Making Friends

The Aspie Insiders met today with an important discussion topic in mind: friendship! Consider for a moment all of the people who revolve around you on a day-to-day basis: family members, coworkers, close friends, acquaintances, strangers, and so on. These are the people who create YOUR universe, the people with whom you can share feelings or hang out with. Or — as is the case with strangers and acquaintances — they might be the people you get to know as you try to make a new friend.

As we started talking, the founder of the iCan House dropped in to talk with us for a little while! She offered a couple of her own stories about friends who helped her out when she was in desperate need of help. As we talked, a few important points seemed to pop out more than others when it comes to friendship:

• Trust. It is huge in friendships, so much so that it can actually mean the difference between being a friend and a "frenemy" (an enemy disguised as a friend). We identified the truth that trust takes a long time to build, a short time to lose, and can take forever to gain back.
• In trying to be more trustworthy, it's important to do some perspective-taking. Think before you tell someone what you know about another person, even to the point that you ask yourself: "How would my friend feel if he/she knew what I was saying to this person?" If you feel uneasy about the answer to that question, it's probably a good idea to keep your mouth closed.
• Think about practicing "random acts of kindness." A secret to being a good friend is being available to help out when another person is experiencing a challenge (consider this saying: "You'll know who your best friends are when you move — they'll be the ones helping you take your stuff from one home to the next")
• Be careful that other "friends" don't take advantage of you. Helping a friend out with money once or twice is probably okay (though many would disagree with that!), but doing "acts of kindness" over and over again to meet a friend's wish doesn't actually sound too friendly. Consider how many times a friend has asked for your help, and be careful when it comes to money!
• Another secret for making is friends is being able to plan to meet up with friends. We covered this some time ago with our post on "Social Recreation," the term we use for putting together the various pieces it takes to meet up with friends, whether it be for something small like seeing a movie or something big like a Halloween Party!

THE INSIDERS WANT TO EXTEND THE QUESTION TO YOU: WHAT IS THE GREATEST THING A FRIEND HAS EVER DONE FOR YOU? LEAVE YOUR RESPONSE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW!