Prompted by the season and a book I was reading I have been considering what friendship means. During my assessment I was asked if I had friends, I said yes, after all I am in a quiz team.
It was only when I was asked. "have you ever been to their homes?" followed by, "Do you know where any of them live?" that I realized I have a different interpretation of friendship from other people. I do not like visitors to my home. I am uncomfortable having my wife's family visit even only a couple at a time. (My mother visited twice and my brother thrice in 30 years). I have one real friend (I had two but one died) who visits.
I was asked at my assessment who initiates the contacts between my friend and I, of course it is my friend not I. It does not usually occur to me to contact people. I have no contact with anyone from my school or university days or previous employments but I think I got on with people.
I realize that I am not sure how one is supposed to behave or act as a friend. My wife is very good at prompting me to contact people when appropriate such as after a bereavement and she remembers birthdays and Christmas. I used to think those who bullied me were friends despite the things they put me through, I have done things for people – such as taking the blame for things they did – who claimed to be friends not realizing until pointed out to me later that I was just being used. I think perhaps that for those of us who have an inability to understand people it is better to keep people at a distance.
I think perhaps I realize that and so I don't have friends the way normal people do, it's safer this way. It might be nice to feel what friendship is like but how would I distinguish it? No, I'm better off as I am.
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How do you define who a friend is?
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Comments (4)
Hmmm, interesting. Perhaps it has more to do with your personality than anything else? I have a few friends who are like this - who don't initiate conversations, don't hang out with their friends at their houses, etc., but I think they are still on the neurotypical scale, and none of them have Asperger's (that I know of).
Eh, I just celebrate everyone's differences. Me? I'm too loud and obnoxious once you get to know me. :)
People fall into two categories with me either you're a friend or you're an enemy. Either you wish me well or you wish me harm. Within those two categories are various relationships, some closer than others, but none truly covered by either word.
I only ever notice that I don't have friends when I'm unable to fill a need (such as taking care of myself after a surgery, for example) and I'm asked, "can't you get a friend to help you?" The rest of the time I never notice that I don't have friends because I'm too busy doing interesting things. It seems excessively disingenuous to me (not to mention unnecessarily exhausting) to cultivate friendships just so I would have a free private nurse or chauffeur, so I'm likely to continue on as I have been. I do realize, though, that I need to work to have good earnings and good savings because I will always have to pay for those things that other people get their friends to do for free (or maybe not for free, since the price is the time and energy that it takes to maintain friendships. But that's a much smaller price for most neurotypical people than it is for me and I suspect that they get greater intangible rewards from friendship than I would.)
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