No Stupid Questions

I do care about the life of my friends. I'm autistic too. I love to hear their stories. Although there are some which I do not care about. Like their kids. I don't like them, I don't want to see pictures, I couldn't care less about whatever dumb, funny or smart thing they did. And I tell them. "Hey dude, nice you have a kid but it's not for me." same goes for football or formula 1. You can talk to me about it, but I'll just be thinking about fun stuff and won't hear a thing you said.

I prefer to talk to people and hear their stories when it's something I'm interested in. It generally helps to ask about those things, stimulating them to talk about something you actually like. But sometimes people just need to vent stuff and it's good to listen, even though it doesn't really interest you. But giving them a moment for it makes them feel good. But instead of acting like you like it so they will continue to talk about it, after giving them their moment for a bit, change the subject to something you like. At least that works for me. And now my friends know what I'm interested in, and likewise, so we know what we can talk about and do so neither of us gets bored.

For instance, some like to squash. I don't. Some also like to play boardgames, like me. They don't ask me to join them for squash, but they do ask me to play a boardgame. Some of my friends talk about football but they know I hate it so they talk about world domination to me instead (/jk).

If you have no common ground with someone, I don't understand how you can be friends. Everything in the relationship you have with someone would be fake. But if there is common ground, you should focus on that and be honest about what that is for you. Friends become better friends when they know the real you and accept you for who you are. If not, they are bad friends.

Yes, I care about all of that, and I'll ask regularly about them and what's going on.

I care about my friends. I care about their goals, concerns, trials, joys, and more. I listen and I dig deeper. If I don't care about what they did, I ask questions that reveal how it made them feel.

Now that's a lot of emotional labor, but for a select few confidants, I am more than happy to that work. It bonds us and makes each other feel seen and connected.

Im generally happy when good things happen to my friends. What you learn in the long run is to keep those things to your self. When we go on vacation only my close family knows. Any big steps in life are better taken alone and then celebrated after.

Do you consider yourself these people's friend?
If you're completely disinterested in their milestones, that sounds more like an acquaintance.

But to your question, yes. I actually care about these things for acquaintances and random people too. There are limits to how much I care but it's not zero.

I do care. It makes them happy, I want them to be happy, so transitively, yes.

I AM nice, so I generally hope the people around me are having a good time, but that's not really much to think about so I'm generally thinking about anything else.

My friend? I care. Randos? Fuck no.

For most people, yes.

For my best friend, no. The reason is that he and his wife really wanted a kid, and they got everything together and had one. He is the happiest new father I've ever seen.

My wife and I don't want kids, and have taken permanent action to make sure we don't. In part, this is because we understand the responsibility that would be carried for years. We have other things we want to do with our lives. So for someone else to have full knowledge of that responsibility and embrace it gets respect from me.

for the duration of our contact i am concerned for their well being. beyond that they usually spend less time in my mind than the current rerun of grimm

So I'm in my mid-50s, and I've honestly only come up with genuine lasting interest in my friends' lives in the last few years.

I noticed that I'd get together with friends and they'd say "hey, how did your kid's sportsball tournament go back in July?" What struck me about it is that they cared enough to actually hear what I said, and remember it - not because they have a deep abiding interest in my kid's life, but because they cared about me and the things that were important to me.

And I wasn't repaying the care.

So I've tried to change. When people tell me stuff about their kids or vacation, I make a concerted effort to remember it and remember the significance of it, because the fact that it's important to the people I care about means that to some degree, I care about it as well.

Kids? Not really. But if I didn't care about stuff in their life then I don't think we're really friends.

Very, very, VERY few people actually care about other people's kids. And that interest only goes up slightly when they are related to the child.

Nothing wrong with you feeling that way.

As for vacations, life events, etc., I'm interested in knowing what goes on in my friend's lives... that's kind of what having a friend is about.

BUT... I'm interested in hearing about these things face to face. I couldn't care less if they're just social media spam about what they did with their spouse. That's one reason why I stopped using social media.

I like seeing my friends happy. I like talking about my cats.

I find it interesting to hear about, was just talking to a somewhat stranger about his holiday today.

I care about my friends, and if they want to talk about it, I'm happy to listen.

Depending on what the thing is (eg, potential new person) they can be inherently interesting too.

Yes I do care.

I don’t care about literally everything. But I do about most of it and love seeing it.

I'm another maybe-autist. I don't care at all about babies or whatever, but a vacation might be interesting. Not if their vacation was just to a resort though.

I care. Sometimes it’s a bit boring but I love my friends and sometimes put a little work in to keep the connection.

I'm also fascinated to know this

I like stories of babies if they're not complaints. Vacation I basically think of it as ideas for my next vacation where you can ask stuff like "how was public transport?" or whatever

Sometimes yes, I just do the minimal required that shows I care. But I often times do not care because I don't need the subtle reminder that their lives are going along better than mine. My life is in micromanagement hell, where I'm just biding time until I die pretty much. I barely enjoy things and whatnot. So if I were to fully celebrate milestones friends are celebrating to me it'd be like a knock against my own life.

So I don't but I also don't make it known to them out of respect. If they had to ask for the honest truth about how much I care, then it's on them for asking because I'd give them that truth.

Yes, if friends. Unless they are repeating themselves, I'm going to be interested at least a little. Coworkers, no. I'll be polite and sympathetic but if it is not related to work I am unlikely to be interested and will try to bring the conversation back to work topics or end the conversation as soon as I can without being rude. Randos, maybe but probably not. I've met lots of interesting people and am always kind of interested in hearing about the human experience from anyone who want to share theirs, but really I think I got too old or jaded for that. I avoid interacting with random strangers if its a choice now, and am always at least a little skeptical of whatever bullshit someone I don't know has to say to me. I try not to be rude expressing my disinterest but I will be if it feels appropriate or necessary.

I think your angle is a bit reductive.

Conversations or interactions generally don't go from 0 to how-dare-you-not-care-about-my-baby instantaneously.

For example, in a cafe, order coffee, I've never met the barista before, they're not going to flop out baby photos and grill me about how much I don't care about their kidlet. They might make casual conversation, how are you, great day, bit tired, newborn up all night, oh I have a newborn too, she's been unwell, yeah ours had HFMD last week, oh that's tough, is she better now, was the fever bad, and so on and so forth. What I'm saying is, it's through the too and fro that you guage how interested someone is in the things that are important to you.

If my sister had a child then she would probably just expect me to care about her new baby because she's family and we see each other every week and the new baby is going to be part of my life for the rest of my life.

Another thing that happens is... people just get excited about things and that's ok too. I became a new father almost a year ago. To me, it's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. Of course I understand that it's not very amazing to anyone else, but for those first few weeks of course I was excited about it. It would be fine if I were to "overshare" with my barista, but it would also be fine if they were to tell me to keep my baby photos to myself.

Depends how close i am to them. If it's a passive acquaintance I'm like, happy for them but in a fleeting sort of way?