Friends as resources

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Let me start by saying that I care deeply for my friends, even though I am terrible at maintaining relationships with them when they are not brought to me by my regular routine, or initiate contact with me to catch up.

But, I have realised that I have a tendency which sounds very Aspie-consistent. Many, if not most, of my friends have a particular expertise, experience or interesting perspective on things that are interests of mine. This is particularly noticeable with one friend in particular, who is conversant to a high level on many varied topics, but specialises in computer networks. He helped fix the RAID on my home fileserver by examining hex dumps of the superblocks and has set up national cellular networks with no prior experience - he just read the GSM manuals. I'd suspect he was Aspie if he weren't so socially comfortable. But, I digress.

When I go and see friends, and him in particular, I will often go with a mental set of questions, or talking points. When other friends distract him with conversations about things that interest him, but do not interest me, like the MMO game they're playing, I get very frustrated. I know this might seem exploitative, but it is such a base, natural feeling for me.

Does this ring true for you?

I believe that everyone operates like this. Relationships are all about co-creating and sharing something of value, of one variety or another.

NTs and extroverts get a lot out of basically just being together, and aspies and introvert types don't, not inherently. So sometimes it seems like NTs are better friends (and they probably are), but I believe they are getting an extra dimension of pleasure or value out of almost any social encounter, which makes it much more worth it to them, and motivates them to be highly social.

My relationships are much less relating for relatings sake, because the value I get out of doing so is very weak. I have to find ways of making up for that. "What can I do to make this social interaction valubable for me as well as them?" Other people don't have to make that extra effort, it's just natural.

It can make you seem like a jerk at times. It can make it hard to hold onto relationships. But we probably all know that.

For me, hanging out with people seems like one of the most altruistic and least selfish things I can do Other people wouldn't bat an eyelid at jumping to see their friends at any opportunity. And why would they? They love it! It's a pleasure, not a chore. Even the drudge of work is mitigated by the opportunity for socialising. Not so for me.