Anyone else encounter times where someone you care about seems to blatantly favor the friendship or attention of someone else, despite that person being…kinda sucky?
When I was younger, I used to think it was an issue I primarily had with men choosing other women over me and wasn’t necessarily correlated to autism, however I have began to see the same trend with other women in friendship dynamics as well. I’ll meet someone who I get along with great and have nice chemistry with whether it be platonic or romantic, and I put effort into showing my care towards them.
I’m very independent, however, and I wouldn’t say I go overboard with affection or make myself overly available to the point of people pleasing. I simply enjoy reciprocating my appreciation for their friendship, especially when it’s somewhat rare that I connect with people to that extent. I’ll feel that I’m considerate and have a great connection with this person, until it begins to become apparent that there’s a third person involved who they put much more effort into, and ultimately “choose” them in a way. All the while, it never fully seems like this third person is ever very thoughtful towards them or have any significant chemistry with my potential friend. It’s always kind of in front of me enough where I can slightly observe the dynamics to this extent I guess.
I want to clarify that I definitely don’t feel entitled to anyone’s feelings or that they owe me friendship simply because I’m nice to them, its just a pattern I’ve noticed and sometimes get sad from when having to eventually walk away over and over.
I guess I’m just confused as to why certain people that seemingly really enjoy my presence, end up actually not feeling much of a connection with me at all apparently. I don’t feel the need to control the situation or how anyone feels, I’d just like to understand it better. It just seems in any group of 3, I’m always bound to be that one that gets left out. I feel I’m aware enough to know if I was objectively behaving in a way that was annoying or less attractive to lead to this, but I feel I’ve grown to be pretty emotionally mature.