Autistic friendships - good and bad

I think any autistic can agree that they find it easier to make friends or at least connect with other autistics over neurotypicals. NTs are confusing, and are more likely to break up with you based on behaviours you can't change due to their own ignorance and unwillingness to try to understand. Autistics or other NDs are more likely to understand and accept you the way you are, and its less likely to cause arguments over things you can't change.

I remember watching Jubilee's video of spectrum with autistics, and one of the prompts was 'I feel connected to other people on the spectrum', and the answers were rather interesting. Since I realised I am autistic, I have felt this connection to other autistics that I never really felt with NTs, but at the same time, as one of the people in that video mentioned, as autistic people, a lot of the time we feel like an outsider, no matter who is around us. Even if we're surrounded by autistics, we might still feel different or left out in some way. Of course, there's also the fact that Autism can present so differently in one person than it does another, and its possible for those differences to cause even two autistic people to butt heads.

My university runs a group every fortnight for autistic people, where we can go along, play games, chat about our experiences, and just generally socialise with like-minded people. I do feel at home there. I feel at ease being around other people like me, but also in being there it really has emphasised to me just how different peoples experiences with autism can be. Being around others with autism, I can see how different we all are. Some of us are more talkative than others, some of us have more "normal" mannerisms while others don't, some were diagnosed early, some aren't even diagnosed yet (which I'm glad that they accept us into the group despite this). What's interesting is how some of these people might appear to be on the higher support needs end of the spectrum, but in reality when I hear about their experiences, they don't need as much support as I would (if I could actually ask for the support I need...) ; while their inflections and mannerisms are more outwardly different, they are much more confident in talking and communicating, and seem to get on quite well at university and elsewhere. Of course, that's not to say they don't still have their own struggles of course, but you know what I mean (I hope).

Even though I feel more comfortable in this group than I do in my lectures, for example, I still don't feel completely calm there. I still feel the same awkward air when there's silence, I still feel the painful pressure of trying to make eye contact even though I know I don't need to, and mostly, I still feel the same struggle of pushing to get words out. My struggles with communication don't suddenly dissipate when I'm there, even if I'm more comfortable there. This to me is just more proof that it is autism and not just social anxiety or selective mutism or something. Even if I'm in this space where I'm more calm, I still struggle just as much to get words out.

The place where i really feel at home, is the Korean culture followers society. I feel very at home there. There, I feel like I'm with people who share one of my key interests, and that excites me and makes me feel at home. I feel like I can express my excitement around the topic with others, I feel like I can info dump about TXT or my favourite K-dramas, and people will genuinely listen and be interested. I feel at home there. So is it really a case of feeling more connected to autistic people?

If anything has been proven to me in the past few years, its that autistic friendships are no more stable than a friendship between an autistic and a neurotypical. My three closest friends are all suspected to be autistic too, and while we can bond over this, it also causes issues sometimes.

As I recently discovered, one big issue we have is that, being autistic, we all are bad at starting and continuing conversations. When we have things to talk about, its ok, but if we don't have much to talk about, then we all wait awkwardly for someone to start a conversation, and no one ever does, because we're all waiting. No one wants to start the conversation. This is an issue I know I have always had. Even with people I'm close to, I struggle to start and continue conversations.

It was only in recent years that I found out you're actually supposed to show interest in other peoples lives, and ask them how they are back when they ask you. Even knowing that now, I struggle to do so most of the time, since I just don't really care. Maybe its one of those things that NTs put down to us having no empathy, but I know most of the time the answer will either be "I'm fine" or some other boring answer like that, or some drabble about their personal lives that I don't have enough context for to really be interested in.

This can cause issues in friendships, as eventually we all go silent, thinking no one wants to talk, and then we either drift apart, or things turn more sour as this silence is misinterpreted for not caring or not wanting to continue the friendship. When of course, I would love to continue the friendship, I just struggle to start conversations when I don't have anything to say, and I never know when is the right time, when is the wrong time, etc.

So even though most of us have similar presentations of autism, even those similarities, can also cause issues in a friendship.

I think it's safe to say that communication is key in a friendship, so when you get a bunch of people who aren't great at communicating, in a friendship... things might not always end well.

But I think the reason we are still close friends, despite this up and down bumps is that we at least try to communicate, even if its difficult. When things get silent or tense, we recognise this and we try and sit down and talk through it. The fact we still try even when things may start to go awry, tells me that our friendship can last. We don't just give up and block each other off when drama happens. We do our best to talk through it and make amends.

I think there's a balance. While friendship shouldn't cause so much stress you're tearing your hair out, friendship isn't easy either. Its something you have to work at. If you're not willing to work to keep a friendship together, it's not going to last.

Anyway, I think that's all I have to say. Apologies for the disjointed ramble, I don't have much time for trying to edit, I've got a loooot of work to do...