends.

I even tried being myself and because I can't talk normally a girl I want to be friends with called me retarded.

Yep. I have been on both sides of that situation so I understand it better than I would have done, say, 4 years ago. I used to get overexcited and as a result, scare them off.

I used to speak to someone who, after 2 weeks, said I was the best thing that ever happened to them. I'm not criticising them because they're autistic too and I can understand how things get muddled like that. However, we had nothing in common. 

One thing that makes me feel very uneasy is when the other person has decided, based solely on one exchange, that you are their friend, and maybe even their best friend. The uneasiness comes from feeling 99.9% certain that you have absolutely nothing in common with that person, and that you just cannot relate to them in any meaningful way.

It's one of those horrible situations where you don't want to upset the other person, but you're inwardly thinking, "Help! How do I get out of this situation?" 

Sporadic Sparkly said:

Although the suggestions you have given are good for people wishing to form online friendships, I feel it is also worth adding that they can require just as much time and effort as friendships that exist offline in the 'real' world.

I completely agree with this. It takes time and effort from both people to form a friendship. I'd rather take the time to build that connection than jump head first in to it and just hope for the best. 

I'm terrible at making friends-but I'm learning and hoping over time I'll get better at it. 

Yeah, building a connection with someone over a longer period of time is more important to me. Going straight in with "let's be friends" has proven to be more damaging for me.

Although the suggestions you have given are good for people wishing to form online friendships, I feel it is also worth adding that they can require just as much time and effort as friendships that exist offline in the 'real' world.

Quite often on the NAS forums, I see posts from members who give the impression that they are hoping to establish instant friendships with other members. In my experience, there's a big difference between being friendly with other people online, and actually being online friends.

For some reason I've not mentioned the book that helped me enormously in both attracting and KEEPING my friendships going.

Marks advice is very useful indeed but if you are as socially inept as I was in my twenties, and need a "Human Relationships: How it works" type of book, then hunt down the one I recommend in b=my bio, it's cheap as chips (for once, most of the book recommendations we get here are not!) on ebay and some other platforms..

Word of caution: Simple ownership of this book is not enough, you actually have to read it, in order to derive benefit.

Cool some good tips there. Thanks for sharing them Mark. It's more difficult in person but these will work well online. 

Hi Mark

Your tips are good for making friends on this forum, with other ND people.

However, some people want to make friends with people they know in their offline lives, most of whom will be NT, and in that situation I'm afraid it's not a good idea to give someone a detailed description of your personality in your first conversation with them. So for that situation, here are my ideas:

Join an organisation or club - such as a choir, art group, chess club - whatever interests you - or volunteer for a cause you care about. Then you will be meeting people with a common interest. 

Look for opportunities to talk to people. Say "Hi, how are you?" or " isn't the weather horrible today?" to try to start a conversation. Keep the conversation going by listening to the other person and giving short replies (think of conversation as a ping pong game) If someone starts to talk about something you like, don't do a monologue about it. Ask them about themselves too, such as what music they enjoy. People usually like to talk about themselves, so follow up on things they say with a question, for example if they say they play guitar, you could ask "how long have you been playing?" or " what songs do you play?"

Think about how you project yourself to others - it's nice when someone smiles at you, so try to smile at them. If you can't maintain eye contact, try focussing on a different part of their face or just above their shoulder. 

Everyone likes it when other people make them feel good. You can do this to others by asking them for help with something (such as choosing a gift for a member of your family) offering help - with carrying boxes, for example - or giving a compliment, such as "I like your shoes". The compliment can be followed up with a question such as "where did you buy them?" 

Once you have had a conversation with someone, if you feel you could be friends then ask them if they would like to meet up another time, which will allow you both to share contact details. 

Once you have started a friendship, be reliable, trustworthy, and a good listener when they have problems - and always remember their birthday. 

always be patient and let them come to you when its the right time and be happy

Wise words..

It's easy if you can recognise it. It's certainly easier for me to pick up on it in other people than myself, but it's more being less hyper aware of what they might think of me.

Also, realising what you actually want. I used to think I wanted a huge network of friends, but I realised eventually that I never wanted to have to give an equal amount of energy to 30 people...

Being "likeable" is easy, being lovable involves a lot of getting up and doing stuff when you don't really want to... 

I can understand the struggle, it took me until I was 22/23 to form meaningful connections and even then, I made a huge mess of it because I didn't know what I was doing.

I've learnt to focus on what I need, more than what I want although there are overlaps. I both want and need someone with similar interests, similar sense of humour and conversational style etc.

Nice step by step guide. I'll definitely try to remember this! I'm in my early twenties and have never had a single friend, not at school or since. I tried. I spent a lot of time trying but no one ever wanted to get to know me. When I masked I must have done it terribly because I still wasn't 'one' of them.

Half the time it feels like I'm always going to be alone and friendless. But I live in hope one day I'll encounter somebody who wants to be friends with this autistic soul.

I wish I still had access to my dating profile. I did tell it how it is...

Didn't get many replies, so (since I was running out of time on my three day membership) I went shopping...

I reviewed 400 profiles and decided that 16 did not look like monsters to me...

Of the sxteen lucky candidates, four wrote back to me, (one to tell me how bad my profile was) then I ended up swapping a few emails until one of 'em offered to go for a date...

Simple maths and filtering for the win. Stuff waiting for "cupids arrow".

22 years later and she regrets going first now. I did offer a get out of relationship free card when I got my diagnosis, it only seemed fair...

but also explaining their personality counts as lying as they will just say good stuff about themselves or positive stuff... they wont say "oh yeah, im a right ***, i get angry too easily, and i dont like anyone, i dont like this and that and i think this is annoying" lol

they will be like "oh im so great, im kind and caring and this and that" all positive stuff, which are often generic and lies and not really how others percieve them anyway

I used to be really mechanical with it, but now I try (as much as possible) to go on intuition. Don't get overexcited cos someone was nice to me once, kind of thing.

Nah, he's pretty much on the money there.

BUT. The devil in is in the details, as they say.

You have to do it right, particualrly for the N.T's...