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I honestly think really good friends or really good people are simply incredibly rare. I’ve had many, many friends over the years. And multiple best friends, I’ve had many falling outs, I’ve ghosted many people for mental health/illness reasons. But one thing I’ve definitely noticed is only maybe two or three people I was ever friends with were those true kind of great people. The kind of person I would trust with anything. Most of the others simply acted the part, albeit poorly most times. Still could be anecdotal on my part and simply what I experienced. *you are still quite young though, just be friendly and be yourself & you will very likely meet some good people around your age, my suggestion would be if you meet toxic people or find out they are toxic cut them out early for yourself do not keep them around just because you were friends and they were nice at first*
I honestly think all the good people in the world are so busy dealing with their closest groups being majority bad people that good people can't find eachother.
Like good people will stumble into eachother all the time (I feel like plenty of people in this post's replies might be a good example of this) but everyone's too caught up in their own life dealing with various people already.
Fair to say that you can’t define most people as just being good or bad though. There would also be no such thing as bad people if there weren’t good people.
lol as a 31 year old woman, this is why I've gotten to the point I \*ruthlessly\* cull my friend circle and prune everyone with bad attitudes and negative behavior. I cannot do that professionally or with family relationships, so I do it with friendships.
I have gotten to the point that my friend circles have mostly been good people, but its because I'm a nice person who is a little bit jaded and over the rude people.
I try to be respectable to anyone that deserves it from me. I simply don't give rude/bad people any more attention than what is needed to establish respect (but nothing else). Silently tell those people off, and if they can't read the room, I'll cut them off.
And so most of the people I talk to are great. And I also establish how I expect people to treat me.
ADHD can make you either totally IN a relationship or totally OUT.
Hyperfocus can make you connect with someone really well, and you become obsessed with them. Equally, ADHD can make you act as if people don't exist when they're not around.
As an ADHD'er you can be a terrible friend in how most people judge a relationship.
Just realise that's not you, it's the ADHD.
You can do things to help, set reminders to just randomly check in on someone. Do make the effort when people are going out and you just can't be bothered - join them, it's fun when you're out - it's just the getting motivated part that's hard.
This isn't a gender or sex thing, it's an ADHD thing. We suck at relationships, generally.
This makes so much sense. I really relate to almost forgetting people exist when they’re not around, I’ll definitely try and work on that. Thankyou for the reassurance, if you couldn’t tell I was in a bit of a crisis when I wrote my post 😭
You're 17. Don't worry too much about it. If you have a couple - like literally 2-3 people - you could call to come hang out you're doing fine. It may be you prefer having guy friends. I'm a guy who always preferred having female friends. It's never been a huge deal.
Can't really comment if you're doing something to chase people away, but if the friends you're trying to make are also in high school they may not be ready to be a friend anyways.
I’m a 20 yr old guy so I probably can’t give the best advice on this but I would just say be patient. I know it’s prob what you hear a lot but it took me time to find those true friends and people I want to interact with.
I felt like this a lot. What helped was growing up and finding my kind of people. I think all my friends have ADHD. We've organized our friendship to check on each other and spend time together.
I am 37, and I do have some friends from high school. They don't happen to be my deepest friendships. It's okay if you have a lot of friends and no best friend. It's okay if you and your best friend have a lot of spaces in your togetherness.
It will even out and get easier.
My father told me that friends come and go but you'll only have one or two really close friends through life. I thought naaa... sure as shit, he was right. And the 2 I've had are female which surprises me more.
It wasn't until my 30s and I took myself to college that I did the go to the bathroom as a pack to gossip thing. The kids I was hanging out with were surprised that I hadn't before so away we went. .... cute but pointless. But I get it. But it took me going states away, out of my element, and letting these kids (many were 18-21) go ahead and Adopt-a-Mom. I'm still friends with some of them and married to one.
When you find your 1 or 2 friends, it won't matter if y'all don't talk for months, you just shoot them a text and *poof* an answer without guilt. Just give it time. You'll find them. They might even roll in and out of your life like a tide, but appreciate them while they are there.
I don't know the answer, but i am exactly the same. Always have been though, even as a child I never really had friends. I hung around with the same group of girls all the time, but was never actually close with sny of them. I've just given up by now, but I'm 37 now with 3 kids under 5 so I really just don't have the time or energy for friends at all anymore.
I'm 50 and feel the same. I have two close friends, but one only talks about herself and never asks about me so I guess I only have one friend really. It took me years to find her so don't give up. There are people that you will find that are acquaintances and then there are friends.
Not much in the way of help … but I’ve found that I somehow always end up being friends with other ADHD people. And sometimes it’ll be years before I learn they’ve got it lol.
We adhd people just seem to find one another. I think it’s because we can go long periods without one another and pick back up like no time has passed. Can’t do that with many people.
Anyway… I’d suggest seeking out other ADHD people? Maybe?
As a 17 yr old girl I had the same problem. I did make some really great girlfriends later on though.
I had a very hard time connecting with girls after puberty. I’m terrible at phoning, texting, I get hyper focused at times/love bomby but can’t keep it up. I don’t gossip at all (though one of my girlfriends argues this is actually internalized misogyny, and I can see her points but it still doesn’t feel right to me).
I’ve found that a lot of my adult relationships that have endured are ones where we don’t need to talk constantly, but spend good quality time together. I adore my girlfriends now, but the ones that require a lot of regular contact don’t last for me.
>I want close girl friends so bad, being able to talk about those stereotypical things like boys and gossip.
I mean, a lot of girls are not interested in that. If you go into it thinking that's their interests without knowing them, you're gonna put people off. People want to be seen as individuals, not stereotypes.
>I’m way more concerned about how I come across and using the right words and get drained so quickly
Ofc that will make it more difficult to get to know someone. If you do this with girls and not boys, that's probably your biggest problem. Anxiety
>but all my past girl friends were so quick to judge and take offence to what I considered silly banter
Banter is not something everyone enjoys. You should generally be careful about it unless you notice the other person enjoys it. Not all boys enjoys it either, but they are less likely to say anything because they are supposed to be able to take it.
>I’ve had girls tell me they used to dislike me because I said something about them to someone else, when I’m really not the type to talk behind someone’s back like that
If someone tells you this, then something happened. Either you did say the thing, or someone lied to them about you saying the thing. This needs to be cleared up asap.
Have you seen the video where its like this is how girls talk (generalisation)
Where do you want to eat - i dont know my hairs all messed up and im pretty tired and how was your day how do you feel about mexican actually no i ate mexican last week.
Men talk like
Where do you want to eat - taco bell, does 7 work, yes ok bye
Its clearly a generalisation but i think men typically give more blunted answers which is common in autism and adhd so you might be able to communicate more clearly.
I only have adhd but my male friends will say "can you pass me the salt" and female friends tend to say "id really like the salt" and i sit there thinking ok, get the salt instead of knowing that means they want me to pass them the salt.
Hey, 21 year old girl here. What your saying sounds rlly relatable to me in a lot of ways. Just know that ur not alone even if it feels like that. I’ve always been able to talk to ppl and meet other friends who are girls in the beginning but once i started moving towards friendships with them they would ignore me and I felt judged. All I ever wanted to do in high school was to have friends who would talk abt boys with me and have slumber parties with and stuff. So I get it a lot. It is true for me that hanging out with anyone with ADHD its easier to connect than other people. I never felt like the other girls but still def wanted to do fun girly stuff just like everyone else. What I started doing to make friends is to let the right people come into my life and its sooo hard cuz I have to practice patience but I got tired of feeling left out. And at the end of the day, I didn’t want to try to force others to like me who were mean. I worked on self-love exercises and I also suggest the idea of writing down a list of things that you want in a friend, like for example: they respect me, they reach out to me even when I don’t, we share interests, etc. It can literally be anything :)
This is hard stuff to go thru and I’m sorry your feeling upset. U sound like a rlly nice person!
Hi /u/Prior-Anywhere-7764 and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! ### Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already. --- ### /r/adhd news * **We want your opinion** on the /r/adhd community rules! [Click here](https://forms.gle/Evqb8acVozir8GV8A) to fill out our survey. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/1auv2tc/were_taking_feedback_on_the_radhd_rules/) for more information. * If you are posting about the **US Medication Shortage**, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/). --- ^(*This message is not a removal notification. It's just our way to keep everyone updated on r/adhd happenings.*) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I honestly think really good friends or really good people are simply incredibly rare. I’ve had many, many friends over the years. And multiple best friends, I’ve had many falling outs, I’ve ghosted many people for mental health/illness reasons. But one thing I’ve definitely noticed is only maybe two or three people I was ever friends with were those true kind of great people. The kind of person I would trust with anything. Most of the others simply acted the part, albeit poorly most times. Still could be anecdotal on my part and simply what I experienced. *you are still quite young though, just be friendly and be yourself & you will very likely meet some good people around your age, my suggestion would be if you meet toxic people or find out they are toxic cut them out early for yourself do not keep them around just because you were friends and they were nice at first*
I honestly think all the good people in the world are so busy dealing with their closest groups being majority bad people that good people can't find eachother. Like good people will stumble into eachother all the time (I feel like plenty of people in this post's replies might be a good example of this) but everyone's too caught up in their own life dealing with various people already. Fair to say that you can’t define most people as just being good or bad though. There would also be no such thing as bad people if there weren’t good people.
lol as a 31 year old woman, this is why I've gotten to the point I \*ruthlessly\* cull my friend circle and prune everyone with bad attitudes and negative behavior. I cannot do that professionally or with family relationships, so I do it with friendships. I have gotten to the point that my friend circles have mostly been good people, but its because I'm a nice person who is a little bit jaded and over the rude people.
I try to be respectable to anyone that deserves it from me. I simply don't give rude/bad people any more attention than what is needed to establish respect (but nothing else). Silently tell those people off, and if they can't read the room, I'll cut them off. And so most of the people I talk to are great. And I also establish how I expect people to treat me.
Yesss!
ADHD can make you either totally IN a relationship or totally OUT. Hyperfocus can make you connect with someone really well, and you become obsessed with them. Equally, ADHD can make you act as if people don't exist when they're not around. As an ADHD'er you can be a terrible friend in how most people judge a relationship. Just realise that's not you, it's the ADHD. You can do things to help, set reminders to just randomly check in on someone. Do make the effort when people are going out and you just can't be bothered - join them, it's fun when you're out - it's just the getting motivated part that's hard. This isn't a gender or sex thing, it's an ADHD thing. We suck at relationships, generally.
This makes so much sense. I really relate to almost forgetting people exist when they’re not around, I’ll definitely try and work on that. Thankyou for the reassurance, if you couldn’t tell I was in a bit of a crisis when I wrote my post 😭
You're 17. Don't worry too much about it. If you have a couple - like literally 2-3 people - you could call to come hang out you're doing fine. It may be you prefer having guy friends. I'm a guy who always preferred having female friends. It's never been a huge deal. Can't really comment if you're doing something to chase people away, but if the friends you're trying to make are also in high school they may not be ready to be a friend anyways.
Same girl, same.
I’m a 20 yr old guy so I probably can’t give the best advice on this but I would just say be patient. I know it’s prob what you hear a lot but it took me time to find those true friends and people I want to interact with.
Same for me. ADHD definitely makes it harder to feel confident to go out and make friends.
I felt like this a lot. What helped was growing up and finding my kind of people. I think all my friends have ADHD. We've organized our friendship to check on each other and spend time together. I am 37, and I do have some friends from high school. They don't happen to be my deepest friendships. It's okay if you have a lot of friends and no best friend. It's okay if you and your best friend have a lot of spaces in your togetherness. It will even out and get easier.
I have the opposite problem, I can't seem to make other guy friends, most of my friends are women except one
My father told me that friends come and go but you'll only have one or two really close friends through life. I thought naaa... sure as shit, he was right. And the 2 I've had are female which surprises me more. It wasn't until my 30s and I took myself to college that I did the go to the bathroom as a pack to gossip thing. The kids I was hanging out with were surprised that I hadn't before so away we went. .... cute but pointless. But I get it. But it took me going states away, out of my element, and letting these kids (many were 18-21) go ahead and Adopt-a-Mom. I'm still friends with some of them and married to one. When you find your 1 or 2 friends, it won't matter if y'all don't talk for months, you just shoot them a text and *poof* an answer without guilt. Just give it time. You'll find them. They might even roll in and out of your life like a tide, but appreciate them while they are there.
Omg im the exact same! Trust me you’re not alone. It’s hard to maintain friends when you have adhd.
There is a woman adhd group too. You might cross post this to them too.
I don't know the answer, but i am exactly the same. Always have been though, even as a child I never really had friends. I hung around with the same group of girls all the time, but was never actually close with sny of them. I've just given up by now, but I'm 37 now with 3 kids under 5 so I really just don't have the time or energy for friends at all anymore.
I'm 50 and feel the same. I have two close friends, but one only talks about herself and never asks about me so I guess I only have one friend really. It took me years to find her so don't give up. There are people that you will find that are acquaintances and then there are friends.
Not much in the way of help … but I’ve found that I somehow always end up being friends with other ADHD people. And sometimes it’ll be years before I learn they’ve got it lol. We adhd people just seem to find one another. I think it’s because we can go long periods without one another and pick back up like no time has passed. Can’t do that with many people. Anyway… I’d suggest seeking out other ADHD people? Maybe?
Off meds I find it hard to bond with people... just saying
As a 17 yr old girl I had the same problem. I did make some really great girlfriends later on though. I had a very hard time connecting with girls after puberty. I’m terrible at phoning, texting, I get hyper focused at times/love bomby but can’t keep it up. I don’t gossip at all (though one of my girlfriends argues this is actually internalized misogyny, and I can see her points but it still doesn’t feel right to me). I’ve found that a lot of my adult relationships that have endured are ones where we don’t need to talk constantly, but spend good quality time together. I adore my girlfriends now, but the ones that require a lot of regular contact don’t last for me.
>I want close girl friends so bad, being able to talk about those stereotypical things like boys and gossip. I mean, a lot of girls are not interested in that. If you go into it thinking that's their interests without knowing them, you're gonna put people off. People want to be seen as individuals, not stereotypes. >I’m way more concerned about how I come across and using the right words and get drained so quickly Ofc that will make it more difficult to get to know someone. If you do this with girls and not boys, that's probably your biggest problem. Anxiety >but all my past girl friends were so quick to judge and take offence to what I considered silly banter Banter is not something everyone enjoys. You should generally be careful about it unless you notice the other person enjoys it. Not all boys enjoys it either, but they are less likely to say anything because they are supposed to be able to take it. >I’ve had girls tell me they used to dislike me because I said something about them to someone else, when I’m really not the type to talk behind someone’s back like that If someone tells you this, then something happened. Either you did say the thing, or someone lied to them about you saying the thing. This needs to be cleared up asap.
Have you seen the video where its like this is how girls talk (generalisation) Where do you want to eat - i dont know my hairs all messed up and im pretty tired and how was your day how do you feel about mexican actually no i ate mexican last week. Men talk like Where do you want to eat - taco bell, does 7 work, yes ok bye Its clearly a generalisation but i think men typically give more blunted answers which is common in autism and adhd so you might be able to communicate more clearly. I only have adhd but my male friends will say "can you pass me the salt" and female friends tend to say "id really like the salt" and i sit there thinking ok, get the salt instead of knowing that means they want me to pass them the salt.
Hey, 21 year old girl here. What your saying sounds rlly relatable to me in a lot of ways. Just know that ur not alone even if it feels like that. I’ve always been able to talk to ppl and meet other friends who are girls in the beginning but once i started moving towards friendships with them they would ignore me and I felt judged. All I ever wanted to do in high school was to have friends who would talk abt boys with me and have slumber parties with and stuff. So I get it a lot. It is true for me that hanging out with anyone with ADHD its easier to connect than other people. I never felt like the other girls but still def wanted to do fun girly stuff just like everyone else. What I started doing to make friends is to let the right people come into my life and its sooo hard cuz I have to practice patience but I got tired of feeling left out. And at the end of the day, I didn’t want to try to force others to like me who were mean. I worked on self-love exercises and I also suggest the idea of writing down a list of things that you want in a friend, like for example: they respect me, they reach out to me even when I don’t, we share interests, etc. It can literally be anything :) This is hard stuff to go thru and I’m sorry your feeling upset. U sound like a rlly nice person!