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[dei]

This is probably the first time ever if not in a long time that I have posted on this particular board. I normally don't ask for advice on the internet in forums but I figure I should try in this case, especially since I have absolutely no one to talk to about this other than myself.

I have an offline friend, let's call him "Jay". Now Jay and I are both nerds, and since I moved to this new apartment last year he's basically been the only friend I have had here in this town. Or at the very least, he is the only one I have that is my age. I'm 24 and he's somewhere under that, but I digress.

He used to do a lot of work for my landlord, who happens to run both a non-profit organization and an Eco-friendly cleaning service. My friend Jay worked for my landlord as an "Eco-technician" in his cleaning program from October 2010 to just a few months ago. He was downgraded to "on-call status" after he complained a little too much about some of the things he had to do.

Regardless of whether he was working or was just on-call, Jay always made plans to hang out with me at least twice a week, since we were each others only friends in this town. We would hang out after work on Tuesdays at my place, and then either at my place or his place on Sundays, which were his only day off during the week.

Because I myself have Asperger's Syndrome and have had very few friends because of my social awkwardness and inability to handle most social situations that could get me friends, I cherished what little time I had with Jay, regardless of whether we had fun or not. However, something happened to change this, and it changed drastically.

When my friend Jay was told that he was going to be put on on-call status, he stopped hanging out with me entirely on Tuesdays. Tuesdays were the day that he worked with his crew on cleaning my complex, so every time that he was able to after work we would hang out. He hasn't made an effort to hang out on Tuesdays since then. We were still hanging out on Sundays, and I was happy with that despite my being miffed that he would rather hang out at his apartment and play video games than hang out with me.

Now suddenly and for the past three weeks he has not even made an effort to hang out on Sundays. The first time he canceled on me he said it was because he "had a stomach ache". I thought that this was a cop-out of sorts that made him seem like he didn't want to hang out with me. I had been making my way to his place on quite a few Sundays with my pulantofanschitis (not certain how to spell that, but it's an inflamed tendon in the foot that if left untreated can result in bone spurs that require surgery to remove) and without the option of getting treated for five months. I was in excruciating pain but I did not once complain or cancel an appointment because I cherished my time with Jay. He's my best and only friend that I have right now and I would do virtually anything for him.

The following Sunday he canceled again, citing that he had a water blister on his foot from walking around too much. I felt that this too was a cop-out considering what I dealt with when going over to his place for the past five months. However I was in a good mood so I decided to show him some compassion. I asked my friend Jason to take it easy and just reschedule. He rescheduled our time to hang out for the next day.

Monday however he decided to show up to my place for about fifteen minutes because of a staph infection in his right cheek. I should have said to him that if he had something that serious he shouldn't have even rescheduled for Monday because he should have just gone to the doctor. Instead he shows up for fifteen minutes, rejects most of my ideas for entertainment, and then leaves for the hospital.

While yes I felt happy to see him, I also felt a little disappointed because of how things went. He didn't say for even a half-hour and he came despite having something serious going on with his right cheek. I should have told him to go to the hospital and reschedule but I didn't. I'm kind of passive when it comes to my friends, because I usually am lucky to have even just one. Regardless of how I felt however he said we would hang out the following Sunday.

This past Sunday however, I tried calling him because my insecurities and my gut told me that it would happen again. He didn't answer his phone nor did he reply to the text I sent him, until around 3 PM in the afternoon. He told me that he had been working until around 3 AM Sunday morning because he had been called in for the first time in about a month to do some cleaning. I was furious that he had not told me he was going to be working. This was because I was worried sick about him due to his staph infection. I cried for him because I was thinking that he was going to be in the hospital and I would lose yet another friend.

Once more however he rescheduled to this Thursday at our usual time, 10 AM. However as I write this it is a little past 11 AM PST, and I have not received any response from either the phone call I sent nor the text I sent to confirm our plans for today. I'm essentially done worrying and right now I am more than a little miffed. I believed that he was going to hang out with me today, because I trust Jay. I truly do trust him. Yet I'm thinking in my head that if he's not working right now or not in the hospital, he's at his place playing video games and ditching me once again because he just doesn't want to get out of the house.

This is the fifth time that he has bailed on me or hasn't been able to keep our appointments and fulfill his promises to spend time with me. I'm not only upset, but I am hurting inside because Jay is my only offline friend at this time I can even do things with, let alone my only offline friend period. The fact that he didn't even call me to say he wouldn't be able to make it is heartbreaking, because that tells me that he doesn't care about our friendship.

All I want to know is what should I do in this situation. I don't have the same opportunities as a neurotypical in regards to making friends, and becoming friends with Jay was merely by chance. The complex I live in has mostly people aged forty to eighty, with only one person even close to my age here. I don't go to college or university because I can't handle the stimuli that are related to a college campus or a classroom environment. Such stimuli will drive me into a deep psychosis that I have to spend months or years recovering from. I don't like parties, I don't drink, and I don't go to concerts so that limits pretty much every opportunity I have.

On top of that I am a nerd whose favorite activities are watching anime, playing what most people offline call "obscure" or "weird" video games, and doing research into the paranormal. I'm also socially awkward due to both the Asperger's and years of being sheltered by my mother, a conservative Christian who doesn't even trust me not to stray from the path to this day. And due to a decade and a half of physical and emotional abuse I am not too keen on trusting people, or going into certain situations that have developed because of my PTSD.

All I really want is to be able to hang out with my friend Jay again, but my insecurities and my gut tell me that won't happen. I don't want to be alone, and I don't know what to do in this situation, so I'm here crying out for some advice so that maybe I can figure things out. I'm sorry if this post/rant is a little tl;dr, but thanks for listening either way.

[Stargrasper]

The "right" thing to do isn't typically easy.  As I see it, there are two possibilities of the "right" thing to do:

• Sit him down and talk with him about your concerns with your relationship.
• Let him go.

As painful as it is, the second is probably the better option, if only because he doesn't sound like he's interested in sitting down and talking about the situation...but you don't stand to gain anything by not trying.  Just remember that no relationship can exist without reciprocity.  If he won't do that anymore, maybe it's time for you to move on as well.

As far as making friends...consider going to church.  A lot of modern churches have small groups or bible studies or something of the sort.  This would typically be a (comparatively) low-stimuli situation and further, this would place you with people who will support you.  Now community goes both ways.  While they support you, they may ask you to support them.  They're going to let you down.  They're going to hurt you.  They're going to betray you.  But so will anyone and everyone else in this world.  Given what you already do for your friend, going the extra mile for this community will be easy for you.  I also have issues with trust and issues with anxiety...but the people in these Christian ministries are pretty much the most supportive people I've ever met anywhere.  Find the one that fits what you believe.  Or at least one that's tolerant of what you believe.

[Haschel]

The "right" thing to do isn't typically easy.  As I see it, there are two possibilities of the "right" thing to do:

• Sit him down and talk with him about your concerns with your relationship.
• Let him go.

Pretty much that. If he's decided the relationship is no longer of value, there isn't a whole lot to be done for it. It doesn't sound like he's particularly upset/angry with you, which means he's probably bored. While that doesn't mean the two of you will stop being friends, it may mean that you no longer get the regular interaction that you feel you might require. I can't really offer any advice on where else to get that, though. Sorry if that seems a bit pessimistic, but it's just my view as a person that has experienced something vaguely similar.

[dei]

Stargrasper, what the hell? Why the hell did you suggest that I go to a church? I might as well tell the lot of you something else about myself regarding the church.

After 9/11, my mother, who was raised in the church but left after some disagreement, started to bring my younger brother and I to the Church of the Nazarene in the town we were living in at the time. She brought us there against out will, and luckily for my brother he was able to lie his way out of there by claiming to be a Buddhist and promising he would do extra chores around the house if he didn't have to go to church. Me? My mother didn't trust my word a damn bit and thought that if I didn't go to church I was going to become a baby-raping devil-worshiper.

She didn't even care that a lot of my outbursts were because I wasn't getting the right help that is needed for a person with Autism Spectrum Disorders, as she forced me to go to church anyways. The people at that church seemed nice at first but them something terrible happened. The elder males of the church as well as the pastor started to abuse me.

When I tried to tell my mother that I didn't want to go to the church anymore she said that she couldn't trust me with my younger brother. Yet she trusted those perverts and pedophiles in that church she chose just because of her friends being a part of that church. I didn't know how to tell my mother about the abuse that was going on, until one day after the pastor and one of the elders took me to my favorite restaurant and bought me my favorite meal and then started to call me a devil-worshiper with hollow beliefs, and told me that I was nothing without Jesus and thus caused me to burst into tears and cry even for hours after I got home that my mother believed me.

However, she still made me go to church. She wouldn't leave me at home because she was afraid I would hurt my younger brother. Even after the stress from the church as well as the stress from being bullied and abused at the local community college drove me into a psychosis where I was trying to set fire to the church with coffee stirrers and teleport myself from abandoned lots because the fairies told me that a girl I liked was telepathically communicating to me from the dead after her husband killed her with a sword. By spinning.

It was finally after in a state of rage because my mother wanted her "devil-worshiping" son who decided that Paganism was the one religion that could save him got assaulted with a bar of deodorant I threw at her head that I ended up on Probation and my mother stopped dragging me to church. It was after this and after I moved out of her house that we finally started to get along again.

However I will never forgive the church nor anyone associated with any Christian organization for the hell that the children of God put me through. If you insist on telling me I should go to church after all of this Stargrasper, all I can say is I don't give a fuck and leave it at that. But never think that telling people that Jesus saves is the right thing to do, because honestly if you listen to a lot of the victims of his teachings he condemns more than you realize.

I'll give a status update in regards to my friend Jay the next time, I hear someone at the door.

[dei]

Well, it turns out I was worrying for the wrong reasons. My friend Jay has had a lot of hectic stuff going on with him. First of all he's now working several nights a week with his crew cleaning local restaurants like Chili's as an Eco-technician. He didn't get home until around 3 AM last night and yet he still came over to hang out with me. However he couldn't stay long because his girlfriend was home alone due to her father being out of state. This was because of a death on their side.

We had a talk and he apologized for things getting so hectic. He made plans to hang out on Sunday and he said that even if he does work until the early morning hours he will make his way over to my place. On top of that now that his other computer has been fixed I can possibly go to his place and play games I can't on my computers. I feel a lot better about this and since now that the problem has hopefully been resolved, I am locking this thread.

Also, I think I will refrain from posting on this particular part of the Bay12 Forums thanks to that post I let out that rant about. Religion is a very touchy subject for me especially since a lot of the abuse I went through was at the hands of the church and Christians. I'm sorry if I stepped on any toes with my rant, as I don't want to cause any problems just because of my own temper. I'm usually pretty non-confrontational unless if someone does decide to do something that sets off either my Asperger's or my PTSD.

Anyhow thanks for listening, now let's let this thread die.