• Replies 24 replies
  • Subscribers 90 subscribers
  • Views 2022 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Making Friends as an Adult

Paraducks

This is, perhaps, not the best place to ask this question but maybe if we bang rocks together we can make sparks.

It feels like when you're an adult, your opportunities for socialising in general begin to fall off a cliff-edge. I was having a chat with my parents about it recently, and they expressed a similar sentiment: "Most of my friends are from work. I don't really have the time to look for new ones anymore." It feels like that's where I am at right now, twenty odd years earlier than them in the timeline. 

I was curious if that is the experience many of our older folks on this forum experienced as well? Obviously the struggles of being Autistic doesn't help our case in any way, but I can't help but think this might be a universal issue among people just in general now that so many of our relationships are conducted through the screen. (Heck, i'm even asking for help online right now!)

I'm happy to bring up where I think Autism plays a role in this in replies, but i'm curious on how people try to make friends once they have left higher education. (College/Uni)

Parents

  • I personally did not find it easy to make and keep friends when I was at school, and I didn't go to uni.

    As a young adult, my few friends were the wives/girlfriends of my partner's friends, and a girl I had been to school with who I later ended up working with. Those friendships ended either just before or just after we moved to a different town 23 years ago.

    After the move there were a few years when I had no friends except my partner, although to be honest because I was working full time and by then was in my forties, I didn't have the energy to socialise. When I changed to part time working I did start seeing a woman I used to work with for coffee occasionally, although that has stopped now. However I retired recently and have started having lunch once a month with a couple of ladies I worked with in my last job, so I think I can call them friends now.

    I don't know what use this information about me is. Basically, in the past friends have let me down, made me feel bad, or the friendship relied on me contacting them most of the time. It's only now that I'm in my sixties that I seem to have people who are consistently nice to me and seem actually interested in seeing me. Perhaps It's because I finally discovered who I am and stopped masking so much, so I seem more genuine. I dunno.

    So, to finally answer your question at the end, I don't try to make friends. If it happens it happens, if not I'm not really that bothered. I don't value myself by how many friends I have.

  • in reply to Lotus

    I'm happy you've managed to reach that state of acceptance. Perhaps it's my age speaking, but I find the idea of living in solitude with no one to talk to a deeply troubling prospect. I love dogs so I know i'd always want to have one with me, but I need to have at least some people I can talk to regularly to avoid myself spiraling into a worse state.

Reply
  • in reply to Lotus

    I'm happy you've managed to reach that state of acceptance. Perhaps it's my age speaking, but I find the idea of living in solitude with no one to talk to a deeply troubling prospect. I love dogs so I know i'd always want to have one with me, but I need to have at least some people I can talk to regularly to avoid myself spiraling into a worse state.

Children