Sorry this is a very long one....
My DS started primary with lots of friends but by the end a lot of these 'friends' seemed to dislike him. He was often the butt of the jokes and they would say mean things but my DS would still think they were his friends. I suffer from a lot of anxiety so spent the last couple of years feeling constantly worried that he has no friends and no one likes him. He started secondary in September and soon made friends with 3 boys & seemed very happy, but yesterday he told me that one of the boys has been acting off with him. He runs away whenever he see my DS coming & either ignores him at school or isn't very nice to him. They still play online together but even then, he's nice to DS when it's just the 2 of them playing but changes whenever 1 of their other friends joins. DS asked him last week why he was being like this & the boy said 'because your rude'. DS said he doesn't think he has been rude but they are both sometimes a bit rude when playing online (I've heard them & they're both guilty of it). DS doesn't seem that bothered about it but I wonder if that's because he doesn't get that this boy clearly doesn't want to be his friend anymore (DS said they are still good friends but clearly they are not). DS struggles a bit with social rules; he gets to close to people when he's talking to them, he talks over people, he doesn't pick up on when people aren't interested in what he's talking about, he'll ring someone 3 or 4 times until they pick up, and he doesn't seem to understand what a friend is. We've tried talking to him about some of these things but I still don't feel he understands. And now I'm very anxious again and thinking, doesn't anyone like him? is he happy? will he ever have any real friends? I don't know how to help him or even help myself to stop feeling so anxious about it which probably isn't helping him! Thank you if you've read this far! x