One of the worst parts about ADHD is the difficulty us ADHD kids have with social stuff. I'm almost twenty years old, had ADHD Inattentive Type since third grade, and to this day I can count the number of friends that I have on one hand.

I've been very lucky in that I've never had many experiences of people I thought were friends turning out not to be so. However, I'm a suspicious person by nature, and I've learned a few traits people have that tell me right away whether or not someone is a good person to be around.

The first is if the person is ignoring me when I try to talk to them. I'm an introvert on top of being ADHD-I, and I don't strike up random conversations easily. If I'm talking to someone and they're not looking at me, or they're fiddling with their phone or even looking in the opposite direction, and they don't explicitly say something along the lines of "Go ahead, I'm still listening", then chances are that they're not someone I'm going to want to be around. There are exceptions to this, such as with my friends and I, but those are exceptions because I already know that they're listening to me and care about what I have to say, because I've known them for a long period of time. When random people I try to talk to ignore me, it's a pretty safe bet that they're not interested in being friends.

The second is if they sneer at me while I'm talking to them. If you have problems distinguishing facial expressions, a sneer is kind of like an upside down smile, but with the eyebrows wrinkling and lowering towards the eyes, instead of smoothing and rising towards the hair. It's typically a look of disgust, and usually directed at stuff like snails and bad smells. If this look is directed my way when I'm talking, then it's pretty obvious to me that staying any longer could be hazardous to my already abysmal social reputation, and possibly my general health.

Which brings me to the third trait, which is if the person I'm trying to befriend responds with physical bodily harm. While admittedly rare in my age group, it's still a HUGE no-no, and something to watch out for. Yes, friends may trade a few punches, back slaps, back-of-the-head slaps (if you're with me and my friends and obsessed with NCIS like we are), and other touches that could be construed as harmful, but the number one difference between these punches and punches from other people is that there's typically no real pain involved. If my best friend slaps me on the back of the head for being a moron (which happens more often than I'd like to admit), even with my over-sensitivity to tactile stimuli, it doesn't usually hurt that much. If I punch my best friend in the arm as retaliation for the most likely deserved headslap, even if I misjudge the force and hit her harder than I intended to, she still knows that I don't mean to actually hurt her, and it still doesn't hurt as much as it would if I had actually intended to hurt her. However, if someone punches me in the gut, or slaps me in the face, or pulls my hair, or does something to some area of my body that actually, really HURTS, then I punch or slap or pull right back just enough to get them off and away from me, and then I skedaddle as fast as I possibly can, because no way do I EVER want to be friends with someone who makes me hurt.

In that same vein, there are different ways that people can make me hurt. If someone I don't know calls me names, like stupid, weirdo, retard, or even worse stuff that I won't mention here, then I don't want to be friends with that person. Even though my mom may call me a dumba*, and my friends may call me weird, or crazy, I know that they're not saying them as insults, but rather as terms of endearment, because I KNOW that they love me, and that's how they're expressing it. Someone I'm chatting up in an attempt to become friends does not know me, does not love me, and therefore does not have ANY right to call me names, or to insult me (by insult I mean saying things like "She's so weird").

I hope this helps. As I said, I'm an introvert on top of my ADHD-I, so I've never actively tried to go out and make friends, so I've never really experienced being shot down. Let me know how it turns out, would ya?

Best regards!

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