No friends

I don't have any friends or a relationship.  I struggled for years and didn't know why. after i sought an autism diagnosis and was incorrectly told i was, i gave up socializing entirely.  now that i have confirmed i am autistic, i would like to try again. i have been to one autistic meetup which was good.

Hi I'm 55 diagnosed with autism in 2015 I'm in the same boat I feel like an alien when in company of others. I wish there was a place/website where we could find other peeps to talk to and share stories and share advice. Chin up 

bummer

I'm in my 50s I'm 55

I dont have many friends probably 2-3 at the most not people to hang out with, I suffer with depression and anxiety disorder  low self esteem  plus I'm visually impaired  

I dont have the social skills and am often scared about making friends.

I know how you feel.

In my experience best way of getting new friends is to help more people daily as much as possible. And friends will come themselves. 

If someone would like a friend - me, let me know, please!

I am waiting for a diagnosis, in a few months I have an appointment to be assessed.

I agree that friendships are difficult, having to keep up my "mask" of normality all the time is draining. I have not had any friends for quite a few years now, and feel no need for them. I find it more enjoyable being alone, going for walks in the countryside and spending ages looking at things that I like, with no concern of how it may appear to NTs. Maybe when diagnosed I will look for any groups that meet, never actually met an Asperger's person before, be interesting at the very least and may have some common ground, even just a moan about general life.

The main thing is to be who you are and accept that you are different and have talents and skills that others don't. Another good thing is not being a sheep, following silly trends etc. Would despair if I followed all the soap operas/reality shows etc. That's all you sometimes hear the "sheep" bleating at each other about LOL.

I have recently been diagnosed with Asperger's last year. My childhood friendships were a bit like yours, I find it difficult to maintain friendships. When I was in the middle of senior school (year nine) I spent most of my breaks and lunchtimes walking around school on my own, if you add all the those lunchtimes I would have probably walked for miles. The way I describe it for me is 'being between a rock and a hard place' I want to socialise but I feel inside like I'm not bothered, it can be hard work. A good word I would use when it comes to socialising struggles is connecting to people, I don't have that 'clicking' feeling inside me. I do have a banter at work with colleagues. For me, I have accepted this as part of who I am. I have a family who understands me and the way I see the world.

It is strange to hear that a lot of autistic people do not have friends. They desperately want to find a friend.

But here, where all desperate friendless people met, autistic people still cannot find friends.

That's very sad. When I was younger I made friends to please my Mum and as I got older I made friends as 'normal person camoflage' Some of these people were horrible and treated me badly. I'm quite naive and got myself into some difficult situations. I'm alone now but I still wish I had relationships and friendships even though I find them difficult and every interaction with an NT is like a car crash. I wish I could accept who I am but I don't think I can. 

Hello,

I just found this as I was Googling 'Autistic adult no friends' I was diagnosed one year ago (I'm forty this year) The few friends I had and saw very infrequently don't want to see me anymore. My family don't want to know. I am married and my only friend is my Husband. If it wasn't for him I would be completely alone. I do worry about being so alone. I don't want to turn strange! I don't really want to confide in people or attend social events but I do feel envious of their relationships. I am very conflicted! 

I have lost count of the times I've been told I'm rude. I am actually an incredibly polite person. It's something to do with lack of small talk and eye contact. I find being around NT's exhausting. Keeping up the charade is an ordeal. In the past year I've learned not to tell people that I am autistic. I struggle to hold down jobs. I have one after another each for a few weeks or months so I don't make friends there either. 

A lifetime of wonderings, thoughts, feelings and experiences. Reflections. Friend - "ship"; a vessle, the deep feeling of movement within...yet stillness, likened to the eternal moment. I have no friends, or should I say no friends have me? Yet, everyone is potentially my friend. In our deep sense of compassion and caring who would we deny? Trust is the biggest obstacle to that spiritual feeling of connectedness we desire and need to feel with other human "beings". I feel first to know ones' self and be a friend to the self makes way to be a friend to other. I have many friends, but to the depth of relationship that I may feel the freedom to sit in silence and have the inner knowing and be totally confident in that friendship eludes me.

It has been a long hard road, but one I am gratefull I have journeyed. I believe as auties and\or aspies have an incredible gift of feeling and experiencing the living of life at the core of our being and beyond. We make wonderful friends. I listen to everyone hear share and it is on a very intimate level full of caring and compassion...love. I have gone the camut of making myself over, reinventing myself to no avail. I have come to love and appreciate the different of myself. There is a certain feeling of joy in coming to have the confidence and belief in yourself that you may do things on your own and enjoy meeting new people that are in the least where you want to be doing what you want to do. I often hear people speak of what they hate, and it is inhibiting. Where is the potential for friendship in that? I would love to one day meet someone that I may truly bond with on all levels. I feel the greatest eperience of living life for me is to walk this road in love with other.

To Hope...you are already a wonderful loving friend to somene, they just have not realized it yet. It is very heart felt to communicate with all of you, a long time searching. Thank you.

Hi Hope,

I can relate to your difficulties in acquiring friendship. This is an issue I am facing on a regular basis, not to mention how I feel about myself negatively by speaking to people in general.

I'm always open to speaking with people and am fairly lonely myself so feel free to drop me a message

I have never had much of a problem with making friends, but I have issues maintaining them. When you have friends there's all this pressue to 'hang out' and see them for no apparant reason and I've never much wanted to hang out for hanging out's sake, so I lose touch with people and then's they're not interested when I ask them if they want to come and see a play with me. I don't want to go round to someone's house twice a week to talk about nothing, I find it tedious and pointless. I want people to share experiences with, like going to gigs and travellng to new places. I have a husband for that now but when I was a teenager and in my early twenties I saw a lot of bands and theatre productions on my own. 

I know a lot of people through work, amateur dramatics, and various other groups and clubs I belong to/have belonged to in the past but none of them are people that I can confide in. They are people to go to the pub with or see a play with, not people to talk about my problems with. 

The worst thing was when I got married. My husband has a lot of family and a lot of people he has been close friends with in the past that he keeps in touch with. I probably had 2 friends of my own to invite. All the others were either shared friends we met through the same am dram group or my husbands friends that I get on quite well with. I went through all of my aquaintences and there was hardly anyone I felt close enough to invite, because they might think it was weird that I would invite them, or that I didn't know them well enough to really want them there on a day when I knew I'd feel really vulnerable. 

I don't feel that I'm missing out because I don't have friends (of the 2 mentioned above one has moved away from the area and the other I have grown apart from recently, so I really don't have any friends now!). I see enough people socially. My social limit generally has a shelf life of about 3 hours anway, if I'm with the same group of people for more than that I start feeling like I need to escape so I start to shut down and stop communicating. 

Hi my name is Henry and I think alot like you in that I only do things that I want to do and once it has been done I lose interest.

I would like to know if you have and ways of dealing with this issue.

This may sound rather "sad", but some of the best aquaintances I have had, over the years, have been the office misfits and wierdos. We are perceived as flawed people by nts and so are many others around. I no longer seek the company of the popular people, they can pick and choose. 

I often try to talk to people who are avoided by others. It has many advantages. They expect less from others and are more tollerant. They can more easily be approached alone. They too can be feeling lonely and appreciate the company. I have heard some strange tales and ignored much prickly behaviour, but when you get beneath the crusty exterior, there may be some likeable qualities.

There is an old saying,"a friend in need, is a friend in deed". This can be taken many ways, but I think that if someone really needs something from you, they are more likely to return the favour. It doesn't always work, but friendship takes practice. If you practice on less popular people, there are less repercussions of failure, and sometimes unexpected rewards.

Hi Yes, I do recieve alerts. I often check my emails on my phone when I am out and when I have an alert from here I read the email but If on my phone I don't follow the link. This then means I don't recieve the next update alerts. This may have been what happened. That or I checked on my phone whilst out but forgot to reply when I came online. Either way I apologise.

I did look for nas groups, there is a socialising group near me. I think they go out for a meal together once a month or something like that. But I am reluctant to attend it as I am not sure it would help. There is I think a course I could attend, but I couldn't afford it. 

I don't know about council services or Mental health. I hadn't thought to check with them.

What you have sounds good, I would find that helpful.

It's very frustrating being told i'm rude. I have never intentionally hurt or upset anyone and I don't like to think that I have done that. I try not to say much and when things like this happen It knocks my confidence and I end up going silent. This will go round in my head for a while now.

T

tlc,

You should have received an email alert when a thread, that you have contributed to, has a new reply? Do you get these sometimes?

So it sounds as though you need some coaching with how to go about this and to learn how to understand what people mean when they tell you that you are rude. Is there a NAS adult group local to you? Does your local mental health trust or local council provide support services for autistic people? My local trust is actually very good and they will provide one to one sessions to discuss any issues I have like this. They also run group sessions about how to get on better with the condition. They are very keen to help keep people in work and off benefits so there is a healthy bit of motivation for them to help people like us.

recombinantsocks sorry I have only just noticed your reply.

We all started on the same year so they have known each other just as long as they have known me, but of course they speak more than I do.

I don't speak much and often when I do I say the wrong things. Just today I was informed that someone thought I was rude... this was because I was very direct about a concern I had. I thought my point was honest and valid (it probably was). However it waI was told it was considered rude because I didn't "dress it up". I am not sure I understand what that even means...

I was told to think about how I would want people to be with me... I said I wanted people to be honest and straightforward and thats how I try to be with others.

I don't want to invite them round as I am not sure how that would turn out... I can't imagine there reactions or if they came I am not sure if they would be comfortable. Or how to entertain them.

Making friends certainly isn't easy.

T

I have no frends and my family is not close to me