New Best Friend

New Best Friend

According to Google a friend “is a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.” As someone with autism, it is really hard for me to make friends and as of late I really haven’t been seeing the point of even trying. It just kind of feels like a dead end.

I think that even though I’ve been trying really hard I just can’t seem to make any connections. There are only 5 exceptions to this rule- my four “sisters“and my best friend Samantha McCarthy (or S.M. As I lovingly call her).

The big problem is that I don’t actually know how to make friends. S.M. and I were in first grade when we became friends and she is the kindest person I’ve ever met. I think she knew I had no idea what I was doing, so she tried building a friendship with me but unintentionally made me fall in love with her. I’m happy that it happened, but all I had to do was show up she literally did the rest.

Now that, of course, leaves my “sisters”. And while I had a lot more to do with that friendship, it wasn’t really positive. We were friends growing up until I hurt them. The actual building of our friendship was incredibly complicated because they didn’t trust me anymore. The entire thing was about rebuilding the trust in the relationship, not the relationship in and of itself.

Of course, these are not the only friends I have made. One of the most recent friends I have made is a guy named Connor Woodland. I met “Woody” at Kroger where we are both employed.

Now there is this lady, who comes into Kroger all the time. I don’t know if she knows me, from church, school, or if she just comes to the store a lot, but she knows me somehow. She always comes up to me and says “Hi Mitchell, how are you?” The first time she did it I thought she would tell me where she was from when she was introducing herself… but now its been two years and I have no idea what her name is.

One day Woody and I were taking back items that customers had left behind. In the middle of this process, lovingly referred to as “go-backs”,  we saw the lady. We had our normal interaction and Woody looked at me very confused.

“Who was that?”

“I have no idea.” I said, “This must be how popular people feel, confused when they don't know people's names.”

And then Woody said something I will never forget, “Well, you'll always be popular to me! You’re my best friend!” I wasn't ready for him to say that, but he said it so sincerely, I knew that maybe just maybe, there is still a chance for me to make new friends.

Have a Greattastic day!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri