Asperger Syndrome: Life Without Friends

When I was a little girl, I did have friends. We lived in Chula Vista, California, in a little cul-de-sac neighborhood that had nice families from many ethnic backgrounds. I was in 2^nd and 3^rd grade and I actually had a best friend— Shane Lopez, a girl from down the street. I also knew her two brothers and her older sister. I actually kissed her brother Robert— who’s now a gay Elvis impersonator. I swear, I didn’t do it! Maybe he made me ‘that way!’

For fourth grade we had moved to Tacoma, Washington. I remember my mother became leader of my Camp Fire Girls troop. She probably wanted to help me have friends. But, though there were kids I played with in Tacoma, none were more than acquaintances. At least, that was the way they seemed to think about me. I probably thought of some of them as friends. They just didn’t talk to me or come to my house or invite me to their house.

When I was about to enter 6^th grade, my dad, a Kmart manager, was moved again, this time to San Jose, California. I was hopeful, since I’d had an actual friend last time we lived in California. I remember sitting in front of our San Jose house— just in front of the little palm tree— and waiting and hoping for other kids to come along. I didn’t actually make friends there, though. I had a few people I talked to in different schools. I even had an enemy, who tried to beat me up once, only she couldn’t hit hard enough for me to notice.

And so it goes. I was not diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome until much later in adult life. At the time, schools diagnosed me as bad, or weird, or unhappy. I was sent to various shrinks, who never diagnosed me and never gave me useful help on making friends or developing social skills.

I met people that I talked with when I was in college, and on my first job as a teacher. Not one turned out to be a long-term close friend. I failed at my teaching job mainly because I didn’t have the social skills to please the principal, even though he admitted I was a good teacher. I was foolish enough to quit because he questioned my commitment to my role as teacher. (Hint: never quit. If you wait til they fire you, you put in more time working and may become eligible for benefits or to sue your workplace for discrimination against persons with disabilities, if you get diagnosed as such.)

Since then, I have been essentially in solitary confinement, without the fun of committing an atrocious crime first.  I have gone without friends. There is no one in this world I can call on the phone for a bit of human contact except my 91-year-old mother. My blood relations don’t even call me to invite me to Christmas dinner, which is why I spent Christmas alone this year. 

But there are some bright points. A number of years ago, some Serbian-American guys from Chicago came to my place to buy a meat goat— they are fond of chevon (goat meat). They had some hunting land in our area and came up regularly. We became friends. One of them, Petar, retired to a house near where I live, and the other two may also be planning to retire up here. Of course, they don’t share any of my interests other than goats, chickens, and other critters.

I also have online friends. Online friends are not exactly like real-world friends. Sometimes someone who felt like a close friend stops using social media for a while, or uses it less or in a different way, so I’m pretty much cut off from them. And it’s always hard to figure out social interactions, even online. Should I take the initiative and contact them? Or would it be intrusive or creepy? Impossible to say.