Experiences with making friends in school as an autistic person?

[Suguri]

I ask this specifically to people on the spectrum: how do/did you feel when you try/tried to make friends in school?

I don't like starting conversations with people my age (I find it easier with older people) and am very insecure with whether they would be interested in me or not, so that has kept me from befriending people. It doesn't help that the only options I have in front of me are the people who swear, speak in this slang that personally weirds me out (like how everyone calls each other "bro" for some reason), and are overall noisy and kinda immature. Plus, I don't even know if they like Animal Crossing or crocheting or Kieran from Pokémon!

I did try befriending someone once back in 8th grade with this neurotypical I sat next to and I failed spectacularly. There was a lot of misunderstanding and both of us felt uncomfortable. Plus, I was out of place when it came to the social norms that he was used to; I barely made eye contact and I think I came off as a creep to him a few times. I'd like to go into detail, but the more I think about it the more embarrassed I feel.

So I wonder what it was like for you making friends—or at least trying to—as an autistic person.

 

[Midoriya]

To be honest I didn't enjoy public school at all, so what helped me not only make friends but also come out of my shell a lot was switching to a private school for both high school and university. I was very fortunate to go to a very small high school, and it helped me develop socially and grow as a person. I don't really want to think about the type of person I could have become if I stayed in public school for high school and went to a big state university.

I will say to make as many quality friends as you can while you're young, because once you become an adult it doesn't get any easier. Making friends after school as an adult is difficult unless you're in close proximity with others a lot and share a mutual interest.

That's just my two cents though.

 

[wrenbow]

I used to mask really heavily so I never had any issues making friends, but because I wasn't fully being myself I never felt like I fit in anywhere even though I would flit between pretty much every friend group in my year. It might sound nice to have lots of friends, but it honestly just made me feel even lonelier because I knew that I had all of these options and I still felt like the odd one out everywhere.

It was only around sixth form (16-18 y/o) that I actually started being myself more and finally settled into a group of friends that had similar interests to me. As it later turned out, it was basically the group of queer and neurodivergent kids lmao. It's obviously possible to make friends with neurotypical people as well, but if you can find the other neurodivergent folk where you are then I can almost guarantee that you'll feel more at home there. Being around people with a similar communication style will take a lot of pressure off you, and there's a much higher chance that you'll have more things in common.

EDIT: This is probably obvious but just wanted to add - of course you might not get along with other ND people just because you're both ND, but I think there's a higher chance of success so it's a good place to start. Either way I think just being unapologetically yourself is the best way to attract people that are compatible with you. Honestly sometimes (or even most times) you will be the odd one out and you'll have to get comfortable with that, but there will always be people out there who like you as you are.

 

[SkyKnight03]

I have a personable experience regarding this, despite not being autistic myself.

I befriended an autistic boy in my gym class. I can't remember if he approached me or vice versa. I know we started tossing a ball back and fourth one day and it developed from there. We started spending time together in that class frequently. He couldn't verbalize with me. Most his speech was gibberish. But I learned other ways to communicate with him. Hand signals or body language. Or directly asking his helper who followed him around.

I learned from his helper that he was eventually wanting to see me specifically. So I saw him at lunch a few times, despite him being separated into his own group most of the day. Gym class had him with the other students, and I'm not sure why. He wasn't bullied from what I saw, but they mostly ignored his existence.

On the final day of school, he walked up to me and gave me a huge hug. I knew he was smaller than me, but he felt so frail. I never saw him again. My mom was standing there and seemed to understand without me explaining. I talked about him at home a little bit prior to this.

I really, really hope he's doing okay. I still think about him.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Kids kept bullying so much that I gave up trying to make friends and refused to make any attempts and whenever I was asked why I refused to make any friends by adults, I told them why and then I was blamed for being the problem and not the kids that were saying and doing awful things to me which made me not trust them or even like them.

 

[Beanz]

i don’t know if im autistic or not (it’s an extremely long story) but i never actually tried to make friends with anybody just because i always sensed that i was different from others and couldn’t relate most of the time, even in preschool.

the only time i remember actually attempting to make friends with a boy in 3rd grade when i asked them if they liked minecraft lmao, and that wasn’t even because i wanted to; at that point i was selectively mute and pressured to speak by the adults in my life. i was also bullied a lot by other children so right then and there i was like i might as well not even push myself to speak at all (im better now)

i met my current good friend a year ago by accidentally dissing her LOL (another long story) and we started talking. i met my other friend through her but they since stopped talking to each other (some drama between them)

 

[Neb]

I had a really hard time and rarely made many friends. For most of elementary school I was friends with the two other autistic people in my class. The first one we just met at the school playground and got along right away. The other was a guy the teacher asked to be friends with me, but we ended up developing a real friendship over time. I got two more friends in the fifth grade because a couple girls saw me on the playground alone and decided to chat.

From middle school through the 9th grade I made no new friends and I moved to a different part of the state to and forgot to stay in contact with any of my childhood friends. It was very isolating and I was lonely.

In the 10th grade I became friends with a girl I had a crush on because of a misunderstanding and we got along right away. She ended up rejecting me, but we still hung out. She had an autistic little brother so she was very understanding of me. Kids at school said they wondered what she saw in me since I was so hated from bad gossip. When a couple of girls were saying mean things about me in the bathroom she stood up for me and told them to quit. A year later my mom met a woman at a blood drive happening in my school who had an autistic daughter and while I was nervous around her at first we warmed up and she hung out at my house a lot.

There were many other times kids would try to become my friend at school, bur I didn’t know what to say to them since my communication skills were so limited and they thought I wasn’t interested in getting to know them. This still happens to me as an adult.

I’m not currently in regular contact with any of my school friends, but I still consider them friends and I still hear from most of them at least once a year. My best advice is to try finding other autistic kids and see if they have anything in common and go from there. They’ll be more likely to be understanding of your autistic traits and might communicate in a way you find more natural. I don’t regret having nuerotypical friends, but neurodivergent friends are definitely easier to socialize with.