Why finding friends is difficult for people with Aspergers

You know something that is worse than being alone? Being with somebody who makes you feel WORSE than being alone....

My mental health has improved since I became a near-hermit. Everyone is different.

I have legitimately googled how adults make friends before I was diagnosed.

I’m 67 yo and I have no friends ,I’ve lived on my own 43 years and your videos have shown me what I am at last.

That wasn't a rant at all. You were speaking my language.

The more I get to know people....the LESS I like them ( mostly)

When I spend time with people, even if it is people that I like, I get exhausted, as if I had worked very hard...... I don't know why that always happens to me.

When you realize you never had friends..they were just manipulating your entire life.

When I was in school my father told me if you make one good friend in life count your self lucky and be a good friend to that person.

I teared up watching this, I'm a 16 year old girl and haven't been diagnosed with autism, but I keep noticing signs within myself that make me want to try and get diagnosed. I have no friends and struggle so much in social situations, despite really wanting to have a group of people that I can trust, talk to and share my interests with. It's especially difficult in terms of interests because I find that music is really important to me and something that I want to and could talk about to someone for hours, however it's so difficult to find people my age that actually listen to the same stuff I do and wouldn't mind me talking so much about it. I really can't maintain friendships so I have been feeling really lonely and hopeless for such a long time. I'm confused as to whether I'm overreacting, whether my struggles are because of trauma, anxiety or even autism. I'd like to try for a diagnosis so that I can understand why I struggle as much as I do and so that I can get support with this, but at the same time, I don't want to be wrong and I don't think my family would take me serious. But in any case, I wanted to say thank you for the video, even though I know it was made afew years ago, over the past couple of months, I've questioned whether pursuing friendships is really worth it, and have been on the verge of giving up, so when you said that making friends isn't impossible and that there is no use in giving up, some of my lost hope came back. Sorry this was long, it was nice to put my feelings somewhere. Thank you again for the video, it really helped! ❤ And yaaay! You like Metallica, they were the first ever band that I got into and inspired my love for music!

Welcome to Finland! You'll find lots of real friends here. Finns don't expect small talk or talking about things that don't interest you. They find you interesting and valuable just the way you are - as a unique person worth knowing.

My wise mother always said friends are there only for the good times,not the hard times. The ones that stick around for the hard times, count them as your family.

One benefit of being a "loner" is I just don't care if I have friends or not. Sure, friends can be nice. Friends can make life easier sometimes. Occasionally, it's nice to have someone to talk to. However, it doesn't bother me if I have no friends. The most friends I have ever had at any one time was about five. It's hard to become my friend and easy for me to stop being friends.

My animals are my friends , 2 birds , 2 dogs and 2 cats. Since i was a child ive always had a dog. Animals are my world. Thankful for finding your channel.

Hey Aspies -find yourself an ADHD friend like me! We're going to be mindful of your feelings and have lots of empathy when your life is hard. We struggle with things that are simple for 'normies', too. We're often open-books with similar difficulties setting personal boundaries, we'll typically be more willing to forgive when you trespass by accident as a result. We have so many ideas! We're passionate and may be able to inspire you to investigate new interests. Or at least make you a little curious ;) You have something to add to our lives as adhders which can make you feel needed/wanted instead of a charity case in relationships. You help ground us spacey adhders, help us make and keep healthy habits, provide logical advice and we love hearing your innovative ideas that are way too early for everyone else to see the genius of. We're just as happy to skip small talk and rebel against social conventions that don't make sense, right along side you. We often share values like a passion for justice and authenticity. Sharing values can be more effective at helping in forming bonds than simply sharing interests. We'll attract new friends to you since we're often seen as 'fun and youthful', and some of us are pretty charismatic. We can balance some of each other's weaknesses. I have had mostly neurodivergent friends, long before I knew I was an adhder or that my friends were anything but 'normal'. I'm glad now that I know I'm different, that I'm not alone.

I have absolutely no friends except my wife and son, that’s it.

It is so hard to talk about things I like... I get the feeling that I'm annoying. I love books. I'm a writer and I born in a country that few people like to read. That's so difficult.

I just try to find intelligent people. They're always happy to talk about ideas and theories which are obviously the most interesting things to talk about. We might speak about physics, or genetics, or psychology or socioeconomics, all kinds of things. Even if I don't particularly like the subject matter I'll usually learn something from the conversation and feel intellectually enriched by it. Also intelligent people tend not to find me as weird as those with average or below average intelligence for some reason. Most intellectuals are a bit odd or eccentric themselves so perhaps that's why.

When I was 8, me and my group of mates used to go to the library during school breaks and fold origami. Firstly, how on earth could I have ever been so lucky to find those guys? And secondly, I have never found any connection with people like that since. Truly an amazing memory to have .

For high school kids, QUANTITY of friends is important to them. As an adult, QUALITY is more important. I’d rather have 2 or 3 true friends than 100 “associates”.