Published on 12, July, 2020
Are there any other people on this forum with Asperger's who literally have no friends at this point in time, and that includes being in a relationship?
I have had friends before, but not since I was 11 years old, and the friendships I had as a child usually broke down after only a few weeks. I have a history of struggling to maintain friendships, although they were enjoyable while they lasted, but once I started secondary school, making friends became completely insurmountable. I became a loner, the kid no-one talked to, and I amused myself. Not that I really minded this at the time, because I had my own interests to fall back on, and I soon came to the conclusion that small talk was too difficult, pointless, and often boring. Why bother with something that is so difficult and made me feel so stupid and tense?
However recently I have started to question whether or not I should try and make friends again. I do like company, and I don't want to spend my life alone. I want to have a soul-mate, someone I can enjoy life with, and go places with. However I need a lot of time alone as well - this is my conundrum.
Is it normal within the world of AS not to have any friends at all? At school I was excluded from friendship groups because I did not speak enough, or was too clingy!. I tried my hardest to fit in; I took on the quiet 'good girl' persona, but this did not work, so I became troublesome and annoyed people to get some social feedback. Obviously this just meant that I was singled out as weird and strange, but no one told me how to navigate the social world (I was not diagnosed until I was 21).
Although I was lucky in the sense I was not overtly bullied (I was just a loner and removed myself from the crowd), the experience of being alone while other girls chatted and laughed together has left me with an inferiority complex. I often feel diminutive both literally (I am very small anyway) and figuratively; there is a feeling that I am diseased, dirty, and completely unlikeable. Most of the time these feelings are repressed, but theu come to the surface from time to time - a legacy of social exclusion.
Am I the only one who has not had a 'friend' since childhood, if at all?
I am pretty much the same, I do not have many people at all in my life and inly one "friend" who I feel OK being around and who can handle my company but he lives a long way off and I am tied to where I live because of the "job" I do so I cannot get out much. Recently I asked him why he bothered with me when no one else did ( rather sad question to put to anyone-I know but I was going through a really bleak period and the one thing I can rely on from him is a straight answer to a straight question) He told me it was because I was weird-he does not believe that there is any such thing as Autism-just degrees of weirdness(?) and I am the weirdest bloke he has ever met)!) think he meant it as a compliment but I'd rather he had given some other reason because it made me feel trivial.
I never go to pubs because I can;t handle people when they are drunk and alcohol has a severe effect on me which can come on in an instant everything goes black and i just have to get away.
i can't do smalltalk at all, i can chat briefly about football and a few other things but i have my own perspectives on things which always seem to be out of kilter with everybody else, I dont like expressing my opinions because of the slightly emarrassed or awkward silences which frequently follow. This means I just have to shut up and this makes me boring as company.I could go on citing examples of how most of my interactions ended up pretty much the same way but it won't be any different to what others on this thread have already described.
Nowadays, it seems as if I have given up on that side of life but am reasinably OK about it, i have developed my own interests, I have 3 guitars which i can't play well because of sometimes violent involuntary twitches and that goes for my piano too but I do derive great pleasure from trying and occasionally it comes out OK. I read a lot , draw, paint.and am really seriously thinking about trying to get some qualifications in science-based subjects, we have to create our own worlds
It is obvious that none of this is of any use to anyone-i am explaining why being alone is the only way I can fget by, people make me feel alien, differences are amplified in company and the peace of mind which i need so much to hang onto is snashed into a thousand pieces.
I spent years alone and friendless as a child, maybe the self-sufficiency this drummed into me formed a sort of barrier to new people which may account for my present inability to form relationships but then, I did not have anyone to practice "being friends"
There was an older boy who did befriend me and e was good-he taught me how to rede a bike, play football, rugby etc, and we would have great adventures togethr but now i remember being dropped like a stone by him whenever other boys of his own age were aound.I owe him a lot because my father would not even acknowledge me as his own, let alone do any of the other stuff that dads did with their sons. I suppose my friend pitied me.=shudder! Anyway, I decided to try and get in touch and we did meet up nut he did not want to know really-I told myself that it would be graet and that our friendship would be rekindled but I was deluding myself-I am still hopeless at evaluating tjhe reactions of others to me that I believed he would want to but the onemeeting we had was the last and he did not answer my phinecalls and kept on breaking arrangements we had made to go for a pint before I returned home. I was devastated and ashamed that I was still useless at reading people. It still hurts but I am a survivor and everything will pass..
believe it or not, I was married once-how did that happen? I believe I love her ( actually, although we have been divorced for more than 25 years, my feelings for her are pretty much tjhe same but I know we could never be together again but she was a brilliant mum and we have two daughters of whom we are both proud).and that this was reciprocated but when i look a t her nowadays it just seems so improbable i wonder sometimes if it was real-it was and we have two daughters, we are divorced though, she discovered that my "weirdness" was not a childish phase which I would grow out of with the responsibilities of maintaining an adult relationship.With my frequent faux pas and general awkwardnes in "polite society" I was an embarrassment to her and I lnow shw shared the pain of my failures, I would have left-for her sake- but in the end ,my wife ended it-there was no acrimony, we both knew it was "the end" and as I lived in constant fear of turning into my father who used violence and pychological torture to keep us all under his control, it was a great relief in many respects
.Since then < i have had a few relationships but I usually ended up getting dumped-no problem, I just do not get lonely and I still felt that my primary committment was to my ex-wife and kids so would cancel any arrangement I made with a girlfriend at the drop of a jhat if they wanted anything.
Oh crap-this is all about me again, i seem t feel that I have wisdom to impart but always end up describing the contents of my navel instead!
I have nothing to offer, hang on-I do,there is no alternative, you will find friends here who truly know what you are goinfg through and we will help fill the voids as best as we can, I feel as if I am amongst friends here-it is the best I could hope for and it is real-that is such a good feeling.