Hard Time Making Friends?

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Who has a hard time making friends? I am a very likeable social person but I just do not connect with people on a deeper level. I have an inconsistent bit of close friends. I have more friends whom are casual. I do want another new close friend who can connect with me on the same level and have common interests. I had too many instances where I would be friends with all these people whom fell under the “stupid and shallow” train. Not to mention, I had drama as a result of picking the wrong friends. I do appreciate flaws but some cross my line beyond what I comprehend. I have a best friend with social anxiety and no matter how many stupid things he did I still highly appreciate him in my life. He has been a blessing for me.

Yes, I have always had school/college friends but never proper friends. I can't seem to go from the initial friendly bit, like speaking/hanging out in college/school to doing things out with there, apart from the odd thing. I would quite like one but it doesn't seem to work plus everyone just wants to go out at night and I really don't like that.

I can't make friends if my life depended on it. It makes me feel so depressed and worthless. There are so many things I would love to do in my free time, but have nobody to do these things with, so I've got to just spend my days off hanging out on my own. I know some people might say it's a good thing, but it does get boring after a while. It'd be nice to have somebody to talk to whilst walking around the shopping center. Time goes quicker when you're with company. I just sit and eat lunch on my own, wonder around on my own, get on the bus on my own. I would love a friend.

Without my husband (who is marginally on the spectrum so understands me) and some family, I would be entirely alone. I'm not close to those in my family either. We get together a couple of times a year for a couple of hours only. I have had no "friends" since school, and even then, as tetris said, they were only school/university friends. I never did anything with them other than school.

I had one same-sex friend in my university years. I don't know why we connected, but we sure did. She suffered from kidney failure and was always dealing with transplants and dialysis. I always wondered if that gave us something in common, that being that life was more difficult for us that others. She ended up dying of complications related to kidney failure. So, I know what it is to have a good friend, but that got taken away.

I would love to have a friend. But I am so far away from knowing how to do the social dance at this point in my life, it is never going to happen.

My husband and I met in our computer/programmer geeky stage of life and again the bond stuck. Thank goodness for him.

I understand how alone it makes one feel.

Yeah. Hate it.

It's amazing how people just get to know each other (like in schools and so) so naturally. I just started in a new school and I've been observing my classmates how do they interact. It's like magic to me! They just... do it.

When I want to make a new friend of someone I have to.. Well yeah, exactly that: Make them. And then I fail because I try too hard and they seem to notice that. I can't act natural so I end up being just some creepy, stalking weirdo.

I have a hard time making friends and a harder time keeping them.

Online isn't always so bad, but real life friends are very difficult to come by - indeed, I don't have any at the moment

I feel the same way as many of you. I very much want to connect with people, but it feels like there is some invisible wall between me and them. I might have isolated incidents with a friend or two where I think "Hey, this is the beginning of a really great connection, right? We are connecting here, yes?" and then the incidents just don't keep repeating and we don't even hang out that much. Other times I make friends and then later down the road they take advantage of me in some way so I am forced to stop being friends with them or I find characteristics about them that cross the line for me and prevent us from connecting. I go through periods where I feel excited about possibilities of connection but they never seem to pan out. Then I feel very lonely, like I do now.

Sometimes I wonder if I would even be able to reciprocate and feel the connection if one existed. Maybe people have felt very connected to me and NTs would generally also feel that connection themselves if they were in my position, but I just... can't generally. And that really frightens me.

I feel like I have had only one true connection in my life, which gives me some hope. That ended with me being taken advantage of though and the friendship ended badly.

Now I am in a new school, working towards a graduate degree, and I have a group of "friends" who I hardly see and who sometimes have characteristics that really offend me. I wonder to myself if I should find other friends more suited to me. But I just don't know how I would even go about doing that. It seems like people just fall together. But I never fall together with them right. I am really afraid I never will.

Have you tried to genuinely get to know people you talk to?
A key is often to show interest in their lives and what they're doing.
If someone tells you that they failed their test, ask how they felt about that, if it feels important to them, further on what their plans are etc.

I actually have a fair amount of friends, but most of them are other misfits, lol. I actually struggle with making friends, but I'm amazing at keeping them.

I had an easier time in high school, but I haven't had any friends since (that's an 8 year dry spell). I am not an aspie who is happy in complete isolation. That's why I think I love my job in special education - It is my only interaction outside of family (whom I live with). I'd be so happy to have someone to talk to again but no matter how hard I try to imitate NT behavior no one sees me as more than an acquaintance.

I have no friends, expect my cousin without her and the rest of my family I'd be forever alone.

I try to make friends and I've made some friendly acquaintances but I don't know how to turn them in to proper friends.

I hate how easy NTs can make friends. When I tell people I have none, they don't believe me. They act like it's as easy to walk to a shop and buy something but for me it's like walking to the shop with a broken leg and when you get you don't have enough money to buy something.

As a child, it took me 3 years to make friends, but when I found out how it was so easy. All you had to was as people to join in their game and play it with them. Then join them everyday and watch the friendship grow. Now you have to talk to people about thing that does not involve games your play together