I just want everyone to know

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Hey,

I'm 13 and I got diagnosed with AS when I was 6. I feel and know that no-one includes me that much and that I only have 4 very close friends, their names are, Calvin, Callum, Abigail and Thomas. I did have 5 but sadly, my ex-friend Emily left me alone just about 10 minutes. We had an argument in English and she swore at me twice. I need help and tips on how to get people to be my friend and how to explain AS to them.

Kieran

Welcome to WP

First piece of advice: make up with your friend; it was just an argument & not worth losing a friendship over!

for just a small argument probably not even worth arguing about, fix it...
btw: the age of 13 is going to be very hard, your life is about to change

Welcome to WP!

Hello Judging by your post you are in America. Is that correct?




I'm probably wrong

Why does that even matter at all?

Anyway, to the original poster, I just want to say that if you have 4 close friends at your age, while you have aspergers, then you should be very proud of yourself. I think I had one, maybe, at that age, so you are lucky in that way. Keep them close.

Britain

Anyway, I lost another one today, kicked her in the face during Trampolining (accident), so now it's down to 3. And I lost my girlfriend about 2 weeks ago

Tried, failed

Oh gosh. Just give it time. Friendships at 13 are hard for everyone, Aspie or not. You are doing very well for yourself! Sometimes when a person's energy gets high, they just need some space. Eventually they will come around again.

I was just interested. I do not understand the annoyance I detect from your post.

When I was your age I was excluded. For example, I was the last pick for sports teams in athletics class. Sometimes I would be introduced to other kids whose parents my mom knew, but that never went anywhere. Looking back, I was aloof, and resistant to interacting without preparation. I had neither the talent nor the motivation to make a lot of friends, and I'm still all about business.

KieranJupe, you asked how to get friends and keep them. The best advice I ever got on that was
"in order to have a friend, you must first BE a friend."

Do nice things for the person you want as a friend.

Help them with things. Little actions count a lot, like hold the door open for them, if their pencil breaks give them
your spare pencil. When someone is mean to them, let them know that you noticed and you didn't think it was
nice. You don't want to "smother" the person with attention -- that could make them feel weird. But what you
need to do is let that person know that they are in your thoughts, that you are going to stick up for them and
be tolerant of their mistakes. If that person trips and falls down, you should be the one person who does not laugh.
Instead, you ask them if they are all right. Show them you are concerned for their well-being, and you are not
going to desert them if they do something embarassing.

A good way to keep a friend is to find something interesting that both of you can work on together (not computer games!)
Work on something together that you can point to and say "we did that!" And when you are working together, don't always insist that things be done the way you think they should be. Sometimes do things your way, sometimes do things the way
your friend wants. If you ever find that you are arguing about something, stop and hold your breath while you ask yourself
this question: which is more important, to get my way right now? or to keep my friend?

Now, explaining to them about Aspergers --- hmmm. Maybe you can tell them you have a type of social blindness. It's like being color blind. Someone who is color blind can see things, but can't tell all the colors apart. Someone who has a social blindness can talk to people and participate in things, but can't "see" all the social things that happen between people the way NTs do. (You'll have to explain what an NT is, also.) An Aspie can't tell all the different shades of emotions apart.

Girlfriend at 13? You're doing better than the rest of us.
I only had one friend at 13 and it did hurt when she stopped being my friend.

Don't worry about how many friends you have, just how good the few you have are.
I have friends but there's not one that I can talk to. Not one wants to know about my AS and when I'm having problems they rather pretend like they didn't hear me.
Girlfriends and friends come and go. Don't be so down about losing them, but look forward to gaining more.

1. be frinendly
2. be honest
3. reserve judement (helps prevent arguements)
4. discuss mutual intrests (at least untill you really feel like you know that person)
5. Have freaking fun DAmnit, if you dont have fun then its pretty much pointless right?

Agreed! I didn't even have a friend until 14, and it was really hard work for me to keep them.

Hi KieranJupe and welcome to the WP. As pensieve said, "Girlfriend at 13? You're doing better than the rest of us." I never even went on a date until I was in the latter half of my senior year in high school. I was 18. It was just too awkward socially for me to even think about it seriously.

Like you, I had few friends---I just didn't fit in with the mainstream at all. I was thought of as too weird and eccentric. But the few friends I had were cherished. And these few friends changed through the years as some no longer hung around me. My best friend I had had since elementary school started hanging around the more popular mainstream kids at school when we were in junior high, and I was alone. I even started hanging around a couple kids who were thought of as extremely strange by the standards of the 1970's. Today they would probably be labeled "emo" or "goth". Though my grades remained high, my social life was an awkward wreck. Then, in high school, I hung around with the "band geeks" as we were called. That didn't bother me. It was who I was, and still am. Nothing could change that. Why make myself miserable by hanging around those that I found too awkward to associate with? And they would have probably made fun of me.

So---don't worry. I've been there and done that. It gets better. You will find your little niche. Throughout my high school life I had maybe three friends that I felt somewhat close to. I absorbed myself into my interests a lot and was happy. I don't think I have really given you any really useful advice here---but I just wanted to let you that you are not alone. And, from someone who has struggled socially, I can tell you that it gets better---especially if you try to relax more with it. You have to be yourself and not worry.