Making Friends when you have Autism (both online and IRL)

IRL is the one I struggle at but I'm not too bad making friends online. If you're on Mastodon or Twitter, look at #ActuallyAutistic and you eventually make few autistic friends online.

The easy thing for me to make friends is to try find forum, discord server, hashtag etc related to my special interests and I know it's easier said than done but you had to break the ice and talk about whatever. I hope this sort of helps

yes its so hard to find topics to talk abt and hold a convo

honestly the way i was able to make online friends is to try and get into a generally closed off and close community of people! my one friend was in a community and eventually invited me to join and ive gotten super close with a lot of the people there

as for irl i am not good at it but people tend to like me more when i always have a little smile on my face and just act casual and unbothered lol

it feels like all my interests are way too specific to hold a decent convo :((((((

Can definitely rel8, especially in the IRL sense. I tend to stim a lot, so I just end up coming off as weird to people around me B[

As for online, it's not nearly as bad (mostly since I don't have to work around my "weird" physical mannerisms) but it's still really hard to talk to allistic people, especially strangers. D= Though for the most part, I've had a lot of luck in fandom-oriented areas (though keeping friendships that stem from mutual interests like that can be pretty difficult in the long run)

I can make conversation just fine for a while, but after 10 minutes or so I get anxious and want to do something else. I feel bad for just ditching my friends in the middle of texting conversations like that, but I can't fight the impulse for too long. I still haven't texted back my latest friend because of this and now I feel bad about texting him 7 hours later. I feel like a jerk. What do I even say to him at this point? I don't think he's mad at me, but what if he gets sick of my attitude later? I don't want to lose a friend again...

Real :|

for me online is easier; i only join places or talk to people who have interests in common and try to keep it going...irl is very hard for me because i don't know where to stop the conversation or what to talk about when the convo 'dies'

For me, It's difficult to make friends both online and irl. I was only able to make a few friends on Patook that i still keep in contact with. I can't make new friends irl because i can't find people around my age to befriend. The only people I'm close with is my family.

for me online is easier. Irl because of my autism sometimes I stutter sometimes I don't, so every time I speak I don't know if I'm going to stutter or not. And because of autsim I have a hard time forming the right words in front of people. When I'm online I can't take my time forming the right words. There's more reasons but I'm lowkey to lazy to write them.

making online friends is so much easier for me, most of the time I kind of shut down when someone I don't know talks to me irl and then I just make it awkward 

IVE ALWAYS STRUGGLED MAKING FRIEND ONLINE IT JUST SEEMS SO EASY FOR OTHERS????? like i feel like everyone is keeping the secret to making friends hudden away

I feel that, I struggle with talking to people online and in person because eventually it feels like I need to move on. Idk why but I can't text a person for hours, the same way that once I get bored of an irl conversation i find it hard to keep talking and want to go find something else to do. 

yes!! both irl and online its so difficult to manage conversations and even start one. i always end up getting embarrassed when i say something wrong. like. its so hard to relate, especialy if im talking to someone who is neurotypical..... 

for me it's only like.. slightly easier online but i sometimes get viewed as "boring" or "awkward" by other people, both online and irl

I get it, people usually say that they find me a good friend once we get to know each-other but it's the initial 'meeting each-other' part that really makes it hard for me to be friends with people^^" That, and if I'm meeting someone online, I'll try and initiate contact first for a few days but after that I wait to see if they'll put the same amount of effort into getting to know me and it doesn't work out well 99% of the time :(

there's a sobering reality to this- and boy does it make your day a little strugglier- yeah i can feel this

I have a weird situation where any time I enter a new environment I end up masking heavily and that's how I get along with most people, but as a consequence I have no comprehension as to how to get closer to a person. I don't outwardly deny I have autism to people, I tell people too if they ask, but I find my self constantly watching my self for any actions that deviate from norms because I don't want to be lonely, but it's not doing me any good because I only have the relationship of fist bumping people in the halls or having brief interactions with people because I made a joke, I find I can't remove the clown mask and that's pretty frustrating, any time I try to get serious, because I haven't figured out how to actually hold serious conversations with people on the mental level they are at at that moment because i have trouble reading into that, I end up losing them because their mind isn't even on that one subject I want to talk about, so I just kind of default to the clown mask despite it being unhealthy.

Something I do have pride in is that if there is someone I actually really dislike on a fundamental level, I'm able to actually communicate it to them in a mature way, most of the time it doesn't work because the person I'm telling to leave me alone is immature themselves or very manipulative or smth, but I reckon this happens to everyone. So the point being is I'm not a complete ass kisser.

i just never know what to say and i end up not saying anything at all and it comes off the wrong way like im uninterested or something

When making new friends I get very nervous and tend to freak out, not infront of them but mentally panicking!! I feel making friends online is easier because usually I can be myself and they wont see me freak or stim and be weirded out. just my personal experience.

i find making friends online is easy because you get to chat with a lot of people clearly, at your own pace, and with few miscommunications. plus, it just so happens that a lot of my online friends are also queer and nd

irl? maybe i've just been unlucky, but i feel out of place everywhere, except with my safe people, who i already know ofc.

but, for whatever reasons you have, your experience is valid too /gen

It is so hard to make friends, any where.. I always make it awkward on accident. And trying to read in-between the lines in texts and face to face.. ugh. I wish everyone would just be direct  

literally,i'm tryna befriend this girl and a guy and i find it so hard to talk to them. The girl is more easier to speak to since shes also a girl but at the same time i cant tell tone over text i wanna explain to her about my autism and if i say anything odd or seem weird that its probably bc im autistic but then again i dont know if i do. The guy is just hard to talk to cause hes dry and seems unintrested so i might not contiune tryna befriend him.

I struggle a lot with it in person and have noticed that a lot of the friendships I have IRL started online LOL.