It's over...now what?

Post Reply New Topic

I am just a few days away from leaving a college that I went to for a year. I have a number of friends there, however there is one in particular that I am pretty close to. He will also be transferring to a different school next year. That said, this friend will sometimes have difficulty displaying his emotions. We live in two different states and will be finishing college in our respective states. I am wondering if anyone has advise on how to ensure that we stay close and not just become someone the other knew a long time ago. He is kind of quiet so I'm not sure if frequent phone calls or facebook/myspace would work by itself. One other thing, I will be in his home state later this month and wanted to make the extra hour drive to see him but I am not sure if I should just ask to stay a couple of days (which is what I want, especially since that would give me time to hang out with our mutual friends) or if I should just do a day trip. Timing is also important because I have a small gift for him (t-shirt) and I don't want to give it to him and then make him feel guilty for saying I can't stay or give it to him after and make him think I want him to change his mind if he has already said no. We have a couple of events coming up like an end of year picnic tonight and a baseball game tomorrow. Any good advise would be appreciated.

i gotta say, email, email, and more email. this is a good way for a shy person to remain connected to you i think

I'm with Richard... email, email, email.
I'm always awkward on the phone and email works for me. I take a few pictures of my latest project, my life in general and that gives me talking points. I keep it to one or two pics at a time, so as not to get boring.

Don't do the forward thing too much... that always pushes me towards disconnection. I want to hear from the person I know.

When you can swing it, get together... arrangements are tricky for me, too. I never know what's proper and can only go by what they say they are willing to accept... I always offer to stay in a hotel or something and sometimes they take me up on it and sometimes they don't... that speaks to their energy level, not you.

Aaargh, and the gift thing... I've never quite worked that one out myself.

I'm sorry, but could you explain what you mean by the forward thing? Sometimes I don't understand without concrete examples.

No problem...
When folks send those cheesy jokes, photos, lame inspirational sayings and cutesy stories that someone forwarded to them and they just hit the email forward button and ship it to you. My gripe is there's nothing personal about it, it just strikes me as lazy and most of the forwards are sophomoric... IMO Half the time folks don't even bother to strip the previous email addresses.

Wish I had your true email, I could send you a lame forward and show you.

Does that help?

Donkey Buster, I understand what you mena now. I've recieved those before and they are really annoying.

All, I've only got a couple days left so please keep the suggestions coming. The more, the better.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one bugged by Forwards.

To be realistic, don't be surprised if the connection lapses after a while. I do find that for myself it's very hard to FEEL connected if I'm not actually seeing and doing with the person at least occasionally... like a couple of times a year.

And saying that, I have managed to stay connected to one person for a couple of years without seeing her... it has a lot to do with how often and how well the other person responds to email. I have two regular email buddies (the other one I see every few months) who I still feel connected to. Others have lapsed because they just didn't respond much... too busy or they don't say enough to respond to.

Letter writing is an art and an awful lot of folks have no skill in it.

And don't be afraid to tell your friend when you miss him... or when you've been thinking of him. That always feels good to me... to hear I've been in someone's thoughts occasionally.

Thanks again. Well the school year has ended. We've both gone home. I gave him the shirt and all is well. I mentioned that I would be in the town that is about an hour away with a mutual friend of ours for an event. I said that I was going to go back to his hometown for a few hours and we agreed that we would hang out. But, I really want to stay at his house. His mother contacted me recently about something unrelated and she specifically said that I was welcome anytime that I was in the area. Nonetheless, I feel sort of weird about asking him if i can stay for a couple days. Not because we aren't close enough to do that (we've gone to each other's houses once before), but rather he is really important to me (that sounds a little gay, but that's not what I meant) and I want to make sure that everything is just right including not asking to come too often. He will probably say yes, but I get apprehensive when dealing with things like this. HELP. Oh and then there is the matter of leaving. Because of my AS sometimes I have those awkward moments when we are having a good time and all of a sudden the fun stops because we are both somewhat introverted and we feel awkward and know it. I don't want that to happen when I leave his house. I want to end on a high note.

ad... I think we as Aspies can over think something and drive ourselves batshit in the process. If you've been told you're welcome, you've been there before, everything was cool... why not? What are you expecting... for them to send a shuttle to pick you up? If this is someone you want to trust, then give it a go...

And always remember, company and fish have a lot in common... they both start to stink after a couple of days... this is an old adage the NTs have, and it's stood me in good stead.

If you are helpful and appreciative to the family, you'll always be welcome there.

hey donkeybuster, can you take a look at my private messge, please?