Trouble Knowing When People Like Me

[Kivvi_Kindi]

Does anyone else have an irrational fear that people don't enjoy your company and are just talking to you to be nice? Even with people who go out of their way to be around me (inviting me places and stuff), I still always feel like I'm annoying them or making things awkward by being there. I end up disappearing from groups or activities, not necessarily because I don't want to be there, but because I can't tell if anyone else wants me there. But I'm afraid that this will give people the impression that I don't like them, even if I do x_x
If anyone else has this problem, how do you deal with it?

 

[Harrison]

I had this as a kid in my teens to twenties. Didn't know I was an aspie then so I ended up asking people, their answer was 'we invited you'.

So for me, if I'm invited then I'm wanted.

 

[Judge]

Me? Guilty as charged I suppose. At times it can be very difficult to "read" people in this context, as to whether or not they like me much at all. Even here in this forum at times I feel this way. As if no matter how many times I interact with some people I never feel like I'm "connecting" with them. Likely my problem- not theirs.

More often than not, time is the best thing that allows me to rationalize whether or not people like me. When I'm treated cordially over and over, as opposed to just one or two times. When I can establish a comfort level based on actual experience rather than try to "read" intent.

However I've known a cousin who lives right here in town virtually all my life. At times I don't think she particularly likes me in general. Very frustrating not to be decisive on such a thing. I suppose we're just rather different people personality-wise.

 

[The Penguin]

Something I have faced my whole life, but I have gotten better to figure people out and developed my own system. When I'm with someone in person, I try to understand their gestures and tone of voice if they enjoy being around me. If it's someone online, I pay close attention how they write to me and determine what they think of me. If it works out that I'm the person always contact the person first and they never try with me, I may stop talking to that person. The majority of the time, the person won't talk to me anymore. The ones that do try to message me first time to time are the ones I speak with more and might feel they have an interest being a friend. Of course there is a lot much more to this, but this is just a basic example.

 

[Cali Cat]

I had that problem when I was younger. I always felt like the odd-man-out in social situations even if I'd been invited. I assumed I was invited as a courtesy. I didn't accept too many invitations for this reason. I really didn't do anything to change my feelings about it. Time took take of that. I just got older and quit giving so much of a damn. Now, I figure if I'm invited, then it's a sincere wish to have me there.

 

[Melissa Kay]

Wow. This is a great topic! I totally relate to this. I belong to a 12 step group as well and I assume a lot that they just like me because they "have" to. Same with when I was in school to get my Masters.

If it works out that I'm the person always contact the person first and they never try with me, I may stop talking to that person. The majority of the time, the person won't talk to me anymore. The ones that do try to message me first time to time are the ones I speak with more and might feel they have an interest being a friend. Of course there is a lot much more to this, but this is just a basic example.

Penguin, I really like this. Just recently, and since having been here, I could see more clearly that I was doing all the work to befriend someone and I stopped. Some people just aren't meant to be close. I can see that now. It's hard to do, but if the attention is only one sided, then I need to back off.

 

[DogwoodTree]

As if no matter how many times I interact with some people I never feel like I'm "connecting" with them. Likely my problem- not theirs.

Yes, this. I feel like I live inside a glass cage. People think they know me because they can see me and I can see them, but we never really connect. So how can they "like" me if they don't even know me?


And when I do try to make myself know-able by sharing what's going on inside, it doesn't make sense to others. So they tune me out. How can you like me if you don't even want to know me? Not saying I'm the most fascinating person in the room, or that people should be "in awe" of who I am. Maybe my expectations are too high. I just feel like most people don't really want to know others deeply, so they don't even make the attempt to connect on more authentic levels, and they don't respond to my offers of deeper connection. It's all so surface-level, which in my opinion, is not gratifying.

That said, I'm coming to realize that no one--absolutely no one--will ever like everything about someone they know truly. If they did, they would be putting that person on a pedestal and living in denial of the truly unlikable characteristics of that person. No one is completely likable.

So I'm slowly learning to accept that people can truly like some of the things they do know about me, even if they don't know a whole lot about me or if they dislike some things as well. Having a balance of like-and-dislike keeps expectations in a more realistic range in any relationship. It's not all-or-nothing, black-or-white. It's gray, and it should be.

 

[Randomperson]

I do not, since nobody ever hangs out with me or invites me anywhere I just know they do not like me whatsoever and have no worries that they are secretly hiding their disdain for me.

After over 30 years of this I have stopped caring either way.

 

[ThatSkyWing]

Does anyone else have an irrational fear that people don't enjoy your company and are just talking to you to be nice? Even with people who go out of their way to be around me (inviting me places and stuff), I still always feel like I'm annoying them or making things awkward by being there. I end up disappearing from groups or activities, not necessarily because I don't want to be there, but because I can't tell if anyone else wants me there. But I'm afraid that this will give people the impression that I don't like them, even if I do x_x
If anyone else has this problem, how do you deal with it?

I have often felt the same way. I'm constantly worried about what people think of me and if they truly like me or not, and I always need a whole lot of reassurance because of that. It would be lovely if they would tell me what they really thought about me, so I wouldn't be so worried and unsure. I haven't dealt with it well, I had a really good friend on another website, but I got all worried that she might not like me anymore(which was probably not true, since we were still messaging each other a lot and she always offered to call me and invited me to groups and everything)so I left the website and now I don't even have her to talk to anymore. I really, really want people to like me.

 

[Melissa Kay]

I really, really want people to like me.

I totally understand! I am so like this. My NT boyfriend is helping me to not be so ruled by this. And God. Good luck. Oh and being on here helps too!

 

[STR]

I feel like I never know how people feel about me, and I find it difficult (if not impossible) to fully accept that someone likes me.

When I was in 6th grade I was invited to hang out with the "cool kid skaters" who seemed to attract a lot of female attention. (I didn't attract any female attention, so I thought this might help me in that respect). After a few weeks of hanging out with them (and feeling completely out of place), one of them finally admitted that they had invited me to join their group as a joke, and as a way of mocking me.

I never forgot that experience, and ever since then I've always been suspicious of people who seem to be nice to me.

 

[The Penguin]

I feel like I never know how people feel about me, and I find it difficult (if not impossible) to fully accept that someone likes me.

When I was in 6th grade I was invited to hang out with the "cool kid skaters" who seemed to attract a lot of female attention. (I didn't attract any female attention, so I thought this might help me in that respect). After a few weeks of hanging out with them (and feeling completely out of place), one of them finally admitted that they had invited me to join their group as a joke, and as a way of mocking me.

I never forgot that experience, and ever since then I've always been suspicious of people who seem to be nice to me.

wow I hate jerks like that.

 

[STR]

wow I hate jerks like that.

Yeah, I have avoided going to high school reunions in part because I don't want to see those people. I'm sure they've changed and are not the jerks they used to be, but I don't want to relive those experiences by being around them.

BTW: I liked reading about your approach of testing whether someone likes you by seeing what happens when you stop contacting them. I have an acquaintance that I have stopped contacting, because I was always the one who contacted her and she never initiated contacting me. I haven't heard from her at all in the 3 months since I last contacted her, so that would seem to be pretty good evidence that she doesn't have any interest in being friends (despite all of the positive and "friendly" interactions we've had in the past).

 

[Suzanne]

YES, YES and YES and tons more YES's

Especially when I have been ignored in the social setting! It has put a great deal if distrust in me, when there are potential friendships and I tend to let them do the running, despite my husband telling me that they could feel the same way about me!

I did manage to get around the question: do you like me. By laughingly saying: I know, you can't get enough of my company, for let's face it, I am pretty brilliant and that does something as they respond with a positiveness and thus, I get my answer. However, I have to be in the kind of mood that I seem confident being me, otherwise, it tends to not work.

There is one person in my life who I call a true friend and another that is a close second. But the truth, it doesn't bother me now, for my husband, despite how turblant our marriage is, there is no doubt that he loves me!

 

[Spiller]

I end up disappearing from groups or activities, not necessarily because I don't want to be there, but because I can't tell if anyone else wants me there. But I'm afraid that this will give people the impression that I don't like them, even if I do x_x
If anyone else has this problem, how do you deal with it?

Even here in this forum at times I feel this way. As if no matter how many times I interact with some people I never feel like I'm "connecting" with them. Likely my problem- not theirs.

I relate to this completely! I guess it comes down to a lifetime of experience of isolation, bullying and rejection, to the point where the expectation becomes so ingrained, our social anxiety so great, that it's virtually impossible to believe that we could be liked by anyone.. how sad that we all suffer so much, for so long, invisibly.
Kivvi_Kindi, I'd hope, based on my own experience, that you can find the strength to tough it out more; we can't know what others are thinking, so try to think that they like something about you.. it takes time and practice, but it works, your world begins to open up! Also, by their standards, you may appear to not like them, so they don't invite you again.. and your world contracts..
I've started telling certain people about my AS; some say they get it but really don't and my life gets no easier around them; a few others now really get it and reach out and meet me half way, it's not as ideal as I'd like, but it's also early days and I'm not, as ThatSkyWing says, so worried and unsure as before.