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Feb2
Aspies and Friendship, Part One
14 CommentsMany Aspies have difficulties navigating the world of friendship, and I am no exception. I have good friends of many years duration, but I find it hard to traverse the territory between acquaintance and close friend.
As I wrote in my last post, high school was the beginning of my social difficulties. I couldn’t understand the rules of social interaction. I always felt mystified by that strange, invisible force field that seemed to separate me from other people. I pretended to be “normal,” but I had a sinking feeling that I wasn’t fooling anyone. I was very uncomfortable in my own skin, felt constantly overloaded, and couldn’t imagine why anyone would put up with me.
Nonetheless, I had several friends in high school, all of whom were outsiders of one kind or another. My friends seemed to like me, but to be honest, I still don’t know why. Because I was involved in music, I had a kind of crowd, but I always felt socially outclassed and very much younger than everyone else. It was as though everyone were growing up around me, and I was a perpetual kid.
Not surprisingly, I got verbally bullied fairly regularly.
When I was a freshman, one boy wrote in my autograph book: “To a girl who nobody likes and a teacher’s best friend.” I was so naive that I kept looking at what he wrote, trying to figure out the joke. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would be so mean as to write such a thing in an autograph book and be serious about it.
I took to sitting alone, just to have a break from other people. It felt like a great relief—that is, until another student came up to me and said, “Hello, friendless.” That was enough for me. I decided to sit with other people on a regular basis no matter how exhausting it was.
By my senior year, I began to realize that people thought I was rather strange. Several people signed my yearbook with a variation of “It’s been real (?)” and a couple of people made crude sexual jokes. I couldn’t figure any of it out. Did people think I wasn’t real? Was there a question in their minds? And were they actually having sex in high school while I was studying for my SATs?
I was so behind the curve.
Was I strange? I don’t think I was, really. I was different, that’s for sure. I was also exhausted from the physical and mental exertion of trying to keep up with lots of conversations, of walking in the midst of a crowded high school, and of defending against the noise and the chaos in the hallways. I was nearly overwhelmed with anxiety over my need to mimic other people, and I felt panicked by my inability to understand why I hadn’t felt like a person since grammar school.
I couldn’t even figure out why people laughed until a friend explained it to me. She said, “It’s easy. If you think it’s funny, laugh. If you don’t, don’t.”
I was really struggling.
College and graduate school weren’t all that much of an improvement. I felt equally lost in an even bigger world. I excelled academically, and that gave me a certain amount of self-esteem, but it was wearing very, very thin.
I turned a corner of sorts when I began a career as a technical writer. I lost some of my insecurity and became much more sociable. I began to regain that sense of self that had been missing since childhood. I have been puzzling over those days and why I did so well. I’ve finally discovered the answer.
The software industry was the first daily environment since grammar school that made sense to me. The rules were clear. The projects were well defined. I did a good job and got rewarded for it. Best of all, writing departments were populated by people with literature and language degrees, like myself. I made several friends with whom I am still in contact almost 20 years later.
I didn’t spend a lot of time with friends outside of work, though. The structure of the workplace was very important. Put me in an unstructured situation, without a clear goal, and I was dazed and confused. Working in an office, in a structured situation, I got to have lots of interesting conversations and still get my work done. Each day during my lunch hour, I’d take a walk with a friend and we’d talk about religion, or politics, or what was going on in our lives. It was close to perfect.
When my daughter was born, I discovered another avenue into the world of adult friendships. Showing up anywhere with an infant was an instant conversation starter. People would ask her name, and tell me how sweet she was, and show me pictures of their own children. When we moved into a neighborhood with a lot of kids, I had a ready-made social group of other parents.
But as my daughter grew, I began to notice something troubling about my neighborhood friendships. With a couple of notable exceptions, my relationships tended to consist of people telling me about the problems in their lives but rarely asking about my own. In fact, it didn’t seem to occur to them that I might have problems, too.
I didn’t understand the reason for this lack of social reciprocity. At the time, I thought that I wasn’t responding to people properly and giving them the support they needed. I was convinced that I was saying the wrong things, and so they didn’t want to know anything about my experience.
I now realize that people were responding to my Aspie innocence. People knew that I was trustworthy, and they would tell me things that they didn’t talk about with anyone else. I heard about alcoholic husbands, abusive partners, and the details of serious health problems. When I went for walks in the neighborhood, elderly ladies would even run out in the snow in their slippers to talk to me.
It was all very flattering, and even reassuring, to some degree. But it was also very empty. When my first marriage broke up and I told some of the neighbors, they literally took several steps back and didn’t want to hear about it. I realize that I shouldn’t have been shocked by this turn of events, but I was.
I’ve learned a lot about myself since then. In another post, I’ll write about more recent experiences and how I currently navigate the world of other people.
© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
14 Responses to “Aspies and Friendship, Part One”
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I really enjoyed this post. You are so articulate and describe your memories so well. Thank you for sharing. Have been enjoying your blog for awhile now.
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pinkbowtiepumps February 2nd, 2009 at 11:25 am
I think everybody can find something to appreciate from this post. Your high school experiences sound exactly like my own, and it’s nice to know that we can learn how to socialize over time. Having people tell you everything about themselves is also refreshing – they know you’ll listen, and a lot of people enjoy talking about themselves, so this is a good thing to keep in mind.
Great post. I’ve always enjoyed reading your blog – Keep writing!
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John Dale Lyons February 2nd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
My social situation actually improved in high school, because after years of therapy and life-experience I was better at understanding and interacting with NT’s. However, my social (dating) life was a series of endless humiliations. I wanted a girlfriend desperately, but I didn’t have a clue, and was terrified.
I can read a Shakespeare play or Victorian novel, and decode the ritual of courtship; but I can’t help myself.
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Another great post. Thank you so much. Your writing turns lights on in my head. It’s so clear and easily accessible. I’ve read many books on AS or ASD, but your writing so far is the most illuminating … and very helpful.
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This is so my life! I so totally understand. Virtual hugs. Not so much for what you’ve gone through and what you’re going through, but for knowing there is someone who understands and has felt and is still feeling what you’ve felt.
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Thanks, everyone. I enjoy your comments so much.
Before I started this blog, I had considered writing a book about my life as an Aspie, but this is so much better. If I were writing a book, I wouldn’t be able to hear about your experiences and have a conversation about our mutual struggles and successes. This is really wonderful for me.
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i had similar experiences in my twenties, where people were always telling me intensely personal stuff, and i thought everybody worked this way. i did realize, too, that people weren’t asking me about myself. i usually listened and never thought anything weird or out of sorts, and rarely judged. i’ve wondered if people didn’t ask because i was so open about anything and everything on my mind (a former friend once referred to it as over-disclosure, a term i still enjoy).
i’ve gotten very sensitive to social slights over the years, and seeking to regain a certain sense of detachment, for lack of a better word.
thanks, as always for putting all this stuff to words.Ben
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camilla (millie) February 15th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
The aspie as “keeper of secrets!” i read this wit amusement as at times my early life was like that. a lacl of recoprocity. people would disclose information and i would sit there silently.
Little did they know my internal diaologue comprised …WHEN are they going to stop?
thanks rachel. -
I recently had a problem with feeling that people weren’t listening to me. I thought I wasn’t talking properly because I’d made it a rule not to monologue. I guess the truth is that some people just aren’t good listeners.
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Hi Soph, and welcome!
It’s true that other people’s responses to us have as much to do with them as with us. A friend of mine once said that she tries to remember that when people compliment her or criticize her, they are expressing their *experience* of her. I’ve found that to be a very useful way of de-personalizing the responses of other people.
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Craig Liley May 11th, 2009 at 7:01 am
I grew so tired of being teased throughout middle school for being “different”, that in high school I set out to be as intimidating as possible. I was physically much more mature than my classmates, so in my freshman year I grew a large, bushy mustache and beard, and grew my hair out. I looked quite a bit like some motorcycle gang member. my wife says that as I went down the halls between classes, three would literally be a bubble around me, as nobody wanted to get too close.
Fortunately for me, a wonderful young woman saw through my facade, and found many of the traits of my aspiness to be very attractive and endearing (I have no idea why), so all through high school I did have one close friend.
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Craig, it’s so great to hear about another Aspie who set out to build walls, but found someone who could get past them. It’s always wonderful when people can see us for who we really are–despite our best efforts to hide it.
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Taylor Selseth October 25th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Wow, I’ve always wondered why people always seem to come to me with their problems as if I was their personal therapist, LOL. Never thought it was related to my AS.
I found college much easier for making friends, more intellectually-minded geeks and nerds that liked deep conversations, scientific speculations, political debate, and philosophical musings.
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Jacquie December 2nd, 2009 at 10:07 pm
I feel that I can relate to your challenges with AS and your writing is spectacular. I also have AS and like to write. I had an experience in middle school where this girl was always talking to me and I thought she was my friend but in high school she acted like I didn’t exist. People also have often talked to me about their problems. I think what I’m learning is that there is no such thing as normal and all of us have issues.
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