“Friendly” Versus “Friends” – by Donna Williams

Filed under: Regular Contributors, Donna Williams, Themes, Auties & Aspies 

“Friendly” Versus “Friends”

by Donna Williams

A friend of mine, Jeanette Purkis, has just had her autie-biography (”Finding A Different Kind Of Normal“) accepted to be published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers and is writing a book about friendships and relationships and this made me think about the word friends and how so many autie spectrum people struggle to tell friendly from friends.

Of course I’ve been through this too so I’ll tell you what I’ve learned in simple language so those who find it useful can make their own charts, add their own examples.

Many auties and aspies feel anyone friendly is a friend.

They usually feel if anyone likes them or thinks they might like them that it’s instantly a friendship.

In the non-autie world, friendly can be polite but friendly can also mean “I found you likeable.”

Likeable doesn’t yet mean the person has enough experience of you to like you.

Likeable is an impression and this can be formed quickly.

To Like is something one gets with some experience and for most people that happens more slowly.

It takes a bit of time for most people…about 3 months of contact.

Some people take much longer…even 6 months or a year, even 2 years.

Some people take much less…but most non-auties and people without personality disorders seem to take at least about 2-4 weeks or up to 3 months to like someone.

Auties, folks with special needs, and those with mental/emotional health or personality disorders can feel that “like” can take a week, an hour or less!

So if you are dealing with people who are basically not in that group it’s reasonable to expect them to work out quickly if they find you likeable but it may take around 4 weeks-3 months of knowing you for them to work out that they like you (or not).

Now it gets harder.

Even if people a) find you likeable and b) like you…they still may not be a friend!

Being friendly can be instant but people can be friendly just because they watched a movie that made them happy or ate something they liked or had a good sleep!

Being friendly isn’t at all the same as being friends!

So being friendly can be instant but isn’t a good indicator someone will be a friend.

If someone finds you likeable this means they may grow to like you and this may take 2 weeks-3 months for many non-autie people. If they grow to like you this means they may come to be friends with you. This may take even longer like a few weeks up to six months.

When people like you but are not yet a friend it is called an acquaintance.

To acquaint means to get to know.

An acquaintance is a person you have gotten to know.

An acquaintance is not yet a friend.

An acquaintance may not feel “attachment” to you or “loyalty” to you like a friend might.

Some acquaintances don’t want to be friends even if they like you!

This may be because they have a life that’s too busy, because you like them because of their job more than who they are as a person, because you are interested in your own needs and they aren’t getting as much out of the connection as you are, because they need a different kind of connection to the one you can offer (they might prefer quieter or more talkative people than you, they might prefer people who need less contact or more contact than you, they might prefer people who share similar views or life experience to their own or they might just not like having friends!).

Some acquaintances will later become friends.

Having a friend should feel like a good thing. It might have some difficult times but mostly it should feel better to have that friend than not have them as a friend. Sometimes one of you might feel better letting go of a friendship and that’s normal too. If you are not well or stable you can feel too vulnerable to have a friend at that time and it’s OK to let a friend know you aren’t coping and you’ll contact them when you have sorted yourself out more. A friend might offer to help and if you are a person who sorts things out better on your own that’s OK too to say so. 

Friendships can be rated on a scale of 0-10 as to how good they feel or how bad.

It’s OK for them to feel bad sometimes, but if they feel bad for a long time, like weeks or months or years, it’s OK to decide the friendship isn’t feeling good and let it go.

It’s OK to do that even if you haven’t got any other friends.

Some people find their closest friend is themselves or their own reflection or a piano or building things or being in a park or laying in the grass or playing in a sandpit can be like being with a friend. That’s also healthy and normal even if some people find it uncommon.

It’s good to have human friends too outside of yourself but communication problems can make that hard.
It’s OK to expect people to be a friend even if there are no words. Friendship doesn’t have to be verbal and even sitting silently in someone else’s company can be part of having a friend. They may need people to talk to and that’s OK too. It’s OK for someone to have a non-verbal friendship with one person, a typing friendship with another, and a verbal friendship with another person.

You do not pay for friendship.

No friend should expect you to pay them in money or gifts or touching or sex. If they expect or pressure you for this they are not a friend even if they pretend to be. Some people will try to make friends with you for wrong reasons. Wrong reasons are reasons that make you feel bad about yourself. Other people will like you and make friends with you for the right reasons. Right reasons are reasons that feel OK when you are together.

Friendship is something that friends have. It means behaving like a friend.

But sometimes if you have no friends but need friendship a carer or therapist may behave as if you have a friendship.

But these professional people are being paid to behave this way. They may like you. They may even say they are your friend. They may be too busy in their life to see you when they are not working and being paid. When they are not being paid they have friends who do not pay them for their friendship.

So these people are not personal friends. They are workers who are behaving as if you have a friendship. If you have no friends this is still a good replacement for some people.

Some people are not ready for a personal friend because they haven’t learned to be friends with themselves yet. It is very hard to be friends with someone who is not friends with themselves.

If you want friends, it is good practice to start by being kind to yourself, finding ways to cheer yourself up, calm yourself down and reasons to like yourself.

When other people see that you are happy and that you like yourself, they will often be more likely to want to be friends with you for the right reasons.

Donna Williams was born in Australia in 1963 and grew up in the inner city with more labels than a jam jar: deaf, psychotic, disturbed, autistic. Donna grew up with “dysfunctional language” and came to understand sentences around the age of nine. Unlike those who “think in pictures,” Donna describes herself as a kinaesthetic thinker for whom movement, pattern, theme and feel give definition to her world. 
As well as being an artist, sculptor, composer and screenwriter, she is also an internationally best-selling author with 9 published books in the field of Autism including four text books, a renowned international public speaker, a qualified teacher, and has worked as an autism consultant for 8 years working with over 600 people on the autistic spectrum.

Her first of four autobiographical works, Nobody Nowhere, spent 10 weeks at number one on the New York Times Bestseller List, sold over half a million copies worldwide and has been published in over 20 languages. Her second book, Somebody Somewhere (the second of four books in her autobiographical series) also became an international number one bestseller. Her life story is currently under option by a Hollywood film company.

She has been the subject of three documentaries, appeared as Person Of The Week with the late Peter Jennings on ABC, been featured on The Connie Chung Show, and was known for a number of interviews on Peter Gzowski’s CBC “Morningside” program.

After 13 years living in the UK, she now lives back in Australia with her husband, Chris Samuel, where they established the world’s first international self employment service for people on the autistic spectrum atwww.auties.org.

Donna can be found all over the web, but www.donnawilliams.net is a pretty good place to start.

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