No friends

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I have a few acquaintances, but I feel like it's always me that has to organize meeting up and I've got to the point where I think, "well, if they don't really want to spend time with me, why should I force them to?"

Weirdly, because I've moved around so much I know loads of people and I think they all assume that I have friends elsewhere and don't need them, so don't invite me anywhere. or they just don't like me at all.

I'm feeling pretty bitter at this point in my life. I had some friends that turned out not to be real friends and I wonder what the point is anymore.

Now that I think of it I do have 2 real friends, but they are my parent's age, not that it matters I suppose, but I'm always there if they need me and they're always there if I need them, so that's better than nothing

That's my definition of a friend, but I don't think this is the "normal, adult" definition of a friend. Do you think NT people view friendship differently?

I have never had any real friends in my life. Only acquaintances that come and go. I blame it on bad luck and poor communication skills.

That's my definition of a friend, but I don't think this is the "normal, adult" definition of a friend. Do you think NT people view friendship differently?[/quote

Possibly. Their friends are their own age and they are people that they go out with and have drinks with and dance and gossip and stuff.

I was thinking about some friends I had a few years ago. They were really nice women, but they had all known each other for years and I had just moved to town and didn't know them and they were always talking about their history and they liked to go out drinking and I felt bored and left out even though they had tried to include me. I just didn't fit in.

I think NTs just sort of know how to behave around each other and hang out with other people like them and that's their friends. Othe people that want to go out drinking and talk about other people.

Truthfully, I have no idea. I don't understand this whole having friends thing. I feel left out and alone because I don't have anyone my own age. I don't really know what they are doing while I'm sitting having dinner with my old people friends at home.

I have no friend at the moment. I guess the last time when I had a few was about five years ago. Then our classes at school were mixed and I couldn´t find new friends and my old friends found other persons to meet or hang out or changed the school. I guess I was not close enough to them to keep them after the change.
So I finally finished school this year without any friends and didn´t find a new one until now.
In November suddendly a person of my music course wrote an email to me. We wrote a bit about how our lives are going on after school, it was interesting and I hoped I will maybe have a chance that we could keep the contact but after a few times she didn´t send an answer anymore. I don´t know why.

That´s my definition of a friend too. What do you think is the "normal adult definition" of a friend?
I think what hurtloam wrote could fit as their definition.

1. We are forced to be around each other frequently (neighbors, same school, same job, same church, etc.)
2. We have something in common (usually we think similarly, have similar interests, similar socioeconomic, religious, or ethnic backgrounds).
3. We enjoy interacting with each other (or at least can tolerate each other's presence).
4. A mutual bond of affection develops over time because we interact with each other regularly.
5. There is no mutual sexual attraction.
6. One person is not in a position of authority over the other person.

I think that is how normal adults view friendship. Notice I didn't say anything about love or helping each other or anything like that. It is simply spending time with each other and feeling positive feelings towards each other. I have even seem people who hate each other consider themselves friends. Ever watch those reality TV shows that come on VH1, how they all hang out but hate each other?

I have very few friends, based on my definition. By the "normal, adult" definition I have many friends, but I don't consider them friends. I call them acquaintances. I don't put much effort into my relationships with acquaintances. Too much trouble, not enough rewards. I guess that is the difference between solitary types like aspies and more extraverted types. Solitary people are very selective about who they socialize with. More extraverted people cast a wide net and decide how close they will let different people get to them.

Of course this is all speculation. I haven't read any psychological literature on it. Consider the source. Does it sound reasonable to other people?

I've had one close friend since school but we hardly ever talk or meet up anymore, maybe less than once a month. It is starting to feel a lot like I have no friends. I want friends. I'm starting to get really down on myself because of this.

Friendship never came easy to me in school and even though I've learned loads more social skills since then, it still doesn't come any easier. How long will I have to wait...

I'm kind of embarassed to admit it but the worst thing for me is the jealousy of seeing how much fun people can have together and not being included. If I was ignorant to it all, I might be able to live my life happily and alone. But ignorance is like virginity once it's gone it's gone.

I have no friend ... and I don't know what is the worst ... to feel strange because "everybody has friends" or because I feel totally comfortable like this. The more difficult is the social pressure. I tried to build friendship but I felt myself like playing a role ... I did not know what to do, what to tell. If I am with my close family (my wife, my children), I am totally ok. But as soon as other people come in the equation, I am lost. I don't know what to talk about, how to behave .

I have acquaintances who laugh at me and think I'm weird.

That's how I think that other people see things. You've put that into words so much better than I did! I wonder if I stress too much about not connecting with people. Maybe I don't need to feel connected. I generally do get on ok with most people. I always feel like I'm not connected to them enough to ask them to join me in any activities. Like we're not really friends so they won't want to. Maybe I'm wrong and I should put myself out of my way for people more often and just ask. If they say no, they say no.

On bill thread I said:

Nearly.

It has been around 7 years since I have done anything socially with anyone I am not related too. If i recall i went out to eat with some people back in February of 2007. We had barbeque.

I got just one couple, friends of my wife as my friends. But they are about 1.5 hours drive away. Except that I got no real friends at all and I am so soul hungry for close friends. I wanna make me some friends, but fail to do so. I tried it many times.

I guess I can make news friends with other aspies, but not with NTs. At some day they find diffeculties with being friend with me. My social lag of having no social autopilot in comunication with NTs is a border that NTs cannot overcome. They suppose too much into what I say and or write, they often see and understand more between the lines than I actualy have said or written. I see only backgroudn color between the lines I write, NTs seem to see more, even when there is no more! Somehow they are not able to learn that I do not speek between the lines and say and mean exactly what I say or write.

I wonder how that goes with Aspies in the USA... USA is known for superficial friendships, like having tens and hundredts of friends, but about no deep relationships and no real deep friendships. Like collecting soo many "friends" in Facebook... but are these all friends? What is a real friendship anyway?

I do not need friends. Due to my social ineptness I find most people are mainly annoying. It takes a lot of time and effort to form and maintain friendships.

One of the reasons most people need friends is that they reaffirm subconsciously that we belong to groups with the strength of numbers to protect us.

If you're a secure person with respect to how rational you are about your fears in life, you will require fewer other people around you to help you feel safe.

This can be due to high intelligence, high wealth that insulates you from day-to-day problems, and all sorts of things.

The consequence of not being around others, however, is that in the long run we lose empathy. If we also are insecure, because we DON'T have something to replace the strength of numbers from group involvement (such as wealth or power), the conflict between our lack of desire to be around irrational groups and our need for their protection causes ANXIETY.

People, including Aspies, are really easy to undertand once you realize that all of our behavior is influenced by its relationship to our subconscious need to be secure. This is reaffirmed when you compare the findings of neurotheologists and their triggering of bliss states via pattern repetition in music and chaning with the areas of the brain affected during those experiments and the sociological purpose of those areas of the brain traditionally.

Phew! I know, it's a mouthful.

Basically it comes down to this: if you want to be alone but are unhappy, it's because you feel insecure on your own, which is natural. You need to either find a way to replace communal security with individualism (through greed and acqusition, or power) or you need to be a little more communal, at the very least.

The status quo will not get better. You will simply end out relying on your own forms of pattern repetition -- whether through obsessive or singular constant behavior -- to try to top up the anti-anxiety drugs you will need.

I've met some aspies who seem to have never had much of a need for others to feel secure, and they just prefer to be alone. But the mere fact that they post online or feel the need to be noticed at all confirms that, subconsciously, we all need others a little bit.(Except for sociopaths, who are likely just genetic flotsam left over from the neanderthal portion of most people's DNA.)