How do you know if you are friends with someone?

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So how exactly do you know if someone is your friend without asking them? I want to know if I am friends with someone, but I really don't know what friends do in order to be able to determine if we are friends. All of these social relationship things are too complicated for me.

There will be books out there for information but I have just realised that I have no idea how to establish a friendship. If I meet someone and I like them then to me we are "friends". It seems there needs to be more going on than that though. I have started asking people I like to do things I like with me (like going to the cinema). This seems to help them know they are liked by me. And stopped me being so passive with people that I always just end up doing what they like an resenting it.

The definition of friendship is sort of a moving target. It can realistically be used to describe a relationship from an acquaintance through a blood brother. Even the two people who admit they are friends might mean different things by it.

People who get married often lose many friends. This is not because they suddenly dislike some of their friends, but they are no longer able to invest the time in each of the relationships they had previously. The time element is a critical one to friendship.

I had a friend who got married when I was single. We would make plans to go fishing on a Saturday. I would also make other plans because often at the last minute he was unable to go.

You may pass a security guard each day when you go into work. Over the years your cursory "good morning" may grow to include an odd comment about sports or politics. You each can even come to accumulate information about family members, vacations, and health issues. In time you may even begin to think that friendliness has grown into friendship. However, usually friendship is defined when two people plan to do something together. This can be a sporting event, cultural event, shopping event, etc.

We live in a world where people often dash from one place to another. A hectic schedule is usually the death knell to friendships.

That's a hard to answer question. Acquaintances are more situational, like people you know and like at work or school. Or related to a specific event. But they might not really be friends.

I guess friends are more long-term. Someone that you visit at their house and vice versa, because you want to, not because you have to (e.g. related to an event or project). Friendship means trust, someone you can confide in and vice versa. I know I've met people that I like, but they're not really friends.....they're acquaintances.

Friends are people you can depend upon who depend upon you.
You do things for one another without actually expecting anything in return.

Acquaintances are people who expect something, or aren't "close".

It's really a situational thing - eventually you get a feel for it, but it's not something that has a logical rule behind it.

if they are happy to see you

I've noticed that NTs tend to use the word "friend" in relation to you when they start thinking of you as a friend. They may say something like "....so I told her that my friend X has one too" (X being you)

Friends? Be careful. We Aspies tend to think that friend = "I can tell him/her everything about me." No no. The key is to consciously match the information that they reveal.

You build a friendship the same way you build a sandwich. He puts down bread. You put down mustard. He puts down cheese. And so on. You don't immediately plop an entire beef wellington on his plate.

In other words, just go slowly, ok? You will know he/she is a friend if you invite him to do things and he says yes. GO SLOWLY.

Best relationship advice ever given to an aspie. Wish someone had told me this several decades ago. I learned it the hard way and with huge amounts of analysis, by myself, not long ago. With our reciprocity impairment, we often don't notice if the other person is behaving like a friend, i.e. exposing vulnerabilities appropriate to the level of friendship we think we have with them.

It is difficult. I think it basically means people who take mutual enjoyment in being together and doing things together.

But the levels of trust thing is key. It easy to believe that someone is inviting you into a closer relationship when they tell you things that seem like personal information, and then this turns out to be a plan to get you to reveal things that can be used against you. I've had odd moments like that at work.

The other thing is that you can think everything is solid in a friendship and then discover it is not, and this makes it harder to trust others. What if you are misjudging those relationships, too?

Thank you for this!

Wise words, but personally I have never thought that I could tell anyone everything about myself. There are things I will never entrust anyone with. No-one is entitled to know it all. Some things are just mine.

No matter what anyone reveals to you, don't think you have to reveal anything you don't wish to. A friend who doesn't respect your boundaries isn't a friend.

Yes, that's true, too. I learned everything the hard way. Caution is most important.

That's very funny! People are largely obsessed with themselves though - some people are lucky if they get a change to even see the bread he slapped down before his mustard and his cheese are all over it and they're standing there thinking, hey I want to contribute too. This is OUR sandwich. Or maybe that's just me. Maybe I don't have enough finesse.

I use the term "friend" very sparingly, and only with people with whom I've established a level of trust (usually stems from sharing personal information about oneself, feeling comfortable enough with that person in order to do so). With pretty much every, they're acquaintances, even if I spend a lot of time with them.