I think the school mums don’t like me

[Makingfriebds]

I’m autistic but high functioning. I hide it very well and people close to me are shocked when I tell them and some even laugh thinking I’m joking! I try to copy social skills I see around me and on tv but I feel really upset and I hope someone can help me.

Context - my DS in a school where reception to year 2 they have one form entry school then at y3-y6 2 form so a completely new group of around 25 kids join and classes are mixed so half new and half “old” class kids.

Beyond the small talk I don’t seem to make deeper friendships. This year I thought I would try with the new mums and honestly I’m not just saying this but I’m also trying for them as I felt they must be lonely and finding things difficult so I felt I should make more effort with them and they have appreciated me reaching out and answering questions about clubs, homework and pe uniforms etc. whoever anyone has a question I respond as helpfully as I can.

I asked on group WhatsApp if anyone fancied getting a cup of coffee after drop off (I know half of the mums already bear in mind and we often say hi and have previously had coffee mornings and been to each others home) I thought this would be nice for the new parents to meet everyone. No one responded but day before the suggested coffee morning 3 people responded with it will be so lovely but I already am going XYZ. They suggested another one following week or after.

I messaged those mums separately and they seemed so lovely and we arranged just us 4 in cafe near school following Friday. I got there early after drop off. One had cancelled night before which I understand. The other 2 cancelled when I was already sat there! I responded warmly saying no problem at all and these things happen. I felt embarrassed sitting there waiting as I saw other mums from the other class who I already knew from reception when I entered and said hi then said I’m waiting for the new mums for coffee. So embarrassing sitting there waiting!

yesterday I went to grab a take out coffee before heading home and I see 3 of them sat there! I was really upset but smiled and said hi.

I have really tried over the years with lots of people so is it time I just accept I will never have friends? I feel so lonely. I turned 40 last year and that’s when it hit me I don’t have any girlfriends to have dinner or drinks with. When my kids leave I’ll be alone. My DH is autistic too so has zero friends. I feel so alone. My son has been playing with the new boys and I have asked the mums to come around my home or meet in park for play date but they haven’t responded.

Any tips please?

I work in a sector where I believe majority of my colleagues are also autistic and don’t want to socialise after work. I have tried.

It’s really hard to guess why you’re struggling to make friends from this account alone. mentioning that you’re autistic hasn’t really told us much at all ie how you might feel this has impacted the situation. We might surmise but might have it wrong. Not to be dismissive but it could all be coincidence and actually nothing about you personally as to why you were left out. Sorry to read you are feeling alone. I’m the same age and don’t have many friends who are parents, it can feel lonely.

That sucks. I'm sorry OP. Of course that's going to hurt. Sending hugs.
I found once I stopped actively trying and took a step back then some people naturally came to me instead.

Aww you sound lovely and I remember feeling very lonely during some of the school years. I made friends in the end and it was good.. but these friendships dont last. Some school mum groups are just odd and clicky and it has nothing to do with you and no amount of effort would change that. And even when you make school mum friends they disappear when they move on. This seems like a really long time frame but it goes so fast and changes quickly. I would follow others advice and try to make friends through other hobbies or interests. It is a really tricky age to make friends lots of people feel like this , not just you.

But gently, OP, these women are presumably friends with one another. You said it’s not everyone. I wouldn’t be going to another city for dinner with a nodding school run acquaintance. These people aren’t your friends. And that’s ok. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, or them, just that you should look somewhere else and broaden your search.

Have you noticed the way you talk about them? You never mention liking them. You never mention individuals. You talk as though they’re some undifferentiated mass of ‘school mums’ among whom you’d expected to find friendship. You tried the ‘old’ mums and as that hasn’t produced friendships, you tried the new ones. But you write about both lots in the same way, as if you just want them to fill a gap. Friendships don’t work like that. It will sound counter-intuitive, but you need to start being fussier, and focusing on people you actually like!

I’d look outside of the school mums - I met my friends at evening college/uni (mature student) or through work, I was never friends with school mums. Not that there’s anything wrong with school mums 😅 I’d just prefer to mix with people I genuinely gel with & not just cos we’re stood in the same playground everyday - plus, if it goes tits up you still have to stand in that playground everyday - I’d rather not.

Some autistic people have no problems making friends, but the majority of us are always going to struggle. Even if our behaviour is textbook, even if we follow all the advice we're given, even if we go to all the clubs and all the classes... we don't form connections. If we're not being too needy, we're being too aloof. It sometimes seems like everyone else has this sixth sense which tells them: this person is not like us, probably best avoided. Except it's not a sixth sense, it's just the absence of autism. They read us better than we can read ourselves.

We really just relate better to other ND people; and if those people are at the school gates, they're probably in a corner praying that no well-meaning mum tries to make small talk with them. They're certainly not in the cliques going for coffee together. Stop trying to deform yourself to fit in with randoms because it never, ever works. I know it sucks, I know it's lonely, but if there weren't difficulties associated with autism it wouldn't even be a diagnosis.

@RosesLikeButter People like to think they’re tolerant but they’re not.

I don’t think this is a tolerance issue - I’m NT and have friendships with NT and ND people. NT people are not in some secret club where they all are friends and unwelcoming to ND people. There are many many NT people I would decline coffee with as I simply don’t gel with them and have no desire to develop a friendship.

Friendships, or at least mine, involve some degree of personalities clicking (pure luck), mutual availability and expectations, as well as a common link (work/hobby/family etc). I don’t think I have anyone in my life that I would describe as a friend and I’m purely tolerating them. Conversely, choosing not to deepen a relationship from acquaintances to friend doesn’t mean someone is intolerant.

Same here, although I don't reach out - my son is in year 6 and over the last year I basically made friends with the other ND Mums because my Son made friends with the other ND children.

I have a younger child and despite being helpful I felt by the end of reception I was back to making no eye contact and feeling very aware the side chats had been made.

I can really resonate with you OP.
Mine are older now but I tried hard when they were in primary school to be friendly and outgoing (doesnt come naturally to me) and later found out the mums used to talk about me and say I had FOMO. So I stopped trying.

I 100% recommend taking your child to SEN groups, the parents will likely be ND, this is always much easier to navigate.

I’m glad you said this. I was sitting trying to work out where you mentioned doling out unsolicited advice

See I’ve realised in the last few years (4 kids so a lot of time at school gates!) thinking about it so much makes you forget that some mums possibly are related/ live next door to each other/ have multiple siblings of their kids in the same class/ are childhood friends/ went to school together/ work together/ do each others childcare etc etc etc. They could have already known each other/ bumped into each other on a day they had nothing on and said let’s go etc. I always think these things are more luck and those of us who overanalyse assume it’s us.

Also them cancelling, kids get sick, someone asks for a lift to an appointment, the bloody dog gets out, work calls people in, thought they were free but had an appointment etc. on mn people jump to screw them but life throws us inconveniences all the time. And as someone who works in a supermarket and has the world’s most inconvenient hours, I don’t think even my best friends get why I can’t do meet ups (hours change so regularly during the week, I do days, nights and work all weekend so am too absent for my kids then they’ll call me in when they’re stuck)

Hi OP,
Firstly I'm sorry that what you had hoped for hasn't happened yet. I think there is a full spectrum of experiences and so talking in absolutes doesn't really work; I know people who only really have school mum friends, some who have a couple and some who couldn't pick the other Mums out of a line-up.
In my experience, putting a whole class message on the WhatsApp group will rarely get much response. What works better is finding a Mum who you think you gel with and slowly building a friendship with that person.
I fall somewhere in the middle. I have a few close school Mums, but by no means am I one of the cliquey school Mums. I did this over a number of years, it did not happen overnight.
Can you organise a playdate and ask the boy's Mum to stick around for a cup of tea or a glass of wine? What clubs does your son get involved in? Suggest that one of the mums stays afterwards and you head for lunch with the children? I think the key to mum friendships is attempting an organic start to a friendship.
By the way some of the most spectacular friendship fallouts I've ever seen have been between school Mums - often it's not all it's cracked up to be.
Good luck, you sound a very genuine person x

Have you noticed the way you talk about them? You never mention liking them. You never mention individuals. You talk as though they’re some undifferentiated mass of ‘school mums’ among whom you’d expected to find friendship. You tried the ‘old’ mums and as that hasn’t produced friendships, you tried the new ones. But you write about both lots in the same way, as if you just want them to fill a gap. Friendships don’t work like that. It will sound counter-intuitive, but you need to start being fussier, and focusing on people you actually like!

This. It jumps out to me that you seem to think of them as a box you need to tick, rather than as a group of people who you actually want to get to know intrinsically.

I think you have become fixated on the idea that school mum friends is the missing piece you need in your life which you need to fill and have not asked yourself whether you are actually compatible deep down with these people as individuals and want to spend time with them.

Sometimes large social groups which don’t include you can feel like a living rebuke because you are not in the club. But a lot of these groups are actually far less cohesive than they appear. There are some genuinely strong friendships within them but a lot of it is about expediency. They are a bit like shoals of fish; they’re more about social protection than real friendships.

I think you probably need some help unpicking this with a counsellor. You are autistic which is possibly relevant but you seem to be thinking of school mums as things to collect rather than people with personalities and foibles and likes or dislikes.

Sorry you’re going through this op.

I get it as I wanted to make some more friends but school gates are tricky. I found a lot of mums already knew eachother from the preschool we didn’t go to.

But actually i made a very close friend at a birthday party where you might have more time to chat. And as someone else said, we just gelled. You won’t find a natural bond with everyone. And also by sticking to coffee after drop off, i imagine you’re eliminating most parents who work.

What I mean is, they don’t realise it, they don’t realise they’re doing it, they sense the otherness and don’t like it.

If you’re feeling as lonely as your post suggests you are I’d be looking at my marriage. You won’t be “all alone” when your kids leave, you’ll presumably have your husband? Are you unhappy in your marriage? I get that people need friends as well as their partner, but to be feeling this lonely when you’re married is not normal if you have a happy marriage.

Op I think you're over thinking this. My child is in year 1. I generally speak to the same group of parents at drop off/pick up but it's a casual aquaintanceship formed around all being the ones to arrive a bit early and subsequently standing close to the front. We may well appear as a clique to those who arrive later. We are not as we barely know one another beyond discussing the weather and how tired our children are by half term!

There has been a mums night out and a dads night out which everyone was invited to. But over half the class has not been represented. I get on well with those mums but I still wouldn't describe it as a friendship yet. There's a couple of other mums I'm friendly with because I've arranged something for our children or ended up on public transport with them after drop off. So I would chat with them if I saw them at pick up/drop off. I also have one of my lifelong best friends from school in the class, so obviously we are friends but that goes back years and is nothing to do with our kids being in the sane class! Some other parents know each other from baby groups.

I think what I've described above is more normal. I don't think many people meet and make good friends from the school gates. Tbh it hadn't occurred to me I should be doing that. I'm more concerned with supporting my child's friendships. Of course if I clicked with someone I'd be happy if it naturally developed into a friendship over time.

You aren't a lone, I'm similar have had one adult friendship and that ended spectacularly badly. Knows some of the mums and very close and there are constant playdates but much of that is child care which in reality is making he friendships really complicated so kind of glad I'm not involved and don't think our daughter, also autistic would cope. Know real advice but following back on what others have said do you want friends or just some connection/ interaction for me the latter is enough so I sometimes. Go out with her running club and I joined the lawn bowls club - don't underestimate bowls you get a chat, nothing to deep though and be out for a bit with no kids (cheap nice meals too)

Well, or it’s not a sensing otherness issue, and they simply don’t like the OP enough to want to pursue a friendship with her beyond a bit of school gate chitchat. Which is fine. We won’t want to be friends with the majority of people we meet and vice versa.

I’m willing to bet this has been a life long pattern for OP, as it will be for other ND’s, it’s not just one scenario, it follows on through college/uni, work and making mum friends etc, you can work somewhere for 2 years and you’re always out of the loop, someone new starts and in 1 month (maybe less) you can see how your collegues engage with them differently, with warmth and interest, they’re going for lunch, dinner together etc. No matter how much we put ourselves out there, or keep ourselves reserved, try not to be “too much”, take a genuine interest and ask how people are and what they’ve been up to, etc etc, they just will not like us.

If you don’t get it you don’t get it. Being ourselves doesn’t work, being someone else doesn’t work.

Do we over think it? Yes, we do, cos we don’t understand what we’re doing wrong in every single scenario.

I have no advice but I strong relate if it helps to know there’s someone else going through the same thing.
Diagnosed with Asperger’s as a kid, never had a friend apart from my husband. I always blamed not making any “mum friends” on my age (having had dc1 at 16) when I had dc2 in my mid twenties I had to face up to it just being me that’s the problem.

Also autistic and I hated the school gates. Never managed to make any real connections and was extremely happy when they were in high school and I didn’t have to collect them anymore.

@Makingfriebds take a look at "Mary teaches social skills" on FB. She does a lot about making friends. There's also a another woman who's name I have forgotten but will update if I remember. They both talk about how it's important to just be in the same place at the same time a lot (to become aquaintaces) and then how to make the leap to "friends" (remembering stuff to ask about, allowing yourself to be vulnerable etc).

I will acknowledge that it's one thing watching and understanding the theory of this stuff, and another thing actually doing it! (Fellow autistic person here)

Honestly, I think the range of relationship-making abilities coveted under the umbrella of neurodiversity is so broad it’s almost meaningless.

My best friend, whom I’ve known since our student days in the 90s, is autistic, and has an extraordinary capacity for making and keeping friends. Her husband, also autistic, has very few friends, which suits him. Both their sons are autistic. Both struggled with friendships at school, but the elder flourished socially at university and now in his mid-twenties has good, lasting friendships, whereas his younger brother, a university first year, is finding it hard socially (though I think the age he was when the Covid lockdowns happened contributed.)

Absolutely some autistic people struggle with friendships, but I think there’s a real range of capacity.