"Difficulty maintaining friendships"

[AMs]

Just curious to know, does anybody actually know what is meant by this? For example, does it mean that people find it difficult to make efforts such as meeting regularly and staying in contact, or is it more because of the other AS stuff such as struggling with social interactions and the likes?

[trekster]

i think it is a bit of both, not knowing how often to keep in contact with people. Also how to deal with friends when there is a disagreement.

Knowing which friends to keep and which not to keep. Knowing how to talk with friends instead of at friends.

[Tally]

I think it would be a combination of many things including the things you have mentioned.

[lizj]

I think the expression "difficulty maintaining friendships" means that AS people find it harder to make friends, because they often don't understand the unspoken rules of social interaction, and that the friendships they do make often fail. It's mainly down to social interaction, saying and doing inappropriate things without knowing it, and often being unable to see the other person's point of view, which can lead to fall-outs.

[bobbybaggio]

It can be difficult to make friends and once made it's difficult to keep them. One thing to note is over a period of years your friends change greatly but you tend to stay almost the same. They don't always see this as a good thing.

[Boy]

I think it's a mix of everything, but it obviously has to be autism specific. For example, a non-autistic person might have difficulty maintaining friendships because they have agoraphobia (sp?), so can't leave the house to meet people (or to visit old friends). Whereas an autistic person who does leave the house might struggle with a whole lot of other friendship problems, and these could range quite widely, really.

 

Difficulties could include:

- making friends with people they know, or becoming better friends with people they're vaguely friendly with (for various reasons).

- remembering to do things like text or call (or being unable to call).

- communicating in an appropriate manner (someone with autism might contact another person too much, for example, or constantly say inappropriate things, or become quite demanding, OR they might not reply to texts or emails or reply in such a short way that people think they're being abrupt and rude, or completely disinterested in being friends).

- being able to meet up (if you struggle to travel or find new places too difficult to cope with, or certain activities too difficult to cope with). This could be autism specific and an important aspect of 'difficulty maintaining friendships', but if you were a student or at work you'd see the same people every day, but not necessarily be able to make/keep friends there.

- recognising when someone can be considered a friend or not (or recognising the dynamics of any relationship, I suppose; when I was little I'd sometimes struggle to understand what relation my mother was to me, and would debate for ages over whether I should ask her to get me a drink (when I was too small to get my own) or not).

- making people uncomfortable through being too honest, or being too passive and being used by people instead of having genuine friends.

- not WANTING to go out with someone or mix with people and losing friendships because people end up completely excluding you.

- struggling to find people who are interested in the same things as you.

- not knowing how to talk to people or what to talk about, or conversations causing anxiety or being otherwise difficult because of how hard it is to understand body language, tone, what to take literally and what not to.

- struggling to find people who will make allowances for your autism (for example, I couldn't realistically maintain a friendship with someone who would expect me to travel places without making some allowances, like meeting me at a train station instead of expecting me to get from the station to the venue by myself, because I'd just never ever meet up with them).

 

I was in my band for a few months and said to someone else that I wasn't sure if they liked me, and felt anxious that I would be 'ditched', and the person said that they quite obviously liked me, and not only that but they were obviously not the sort of people who would 'ditch' someone without actually bothering to discuss the problem with them. These things weren't at all obvious to me. The person then said that to not be able to pick up on obvious signs and to not be able to tell if people like you or not seemed inconceivable to them and that it must be quite frightening to live your life without that ability and to be so uncertain and anxious about it all the time. To realise how easy it can be for some people to pick up on those things was quite a shock to me, and seems like quite an impressive 'gift' to have (even though it's not actually a gift and most animals can pick up on the body language or tones of another animal). Watching people making friends on the first day of university and being completely unable to fathom how they were doing it (or even why, in some cases, they were drawn to each other when I felt so detached from all of them) was also quite a confusing and almost frightening experience. It's the comparison that really makes you realise the extent of it when all you've ever known is your own experiences (and so been unable to see just how 'off' they are).

[Boy]

I can't edit my post, but wanted to specifiy that in the last paragrah:

 

 

I was in my band for a few months and said to someone else (who was not in the band)that I wasn't sure if they (bandmates) liked me, and felt anxious that I would be 'ditched' (by the band), and the person (not in band) said that they (bandmates) quite obviously liked me, and not only that but they were obviously not the sort of people who would 'ditch' someone without actually bothering to discuss the problem with them. These things weren't at all obvious to me. The person then said that to not be able to pick up on obvious signs and to not be able to tell if people like you or not seemed inconceivable to them and that it must be quite frightening to live your life without that ability and to be so uncertain and anxious about it all the time. To realise how easy it can be for some people to pick up on those things was quite a shock to me, and seems like quite an impressive 'gift' to have (even though it's not actually a gift and most animals can pick up on the body language or tones of another animal). Watching people making friends on the first day of university and being completely unable to fathom how they were doing it (or even why, in some cases, they were drawn to each other when I felt so detached from all of them) was also quite a confusing and almost frightening experience. It's the comparison that really makes you realise the extent of it when all you've ever known is your own experiences (and so been unable to see just how 'off' they are).

[Sally44]

I am NT, but I find it hard to maintain friendships because I find that many people require that you meet often and do things together. I usually prefer to do things on my own eg. go shopping. I like to meet people for a drink or to eat or the cinema perhaps. But not to do things that I prefer doing on my own. That means I can happily go for months without seeing anyone. I have found that most other people rank the level of friendship on the amount of time you spend together and the frequency you meet. To me that seems irrelevent because I don't need it, but another person may need more input.

I suspect that someone on the spectrum may also do this. Or they might want to be with someone 24/7 and become overbearing or demanding.

There may also be difficulties with taking language literally, theory of mind, taking turns, listening and supporting a friend in times of trouble or need etc. I don't necessarily think that someone on the spectrum cannot do these things. But the other person may need to tell them what they need as it may not be obvious to the other person. So they might appear rude, or uncaring, when that is not the case. Or they may appear self centred.

[MelowMeldrew]

My son has no actual desire to interact with anyone, it's not an 'issue' to him to not form relationships, but his norm. Why must we assume people who don't want to form multi-relationships with more than one or two people are lacking in something ? If you can mange as I do, to do it for years on end with 2 or 3 people, that's more than most isn't it ? Some are party animals some aren't ! The danger as always is to try to equate what your child does with what 'normal' children do. At least my teen age son is NOT on drugs,getting young girls pregnant, spraying graffiti on walls, bullying others, or getting drunk every week... let's count our blessings...