Overlapping circles of friends
Don't know if it is connected to Asperger's or if it is just my personal quirk, but something I've noticed is that I actively prevent my different circles of... friends (better: acquaintances) from overlapping. I got my college "friends", my hobby "friends", my friend friends, my other hobby "friends", my other hobby "friends", and some internet friends, and I go to great lengths to prevent them from getting introduced to each other. I think it is because I put on different facades in each of these circles, not to become accepted, but just to not stick out too much. When two of them overlap, some behavioural patterns I have adopted in each circle individually tend to collide, and this confuses me and causes me to make a fool out of myself. People have been telling me that at times, they find me to be frighteningly manipulative, as I plan and arrange meetings and other things so there will not be any mixing between two groups.
if this is just a quirck, i'm part of the minority that has it.
indeed, one of my bigger fears is two (or more, heavenforbid) of my 'social groups' meeting while i'm present.
this is also the main reason i dont like to invite others over to my place (i live in a shared college group home); firstly it's becouse my room is my 'haven', but the general area should be safe from that; where it not for the social circle there...
actually, this was the topic of my most recent visit to the psycologist; she didn't respond fully to it other then a 'i need to think that over', but id did appear that she was stumped by that...
My friend/acquaintance situation is similar. I don't really have 'circles of friends' just individual friends/acquaintances I guess. For the most part they don't even know of each other. I think it is partly because I doubt most of them would really get along if they met. I kind of think of each of my friends as a planet in a solar system... each just sort of on a totally different orbit/path. What does that make me? A satellite circles around from planet to planet maybe?
In a sense I guess I try to keep them apart a little bit, I just don't know how I could manage interacting with like an friend/acquaintance I have based on the fact that I like to backpack while at the same time trying to interact with a friend/acquaintance I have based on the fact I like to program computers. My interests are disjoint and that kind of makes my friends/acquaintances disjoint by default as well.
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((12+144+20+3*(4^(1/2)))/7)+5*11 = (9^2) + 0
Scandium
Veteran
Joined: 31 Jul 2011
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 784
Location: Orange County, CA, USA, Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Local Cluster
I have problems when friends "overlap" too. The first time I had more than one friend asking me to do something with them, I panicked. I think it's because I don't know how to handle conflicts in schedules with other people. I don't want to say to one friend that I'm doing something with another friend.
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Element #21
I have friends from:
*Running
*School
*Church
*Online
*Random
The first three groups overlap a lot, my online friends never overlap with my IRL, and my random usually don't, but may occasionally overlap somehow with any of the groups.
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Go die in a ditch if you're a b*tch, if you're a jerk, go to work, if you're just mean, flee the scene, and if you're rude, go ahead and intrude because you're probably just like me.
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