needless to say, this makes friendships awkward, its only with a lot of hard work and understanding that they are kept and i have only started gaining friends in my third year of highschool.
i have two close friends, and one only got close because she never heard the rumours about my sexual thoughts. a new girl.
i don’t know how to be there for my friends so i will tell them to be blunt, they must be blunt or i will not understand what they want me to do.

Thank you for sharing. I feel truly humbled that you feel able to share that here. Truly.

Outside of long term relationships, I too would genuinely struggle to find friendships in my adulthood that had any more substance to them than the one you have mentioned. Most would have less – when I fail to keep up the dialogue with friends, they typically give up on me, rather than keeping things alive in the way your friend has done.

Long term personal relationships really are different than this for me. I feel a proper attachment and love for the other person, and do what I think are the right things to keep the relationship flourishing. Typically these aren’t the things my partner would expect nor unfortunately sometimes want. So whilst I often experience what I feel to be a wonderful relationship, my partner often feels unloved. Problematic, yes, but far less problematic than typical friendship relationships.

If you’d like to chat outside of the blog – and this goes for any of you who comment – please feel free to use the contact form on the blog (from the tab at the top), leaving a valid email address. I will then email you back, and we can correspond via email.

About a year ago he started going through a divorce after twenty years of marriage. He reached out to me for support during this time. I tried to do my best to help him through the tough time he was having, but I don’t think that I did a very good job. I was not able to do whatever was needed to help him. During this time I had discovered my AS and told him about it trying to explain my actions (there were times I made myself difficult to get in contact with because I could not deal with the intensity our relationship was developing). He said he understood. That I have always been distant and stand-offish.

Now we are back to a phone call every month or so, and we will attend the technical seminar together next weekend.

That is the closest friend that I have ever had.

AJ

I have been terrible at writing comments of late, even on my own blog. I had thirteen un-replied-to comments by this morning, and I’m working my way through them now.

Yes, I’m still reading other ASD blogs, indeed I’m reading more of them than I ever have before. I’m just not commenting very much. I should – there is often something I could say, but I only have so much time and energy available. Part of the problem is habit too – I’ve got out of the habit of commenting, and the thought of doing so doesn’t cross my mind very often. I think that might be part of the only having a tiny little cup for my working memory problem, or at least related to it at any rate.

Over the last couple of weeks, most of my writing energy has gone on blog posts, partly as a way to release pent up energy as I struggle with the prospect of diagnosis. This has been something of a deliberate focus, in an effort to stop me going off the rails. It seems to have worked.

Writing is definitely the medium of communication that I am most comfortable with. I like the fact that it isn’t instant. I can take my time and thus hopefully get across what I was trying to convey. Except, obviously, when I go off on a tangent…

Like you, until I discovered my autism, each new opportunity, like moving house or starting a new job was filled with the optimism that this time I’d manage what I’d not managed before – gaining a sphere of new friends and network of connections. I too mourn this, but do now see it as being entirely unrealistic. In some ways seeing that is a relief too.

Maybe I will try to reach out more to my online autistic friends. I love the mutual acceptance and understanding that wonderful people like you and the other kind people who comment here bring to my life.

James

I hear you on this. It’s comforting to know that it isn’t just me, and I hope that you too can draw some comfort that you aren’t alone in this either.

Yes, you are right of course – everyone, regardless of their neurology feels loneliness from time to time.

I would argue, however, that those people with a sphere of good friends to turn too are better placed to deal with their loneliness. Their loneliness can often be banished via a simple call for a chat or a meet up for a drink.

Illnesses such as depression of course often contribute to feelings of isolation too, so of course it’s not just those with ASDs that can have the problem.

Whilst I’m sure that the spectrum of autism means that there are some with ASDs who have good spheres of friends, I’d wager that more often than NTs it’s those with ASDs that struggle with loneliness through lack of anyone to turn too.

I so understand what you’re talking about. I’ve felt a lot of grief over my lack of friends, particularly this summer. Last summer, I didn’t know I had AS, and I had all kinds of hopes and dreams about making friends in our new town. A year later, I realize that as much as people like and respect me, we don’t connect. It’s partly because we’ve got “incompatible software,” and it’s partly because talking is becoming more and more exhausting for me.

I haven’t seen your comments on any AS blogs for awhile, but I hope you’re still reading some of them. They help me with the aloneness a lot. Sometimes, I read and don’t have the energy for a response, but reading helps me no end. I’m coming to see that the friends I’m making online are good friends, and that writing is my natural way of communicating. It doesn’t drain me; in fact, it energizes and empowers me. The longing for local friends is still there, but I wonder how much of it is just part of an old dream I had about who I was “supposed to be.”

I’m realizing that for many autistic people, writing is the best medium of communication, and I am beginning to embrace it. There’s a reason I had 12 pen friends all over the world when I was a child–I just didn’t know what it was!