E17 – Friendships

Julie Legg and Jel Legg discuss ADHD and friendships – the challenges faced when trying to make friends, keeping them, and high expectations placed upon what a friend should be.   

They discuss finding joy in low-pressure connections and forming bonds through shared interests, redefining friendship on their own terms and focusing on practical strategies such as active listening. Julie and Jel offer encouragement for embracing genuine, interest-based relationships that align with ADHD traits.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Friendship and ADHD: Julie and Jel reflect on how ADHD shapes their perception of friendship, often preferring “close acquaintances” over traditional friendships due to struggles with societal expectations and high personal standards.
  • Challenges in Maintaining Friendships: ADHD traits like oversharing, over-talking, and object permanence make it difficult to sustain connections and meet traditional friendship norms. This can leave people with ADHD confused due to their good intentions being misunderstood by others.
  • Adapting to Friendship Needs: They find joy in low-pressure relationships, like casual acquaintances, and focus on shared interests such as hobbies or sports to foster meaningful connections.
  • Practical Advice: Lowering expectations, practicing active listening, and seeking social groups with shared interests help build connections while managing the unique dynamics of ADHD in friendships. Despite having challenges with friend groups in the past, you don’t have to give up trying in future.

LINKS

TRANSCRIPT

JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52.

JEL: And I’m Jel Legg, diagnosed at 55.

JULIE: Welcome to ADHDifference. In today’s episode we’ll be talking about friendships and not of the romantic relationship kind, but just good old genuine friendships. With ADHD being ever-present in our lives we can reflect back on our friendships as a child really, can’t we – the older school years.

JEL: Yes. We have this word ‘friendship’ and we often try to define what friendship means and I don’t think we perhaps understand the word the same way as many other people do. I often read stories of people who are dear friends, been friends for decades, and how their relationship works within that framework, but we don’t really think we have friendships. We think we have great acquaintances. By definition of other people’s descriptions of friendships, we just don’t seem to have them – apart from each other, but each other’s a primary relationship which is not what this is about. But we are each other’s best friends.

JULIE: I think it’s almost a learned thing, this word friendship, because starting out, you know, as a youngster, say at even at Primary School, I had friend groups and I didn’t really feel that I fitted into those friend groups, but I was always able to be social. So, for me, they were my friends at the time. I didn’t know them as any other word. Now I can look back at them and say “Oh actually they were just peer groups.” To be A friend, you know, to be honest.

JEL: Yeah because as parents, and our parents before us, to say “Have you made friends at school?” Yes, yes. I’ve got lots are friends and you can name four or five people but, for a young child the word friend is much easier to understand and pronounce than acquaintance. [Definitely.] You know, but as adults now, we do to ourselves to define what a friend is and that does help when you are in a society where we’re expected to have friendships. And we’re told it’s easy to make them when you’re young, great to make them at university when you meet heaps of people, then through your career and then they dwindle out and it gets harder to make friendships as you get older. And so we have these constant conversations about how older people are lonely, and loneliness can be a killer, literally, they reckon you know. Some people think. And so we’re left all this with this deficit, this thing, the idea we don’t have friends and so it’s going to be bad for our health. However, we strongly believe acquaintances can bring as much joy into our world as having a traditional friend.

JULIE: Absolutely. Can we go back to the school years though because I think that’s when, that’s when we’re beginning to be social. Having a friend is important or it’s … well it is. We want to fit in. I found at around 8 or 9, I … as I said before, I was very social but I’d find maybe over talking and oversharing I might be shunned from one group. So, I’d wander into another and there I’d be quieter but then almost feel I was a bit picked on because I didn’t really have my say because I was too concerned about over talking or oversharing. So, it can get a bit confusing and girls particularly can be quite manipulative and I struggled with friendships at a school age.

JEL: I always have friends well, we call it for the sake of this chat, I always had friends at school.  I … looking back with the hindsight of a late adult ADHD diagnosis, I always had a best friend, always. Even through adult life I always had a best friend. There were lots of other people around but there was that one person that I would go and play with the most, or phone up, or and plan adventures with. And then there’d be secondary ones below that if they weren’t available. When it comes to sort of adulthood, yes that’s carried on however, although this isn’t about relationships, I’ve only had a year or two of my life not being in a romantic relationship, which were great years. I mean I love being on my own but my partner’s always have been my best friend. And it’s always struck me to have a friendship as valuable or strong outside of that would always be a bit of a conflict. So this pattern of always having a best friend endured into adulthood by having a partner, a romantic partner, whatever you want to call it. But as a child yeah, lots of friends however, I’m blessed with having all my school reports right through to the age of 15 – 16, and it appears when I look back through them that I probably wasn’t a really good friend to other kids. One of the criticisms that often is in there is I wouldn’t share the classroom activities or toys. I was quite independent; bolshy, arrogant, self-assured all sorts of words like that I think the teacher would have rather have written in the report when I can reflect on myself. So this idea of having friends is as just as important in reverse, is what kind of friends are we to other people with ADHD.

JULIE: Yeah, it is interesting. I would think that a friend is someone that you can rely on and I think this is maybe where my expectations grew throughout this childhood, into school, into sort of workplace, and young adulthood, through marriage and beyond. I … my expectations were quite high who that, who I’d be friends with and that meant and I think there were disappointments along the way. And so I learned not to actually rely on other people a lot, which is a bit sad in a way because you should you know, you should be able to share the burden of life or just share great moments, but I was a bit disappointed. One, for example, I had a really, really good schoolmate at high school. So I would have been about 14 and we were inseparable for about 18 months and she was my best friend. And we were so joined at the hip, we thought it would be really funny to shock our peers by not being friends. So we thought “Yeah let’s do it!” So one lunchtime we parted ways. Everyone was shocked and horrified, yay job done. But after a month we actually didn’t rejoin and we went our separate ways and have never spoken since, which is really bizarre and I thought it was really awkward because I didn’t, you know, we should have been friends again but that just didn’t happen. She wandered into another group and was quite happy there and I kind of, you know, bumbled my way through the rest of high school and then left. So it was a really odd, very odd.

JEL: This pattern you mentioned yeah, so we have high expectations of friends. I think that’s been a lifetime thing that’s gone on because having, always having a singular primary friend at each stage of life, to me now I look back, is no different to having a relationship. Your partner in a romantic relationship should be your best friend and so that pattern’s always been there and so there are high expectations. And so when it becomes to a social friend group I have the same expectations on the individuals that would qualify for me calling them a friend as I would for a partner. That expectation, yeah that they’re really high. Whereas with acquaintances, once you learn not to have those expectations which aren’t really fair, you certainly learn over the years that you can get a lot more from acquaintances. A lot more joy.

JULIE: And also they don’t disappoint you [no they don’t] because those expectations aren’t there. So perhaps we’re putting so much emphasis on what a friend should be that, we’re kind of missing the missing the mark a little. But there’ll be lots of people that think of us as great friends. You know, we’re there at the end of the phone whenever they want to call and we’re helpful, and all of those good things but yeah, it kind of doesn’t work that way around.

JEL: That is not to take … if any of you guys are listening, that’s not to say we’re not friends by your definition, of course we are but by ours, we struggle with the word friends. We can love these people in our lives. They can be in our lives for decades, and they can be very important to us, but we’re not in each other’s pockets. We may not see each other more than two or three times a year. We may not know exactly what’s going on, on a daily basis. We don’t continually communicate through emails, or social media, or text. So, we live separate lives; we catch up and then we’ve got lots of stories to tell. From an ADHD viewpoint, that really suits us because they will always bring fascinating and fantastic stories to the table, and we love that time we have with them. But I think a nightmare we would both describe is the kind of friend that pops in once a week, or a couple of times a week, you know, and just sits there for 2 or three hours clogging up the house, with no new stories. I’ve witnessed [and complaining] and complaining and moaning about their lives and bringing negativity. Because, let’s face it, if you were to sit down for 3 hours every week with someone, you know, it’s … what are you bringing to the table that’s new and interesting? Very rarely anything.

JULIE: So that’s the interesting thing I think about work colleagues too. For me, when you spend so much time with work colleagues, and you have the same repetitive conversations on a daily basis, and “what are you up to on the weekend?”  I ran out of oomph, I think because I can predict what they’re going to be doing, and there’s no fun stories, and that, you know. I’m going to use the word boring which sounds terrible but if you … I think if you have ADHD you might get my drift with regards to that disinterest, you know. It starts getting a little bit repetitive.

JEL: But can I just say on the work colleague thing, it’s … we’ve both had lots and lots of friends over the decades through work. And, as an adult, work environments are your classic environment in order to make a friend. Looking back, I’m not sure as an ADHDer whether it was particularly healthy because you tend to, even if that person you get on great with at work, you then go out and do social things with, and sometimes I’ve flatted with people I’ve worked with, so you really are spending time with them, you end up in these circular conversations and it’s always going to be about work. It’s always, and it’s about something generally you can’t change, it’s not in your power. Whereas a relationship, such as our relationship, and romantic ones and so on, outside of those fixed things we have the ability to make choices and have more power over our lives. So those friendships are more empowered to have deeper meanings. For an ADHD person that means a great deal to me. The idea of going around in continuous loops of debate and argument over something which can’t be changed is one of my sort of nightmares. I want you to talk about object permanence because that relates very much to work colleague friendships, doesn’t it.

JULIE: Yeah well I moved locations a lot, this is undiagnosed ADHD. It would be nothing to move cities on a whim. I fell into contracting which I’ve spoken about before; short bursts of work and interesting people and then I would leave because the end of the contract. And so I got to meet lots and lots of people and, for a short period of time, they were interesting and wonderful people. But, when I left each job and started the next, you know, I found this pattern that none of my old friends, if you want to refer to them as that, they never came with me. They never stayed in touch and I never stayed in touch with them either. And I think it’s quite common for ADHDers with this thing called object permanence. If people and things aren’t in front of you, you’re likely to forget them, and not in a harsh manner but just because they’re not in your present. And so, if you don’t see them every day then you might forget to call them because, you know what I mean, it’s not within your vision. And so, a lot of those pockets of potential friend groups fell away really easily for me and that’s really been the story of my life. Lots of … lots of locations, lots, you know. I’m a very, very social person. I dive in there. It’s wonderful but those friends never have really stayed with me.

JEL: And, even taking that to the next step, I’ve split my adult life, since my early 20s, pretty much 60% New Zealand, 40% the UK. So, I’ve … that means I’ve upped and left one country and gone and lived in the other for say 8 or 10 years, and then luckily I’m fully settled back here now. And I’ve been, you know … and what that means is at a point you leave a country you may know 15 or 20 people. You may … and you have to say goodbye to them all, and you just go. Boom, gone. And then you arrive and if you’ve not … say I’d been back in the UK for 10 yearS, all the people I knew in New Zealand for all the years before I went to the UK, I no longer know them. They’ve disappeared. They’re not part of my world anymore. And then I look around now at the people I know in my life and I’m so blessed to have these wonderful acquaintances and, you know, if I were to leave back to the UK tomorrow then they will all disappear again. So I think that’s something I feel, having ADHD, I’ve always found quite easy to do because I love to meet new people and keep it fresh. Now the people I went to school and college with, and had my primary social life involved around music and being in bands right into my early 20s, 23 or so, I pretty much know for a fact they still are very close to each other 35 years later and still have regular socials and are in each other’s world. This is a quite a strong thing that goes on in England. It’s part of the culture there that if you largely stay around a similar town you go up to, you’re likely to have very long-term embedded friendships, and I say good, great, fantastic, awesome. But for me, looking back and looking forward, I can’t imagine anything worse. There’s a lovely nostalgic aspect to that and I did once to catch up with these friends, having not seen them for a long time, but you know, one evening was enough. It didn’t … and this, they’re a fantastic bunch of people and I’ve got such happy memories of the time I spent with them, but yeah I just can’t imagine repeating that cycle all the time, with the same people. Even now we’re excited about moving to the other end of New Zealand where we know no one and starting again. That’s something that never goes. And I think ADHD is part of the reasons for that. Maybe in some ways it’s an enabler because we’re always seeking dopamine hits of new interesting, exciting situations and new people. And with ADHD, whatever we reminiscent talk about in our childhood, it’s the same now. It doesn’t go. It’s just our age and maturity deals with it differently.

JULIE: Yeah definitely. In The Missing Piece, a lot of women had contributed that they too had issues fitting in around school, and teens, and young adulthood. And also, those midlife also say it’s an issue for them now so it isn’t just us. It can be quite a challenge for many, many, many women. In fact I just got an email the other day from someone who had been referred to the book and had read it, and thank me just for that. That section on friendships really resonated with her. It was that ‘aha’ moment that “Oh yeah yeah it all makes sense now.” And this is you know, post- diagnosis, we’re able to go back and analyze of course, all these sort of chunks of our previous decades, whereas at the time you’re just living it. You move on, and you survive, and you do the next thing and I … it’s only when you stop, and pause, and reflect. Then you can actually see this pattern. So yeah, it’s quite interesting.

JEL: And on that note, a wee story that I think reflects that well is … so, how people look at you if you have ADHD, and then how you see them in that framework of that group of friends, may not always be through the same lens. What I mean is, for instance, I was in a band at in college, so we’re talking 17. They were the centre of my social world, centre of my drive and interest in things. I mean, I wasn’t studying my A Levels. I was rubbish at them. I just was fascinated by wanting to learn to play music and be in a band. That was where I saw a future. I just assumed everyone in the band with me was the same, but I don’t think they were. They were doing it for social reasons, just for a laugh, and for smoking and drinking, and just for a giggle. Just is what they did. Whereas I was a little more serious about it. Anyway, I remember being mortified one lunchtime at college when a couple of the members of the band, who I’d known for a long time, just pulled me aside and said you’re no longer in the band. And they were really nice about it and there was no big who-ha, an argument, and I don’t think that acquaintance-ship, friendship thingy with them necessarily went down the gurgler because of that, but I was mortified. My world came to an end. It was like ‘uggghh’. And because they were one of the best bands in college and I didn’t really want to go elsewhere, so I did have to go elsewhere and I made a couple of other acquaintances. The irony was, two years or so after that, we got back together and as if that never happened. And we were in a band, and we’re in that band for many years, and did lots of cool things. But along the way of being in that band, sorry it’s a bit of a longer story than I intended, there was a moment one night in the pub when we all sat there after a rehearsal and we’re now four years 5 years older. And we sat in the pub and I turned to everyone and said “Wow, I think you know, we’ve got a great set of songs, we’re doing great gigs, we’re well rehearsed. We should record a single and look at see if we can put a single out.” And then one of the guys in the band just said “No. I’m not doing a single.” Why not? It’s obvious we should do that. “No, because I’m doing this for fun. I’m not doing this to become a musician. I’ve got to have another career I’ve studied for,” and it was a very boring career, but and I thought “Oh my word. At this exact moment, I’m not in this band for the reason you guys are in this band.” And so for all the fun and shared comradery, and a thing we call a close friendship, it was not. So my ADHD was being driven to have a different relationship to not only the people and the reason we were together as them, but I just couldn’t see that coming. And so, boom. I immigrated at that point and then found a couple of people who really wanted to do something with music and one sits next to me now. And it never transpired into a successful career of music however, the irony now is that we are still doing music very seriously and professionally, and I … really passionately. Doesn’t mean we’re looking for great success from it, that’s not the point. The point is I think I’m probably the only one left in that large circle of musicians, 35 years later, still passionately spending a lot of time doing music. I think they might occasionally play but I’m still very serious about what I do and very passionate, and so I have to take ownership of that. So the point I’m trying to say to you is that when you look back on your relationships, once you know you have ADHD, I look back on all those situations and think my ADHD must have been driving me back then in a way that they couldn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. But it did make me what the I was known as the Devil’s advocate. I was the one that was “Oh it’s Jel. It’s Jel. Yeah, it’s just a Jeli-ism.” It’s like … and I just thought that was a bit unkind. It’s like, what’s wrong with me? I think I’m an ordinary guy but I wasn’t ordinary compared to them. I simply wasn’t.

JULIE: No. You’re not ordinary, Jel. So, for those people I think who are feeling lonely and feeling that a friendship actually is something that they really want to do, to find a group of people, don’t give up on it. You know what the challenges are going to be and it might be overthinking about your relationship with them, or your friendship with them, or it might be over talking or oversharing, you know. You can practice active listening and I don’t know, even meeting up with, in a group with folk that have a common interest. That’s it’s a really good start at least. I mean if you’re really into hiking at least you know you’ll have a group of people that you can chat with along your walks. Or whether it’s a theatre group or whatever it may be, so you know starting off slowly. I know for us, just like relationships, with friendships we tend to throw ourselves into it and probably scare them off. You know, inviting them over the dinner the next day and you know … maybe just taking smaller steps if you’re really seriously about looking to gain a friendship and looking at it that way. But also just adjust your expectations too that it might not be as mutual as you would like it to be, and for all sorts of reasons. They might not have time to see you, or they might not be passing your way as often as you’d like them to, and so just, yeah, have a little bit of perspective there.

JEL: I do think, based on what you’re just saying there, I do think finding something – those hobbies, those interests you have, particularly outside of work that are perhaps energy driven and suit your ADHD and hopefully involve other people, as Jule’s mentioned. Other things like climbing, football, rugby, sport, all sorts of things … tramping, doesn’t really matter, find something. I would say that’s not just a start for friends it’s a start, middle and an end, because all the time you have that shared interest, say cycling. It may last 10 years and then you get bored of it, fine, but in those 10 years you should make some great acquaintances. And it … you always find some people you can get on with if you have a shared passion. If you have no shared interests, well I think that’s getting a bit more interesting. It’s a bit more challenging. But it’s … then, when you’re in those spaces, is what you expect from those people and how you define yourself in relation to this thing called friendship, and to try to avoid the disappointment of expecting more than you’re getting back. But appreciate what you are getting and enjoying it for what it is. And I honestly believe that really good acquaintances can bring so much energy and dopamine to the ADHDer. For example, we go away for weekends occasionally and when we go away, we have no real plans, we just head to somewhere. We can find ourselves sat in a pub. I remember one night in Queenstown this happened. We sat in a pub and we casually started talking to a couple of Australian tourists, sort of similar, slightly old … one older, one younger than us similar generation then, and 5 hours later we were like the best of pals, rolling around, sharing stories, opening our hearts, having such a blast. And we will always remember that night [yes] and it doesn’t mean … we’ve stayed in touch to some degree but it doesn’t mean that it’s so sad we lost it. It’s … you can be very sad that you don’t have friends like that in your life to do that every weekend with, or you can say “Wow, how blessed I was just by not being tied into regular friend groups, barbecues every weekend.” We … you just, you’ve got to break out of that and just meet the most amazing people.

JULIE: And also too, maybe it’s a little bit … I don’t know what’s the right term, let’s say, I’ll say spreading the load with regards to, you know. Maybe you get that lovely social connection at this group that you meet once a month. Maybe you can also get it with in a … you know, walking with your neighbour every Saturday. You know, you don’t have to get all the feels from one friend. You can take the wins off a number of really good acquaintances and don’t feel that you’re missing out.

JEL: Yes. If you redefine this definition of the word friend and have a good think about it. You can have a huge amount of social human contact that satisfies your need to talk and laugh and enjoy people, but take all the pressure off the word friend. And, you know, even just wander around a market on a Saturday and say hello to some of the store owners and say “Wow, what amazing … what’s this here?” And you don’t have to spend loads of money or any money but you can engage. It’s that human contact. We do it in the supermarkets. We generally end up having a conversation with someone standing in the queue. Always bring a smile and a good morning to the person serving you. You may end up walking out having just had a fantastic 10-minute conversation while you’re packing your groceries. [I also think …] Dopamine, that one. That’s dopamine, isn’t it? It is. Yeah … just bounce out going “yay human interaction.”

JULIE: The other thing that I think could be useful is to be kind on yourself because you know, I remember in certain friendship groups I’d be the life of the party. I’d be the one dancing on the tables or you know rounding them up, and revving them up to go and have some fun, and they would look to me as that. I was that friend. And then there are other groups that I’m really quite quiet and I’m not so boisterous and they might think of me as quite a quiet mouse kind of character. And I am neither the party animal nor the quiet mouse. I am me. And it doesn’t matter what they think of me as long as I feel part of the tribe, even for an hour you know.

JEL: Actually, that description yeah, being in the party and revving people up and … you, I think you used to have a wee trick we didn’t know anyone. You’d walk around with a … grab a plate of food and just walk around. You get to meet everyone at the party.

JULIE: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah! I didn’t want to be stuck with anybody so I used to volunteer. I’d go into the kitchen and get trays and trays of food and I’d just spend all night walking around meeting people. [So you’d meet everyone.] Yeah yeah. I mean it … You know, by the end of it, there’ll be someone that you know, you found out the ones that are a little bit more chatty, or interesting.

JEL: So the being the life and soul of the party I think that’s something a lot of ADHDers probably have been described of at some point. Once we’ve got our motors running, and we’re in that situation, we’re going to have fun. We’re going to rock out you know. But of course, the party is a thing and then the next day it’s over, so we cannot realistically expect that party to then result in that continuing the next day. We can be up with the dopamine, getting absolutely filled up. The next day is depleted, bam, down again. So you know we don’t, being the life and soul of the party, in other people’s eyes maybe we’re not the life and soul, we’re the entertainment of the party. Yeah. And we can be the entertainment but we have to own that. We have to learn. I think yeah, getting back to this whole thing with acquaintances and friendships, once you have, know you have ADHD, or even if you suspect you have it, it’s about trying to see how other people see you. It’s not always about … we look at the world a certain way. We have a different way of looking at things and we, our brains, need different ways of functioning but in terms of … that doesn’t matter in a lot of things. When it comes to other humans you do have to look at them and say “Well they don’t function like us. They don’t need the same things as us. They want different things out of friendships.” So our best success of interacting with other people is try to understand them. We want them to understand us because we’re meant to be the minority but we do have a sort of duty of care on ourselves to try to understand how the majority think. Yeah that’s … I think that’s quite an interesting way of putting it and in doing that we are doing not them a favour, we’re not looking after them, we’re doing ourselves a favour by then limiting or managing, not limiting, but let’s say managing our expectations on what we’re going to get out of a social interaction. Do that and I guarantee you’ll have more success it and less disappointment and failure, I think. [Well done.] Gold star.

JULIE: Absolutely. So that’s friendships. We do things differently with ADHD and if you look back in your past you’ll absolutely, the odds are, that you you’ll see these little patterns emerging and you may still be in that pattern now. If just a re jiggle of expectations, maybe how you define the word friend. We’re quite strict on calling it close acquaintances but that’s just a thing between us because we get it. But, ride with it, have a look at your expectations, be kind on yourself. And as Jel said you know, just active listening and just being reflective that they are humans too and they have other needs.

JEL: It’s a more holistic sort of bigger picture view of how you see yourself fitting in with what is the majority of people that don’t think like you. And it’s not just analysing the past, that’s where all the knowledge and the experience comes to the table, then it’s today, the present. And then the important part is the future, going forward. Then hopefully you get empowered to understand yourself in relation to other people more. As I say, understanding yourself is more important than expecting everyone else to understand you. We write, with the book and these chats, we’re hoping people who are partners of people with ADHD could listen to some of this and get an insight that we can explain that perhaps a partner or can’t explain. It’s one of the big points of the book isn’t it. It’s not just for people with ADHD, it’s for those around them. However, at the end of the day, we do have to take responsibility for our relationship. So, I’m repeating myself, that’s a good ADHD thing, but I’ll leave that one there.

JULIE: Well in fact, I think we’ll leave this episode there. So, thanks for listening.

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