Friendships

Particularly in a work context, or any other that may have some element of competition or power to it, caution is warranted.  We do find it much harder to work out what other people's motivation is and bend our heads around what they want from us.  That said, true friends are out there. Those who want nothing from us but ourselves.  Take time to get to know people and invest your emotion slowly.

Funny thing but when I look around at those who are close to me, they so often turn out to be either Autistic or ADHD, or else that rare neurotypical person with brutal honesty and with whom I've found a rapport where our differences in our thinking seems to contrast and complement.  I have one in particular like that who has been my friend for 30 years.  We seem to be able to frame for each other that which the other cannot understand.

The key I think is go slowly.  Many aspects of a person can attract us, but is the 'face value' who they really are?  Life tests that and folk's true nature can be judged by what they do over time.

Dawn said:

Particularly in a work context, or any other that may have some element of competition or power to it, caution is warranted

I lost two of my best work friends to this - one when I was promoted and another when he was promoted over me. I’ve been careful ever since to engineer moves within the company rather than be in the same team as people I see as work friends.

Dawn said:

The key I think is go slowly. 

But not too slowly. I keep deliberating over whether or not people are making friendly overtures to me and in most cases by the time I realise that they’ve been working hard to be my friends, it’s too late and they’ve given up on me.

Good to see you back on the forum!

Oh I dip in whenever I can :-)  I've never really gone away.

Actually depending on how we feel about disclosure of our autism being explicit about our communication needs can go along way with those 'overtures'. 

Had an instance like that just very recently.  Someone who's been my friend for a while has feelings for me of a whole other nature ;-), but his first attempts to signal that went straight over my head.  Fortunately, he had been listening very carefully when I had been discussing the differences between autistic and neurotypical communication styles with him.  He realised trying to hint that he fancies me was going to get him precisely nowhere and took the very direct, unambiguous approach to what he wanted from our relationship.  So glad he did, or I'd never have worked it out.  And actually what he tells me he finds so refreshing is the freedom to say absolutely anything to to me as directly as he's thinking it and have me respond in kind. 

Point being, I think, actively telling people we miss out on a lot of nonverbals and indirect language and inviting them to be as direct as they like with us can work.

I hope you get a positive response.  It can make all the difference to you, but you would also be opening minds for the next autistic person to come along.

I hope you get a positive response.  It can make all the difference to you, but you would also be opening minds for the next autistic person to come along.