"Mom, what is a true friend then?", I often ask! Back in middle school I was still learning what it meant to be friends with someone and that there is a difference between friends and acquaintances. My mother would often times tell me that I didn't have any "real" friends, but some day I would developed a true friendship. I would often times reply with, "Does this mean Emma is a real friend?" Emma was probably the first friend I had; she was the friend I met in daycare and the friend who would come over every Christmas Eve to decorate cookies and exchange gifts. "We've known each other since we were 6 months", I would often times here Emma exclaim when she introduced our relationship to a stranger. As we grew older though, our interests grew apart and for the last couple of years we haven't had Christmas Eve together.
Today I still battle with the question, "who is my friend, and who is an acquaintance?" I often times find someone that is nice to me and that I trust and I automatically think they are my best friend because they understand me. Unfortunately, over time I have realized this is not the case and these relationships end up revolving around me and my emotional well-being. I end up sharing my deepest darkest secrets and I end up just venting to these individuals which turns into depending on these individuals. I know, when you think of a friend, you think of someone who you are to depend on as we are all somewhat dependent on others. It's human nature to depend on others, but more in a social sense, a sense in which you are able to develop common interests and relate to each other on a more informal level that I don't totally understand yet.
People often say that individuals who have Asperger's syndrome don't understand empathy, but its much the opposite of that. When I was younger, my mother once shared an article with me that described autism as a condition in which we actually feel the emotions of everyone around us and therefore look like we aren't empathetic because we shut down to deal with our own emotions. I really didn't believe that was the case for me, but as I learn more about myself I am realizing this is true for myself too. I've always been someone who hates to see others upset. I continuously feed off of the emotions of others and worry about how others feel to the point of anxiety. "Are you mad at me?" and "Did I do something?" are often times questions that I ask. Given these struggles with understanding who are my friends versus acquaintances and how I interpret empathy along with my ability to understand these concepts, I am better able to understand my relationships with others.
Typically the people who I value as friends, are those who first and foremost understand me for who I am and are nice to me. Secondly, I love the people in my life who I know there particular interests. For example, I have one close adult "friend" who I love because I know how to please her. If I were to ever get a gift for her, I would get something that had to do with sock monkeys, the color purple, or something zebra print; A McDonald's sweet tea would always do the trick too.
A lot of times people have talked about the different types of love and I definitely think my type of love is the giving type. I show my love by giving someone something that I know they will like. Often times this makes things harder to truly build those relationships because I don't always have the strongest conversation skills and I often times monopolize the conversation. The problem is that people want to be cared about and sometimes that means being able to put yourself in their shoes and understand emotionally how they are feeling which I don't always get. I also don't know how to really strike a conversation about something with someone without telling a story. Really, what do people talk about? I love telling funny stories and to be able to have something to talk about you need stories, but then conversations change and then I feel lost. I often times have trouble with change and when conversation changes, I don't always know what to add. Sometimes I'm still focused on what I wanted to add to the last conversation. Friends are such a complicated matter.
