Having real friends vs. being taken advantage of

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rabidmonkey4262
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29 Nov 2012, 2:25 pm

So I think Jack Robison does a great job of articulating this particular frustration:
Jack Robison, the animal at the zoo

I was bullied in middle school, but once I got to high school, I learned how to prevent the bullying by using my special interest. The popular kids always wanted to audition for school musicals and the news spread that I could play piano. Some of them started asking me to help them with their audition songs. I'd do things like help them interpret the sheet music, or I'd accompany them for their auditions. The bullying stopped and I was praised alot by both the other students and the teachers. They actually started to come over to my house so I could help them. My embarrasing mother was so floored that she started taking pictures of me coaching them :oops: This was all together a good thing, but I still was very lonely. I always knew that they weren't being nice to me because they wanted to be genuine friends; they were nice because they wanted to use my talent.

Now that I'm in college, I have the same problem. I have people I barely know coming to me for help. One guy told me that I was the "smart girl" and that's why he asked me for advice all the time. This happened in the middle of an organic chemistry lab, and the weird thing is that I don't even consider myself very proficient at O-chem. I was still able to answer his questions, but it just feels weird because I know people are only nice to me when they want something. I've managed to get two close meaningful friends, but I still feel like I'm disconnected from other people. One time, someone candidly told me that I was "intimidating." I'm not sure if they were being sarcastic or if they really meant it. I've always thought of myself as being really unassuming. I'm skinny, quiet, and extremely introverted. I'm not sure there's much to be intimidated about.


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Vectorspace
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29 Nov 2012, 5:36 pm

I'm actually happy if people ask me for help at math, as long as they are polite.
My social communication skills are bad, so the opportunity of talking about something that I like while other people listen to me is otherwise rare.

I can relate to the statement in the video. There are certainly quite a number of people who are fascinated by me. This is not inherently bad, as it means that I get people's attention. But it doesn't help me at all at making friends.



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30 Nov 2012, 1:39 pm

Why do people feel the need to pretend they are your friend to get your help? That never made sense to me.


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TornadoEvil
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30 Nov 2012, 2:24 pm

I never mind helping people with their schoolwork during class. It actually can help my understanding of the topic a lot, "you don't understand something until you can teach it to someone." I also think there might be "oh look a poor aspie boy" a lot, I do that to people. I do small talk with people between classes. I sit with a few people in the cafeteria and converse with them. I am in the engineering department, some people are only looking for some help most of the time. But I think there are a few people who I can also talk about other things with. Though its all engineers and a good portion of them aren't very social. Of course it is school, so most of the talk is about other classes and what you're taking, and curriculum.

Doing extracurricular activities helps finding friendships too, string orchestra, for example. I talk with a former violinist member when I see her around lunch. I doing some volunteering for an introductory engineering orientation class, and get to meet with and socialize with the other volunteers there. The Advisor who runs that class is very willing to help people, and talks about her problems with me, like she recently had a family member encountered serious health issues, and then he died (I mostly sit quiet and listen and offer a little sympathy in those situations). Shes more of a matronly figure to me, and she is someone I can go to for help. I also attend a few other campus events at college, and I mostly end up being the quiet kid, but I can at least pay some attention to other people.

One of my engineering buddies told me that people are much easier to win over than I think they are, and talking about school is a part of that. He also bugs me about schoolwork for classes that I have no idea how to do just because I'm the smart guy, but we also share some random nonsense on Facebook directly too each other. He doesn't want to hang out because he says he has issues associating with people though. I did talk with him about his recent problems though, I shared with him about a problem I am having, and he shared some interesting issues hes been having.

For advice, maybe you need to figure out which people are interested in a closer friendship, especially the people coming to you for help, they might be interested in getting to know you more.