My DD 16.5 has just finished her first term at A level college. She’s smashing it after a slightly bumpy start. She’s suspected autistic and we’re waiting for an assessment. We didn’t suspect for years (although her sister suggested it) but her masking has dropped away as she got older.
She was lucky to have a tight group of lovely friends at secondary school but began to notice that few of them were really close with her like they were with each other. She realised she was always initiating convos on the group chats or individually, but rarely would they maintain the chat. She says she thinks they don’t get her humour. She knows they do message each other but rarely message her.
l don’t read her texts so don’t know what the tone comes off as. I know she can be hard work socially. If she’s uncomfortable she becomes monotone and monosyllabic. She’s not like that with good friends but I don’t have much experience of her interactions because she often declines to have friends come over.
She likes to talk about her passions but most friends don’t share them and she is not into their interests so lacks those connections. She struggles with small talk and also to understand why they don’t get enthusiastic about the things she likes.
Since college she has had limited contact with most of her secondary school friends as only one went to the same college. They are close and one other friend messages her sometimes but none of the others.
She broke my heart a bit recently when she told me she is lonely. She was sad that on Christmas morning she only got a text from her gran and wonders if the one friend who went to college with her would bother to message her if they weren’t at the same place.
She's not made any new friends at college because of aforementioned social awkwardness.
I explained to her that she needs to put herself out there to forge those connections, that she can’t just wait for friends to roll up out of nowhere and she said she is making herself try to talk more. I messaged college before she started to ask about what support she might be able to access without an official diagnosis and they told me loads of stuff including some social clubs she could attend. They’re things she would enjoy. She initially rejected the idea of attending because of not wanting the social awkwardness but following her admission of feeling lonely is reconsidering. I’m in two minds honestly about whether ‘finding her people’ who understand her quirks is useful or if spending time with more socially awkward people isn’t actually helpful and she’d do better learning how to socialise with non neurodivergent folks.
But all this is quite new to me. Sorry this has been long but if you have any advice on how to help my daughter socialise or become less lonely or even learn to accept herself with less social activity than ‘normal’ people, I’d be very grateful.