I find it odd, and a bit disappointing, that I'm not part of my [22M] friend's [21F] wider social plans. Not sure how to talk to her about it.

I have a friend [21F] at university with some social habits that confuse me. I'm autistic so I might be missing something obvious, so I thought I'd ask here.

She's about to move from undergrad to postgrad, and she's lately been talking to me a lot about how she doesn't want there to be cliques forming among the students. For context, postgrad courses often only have a handful of people on them who form cliques and there is often not a lot of interaction between students on different courses. I've just completed the course she's about to start, and in my year there wasn't a lot of that going on and a lot of staff commented on how we'd bucked the trend by making an effort to get to know each other. It's great that she wants to emulate that, but I have two concerns that I'd quite like to talk to her about.

The first is making that happen. I'm not sure how aware of it she is, but she's rather cliquey herself. She has two main cliques, each based around two uni clubs that she's a part of. I've known her for 3 years and I've never met one of these groups, and only hung out with the other on a handful of occasions through a mutual friend. She talks about them, and is chatty about her job/course/occasional date etc. but has never introduced me to her other friends. In the time I've known her, I've never seen her make the effort to break down the walls between the student cliques that form on courses by trying to mix her social groups from time to time. But I have seen her carefully select who she hangs out with according to her cliques, which reinforces them. I don't want to say this because she's a pretty awesome person, but on this particular thing she's all talk. I want to talk to her about it because, as she's just graduated, most of her friends won't be around any more, I worry that she's going to struggle to make the wide group of new friends she wants. Not because she's not outgoing (she's probably the most outgoing person I know) but because she is unlikely to make the effort to mix people together. Cliquishness is just a part of who she has been over the last few years, and I don't think she understands what it's actually going to take on her part to overcome that and achieve her goals. Plus the hypocrisy is getting a bit irritating.

The second reason I want to talk to her about it is because I want to know my role in it. I'm outside of her cliques. We hang out almost exclusively in a one-to-one setting. We get coffee, do the odd thing on campus together, and sometimes go on day trips, yet she hasn't invited me to any group activity in over a year. Last year I acquainted her with some people from my course, and she still occasionally talks to a couple of them, but that's about it. We're effectively a clique of two. I want her to include me in her 'no cliques' plan because I could stand to gain a few new friends too. I also want to know why she's been reluctant to spend time with me as part of either of her two groups of friends. It's just weird to me - none of my other friends do this - and I want to make sense of it.

My current thinking is that I should suggest mixing with new people as a team; that way I get to nudge her in the right direction *and* be included in her wider social life. But again, I'm not really sure how to actually talk about it, especially if she resists including me in her cliques. I know from experience that she and I are close enough that we can usually be blunt with each other, but I also know her well enough to see that she'll get cross if I suggest that she might fail in her goals and is being hypocritical (as most people probably would tbf).

So how do I talk to her about this?

tl;dr I'm not currently part of my [22M] friend's [21F] wider social plans, and I worry she'll fail in her goal to make a wide group of new friends. Not sure how to talk to her about it.

Submitted September 15, 2019 at 11:04PM

I have a friend [21F] at university with some social habits that confuse me. I'm autistic so I might be missing something obvious, so I thought I'd ask here.She's about to move from undergrad to postgrad, and she's lately been talking to me a lot about how she doesn't want there to be cliques forming among the students. For context, postgrad courses often only have a handful of people on them who form cliques and there is often not a lot of interaction between students on different courses. I've just completed the course she's about to start, and in my year there wasn't a lot of that going on and a lot of staff commented on how we'd bucked the trend by making an effort to get to know each other. It's great that she wants to emulate that, but I have two concerns that I'd quite like to talk to her about.The first is making that happen. I'm not sure how aware of it she is, but she's rather cliquey herself. She has two main cliques, each based around two uni clubs that she's a part of. I've known her for 3 years and I've never met one of these groups, and only hung out with the other on a handful of occasions through a mutual friend. She talks about them, and is chatty about her job/course/occasional date etc. but has never introduced me to her other friends. In the time I've known her, I've never seen her make the effort to break down the walls between the student cliques that form on courses by trying to mix her social groups from time to time. But I have seen her carefully select who she hangs out with according to her cliques, which reinforces them. I don't want to say this because she's a pretty awesome person, but on this particular thing she's all talk. I want to talk to her about it because, as she's just graduated, most of her friends won't be around any more, I worry that she's going to struggle to make the wide group of new friends she wants. Not because she's not outgoing (she's probably the most outgoing person I know) but because she is unlikely to make the effort to mix people together. Cliquishness is just a part of who she has been over the last few years, and I don't think she understands what it's actually going to take on her part to overcome that and achieve her goals. Plus the hypocrisy is getting a bit irritating.The second reason I want to talk to her about it is because I want to know my role in it. I'm outside of her cliques. We hang out almost exclusively in a one-to-one setting. We get coffee, do the odd thing on campus together, and sometimes go on day trips, yet she hasn't invited me to any group activity in over a year. Last year I acquainted her with some people from my course, and she still occasionally talks to a couple of them, but that's about it. We're effectively a clique of two. I want her to include me in her 'no cliques' plan because I could stand to gain a few new friends too. I also want to know why she's been reluctant to spend time with me as part of either of her two groups of friends. It's just weird to me - none of my other friends do this - and I want to make sense of it.My current thinking is that I should suggest mixing with new people as a team; that way I get to nudge her in the right direction *and* be included in her wider social life. But again, I'm not really sure how to actually talk about it, especially if she resists including me in her cliques. I know from experience that she and I are close enough that we can usually be blunt with each other, but I also know her well enough to see that she'll get cross if I suggest that she might fail in her goals and is being hypocritical (as most people probably would tbf).So how do I talk to her about this?tl;dr I'm not currently part of my [22M] friend's [21F] wider social plans, and I worry she'll fail in her goal to make a wide group of new friends. Not sure how to talk to her about it.