Does anyone else have a friend like this?

Yea, he certainly is being enabled - BUT - I wonder if he's an "Aspie" (person with Aspberger's Syndrome) or is otherwise on the autism spectrum LIKE I AM. In my case, I needed a reason to participate in "the usual life" - my parents did NOT enable me, but told me when I graduated H.S. to either get a job or go to school. I went to a 2 year college, then got a job. Stayed at home for about 2 more years, then got married and moved out. If, and I emphasize the *IF*, he's "on the spectrum" - his internal logic might dictate his actions - WHY should he do "that" when he doesn't have to? That's certainly the way I have been my entire life - if there's no return on my effort, it isn't worth my time. The parents have apparently made it un-necessary for him to make the effort, so he doesn't - why should he? On the other hand, I worked during high school and ran my own TV shop out of a shed in the backyard, plus recycled aluminum cans for my folding money that I spent mostly on electronic test equipment that I still have. Didn't really drive until I was 21.

The "further up" he is on the autism spectrum (if he indeed is), the harder this type of thing will be. I'm barely even an Aspie, being very mild for this mildest of Autism spectrum conditions, but I am there. Which will probably explain a lot to a lot of people here!
 
Does anyone else have a friend or someone they know who has somehow managed to go through life and managed to exist but not much else beyond that? Since the early 90s I've been friends with this guy who I long considered to be one of my best friends. We went to school together (including college) and while we were two totally different types, we still had a lot in common in our younger years. His father is a successful lawyer, and his father's father (his grandpa) was also a successful lawyer as well.

He is an only child and his parents are pretty well off. They always offered to pay for all of his school and he really had the way paved for him had he chosen to go down that path. Sometime around high school he started getting weird. Well, he'd always been a little weird, but come high school he started getting really weird. He went through this stage where he was afraid to leave the house. I'd ask him why and he'd tell me that he just felt like it was too dangerous. One time when we did managed to get him to leave the house we had to go out to the middle of nowhere to buy a car he'd been looking at. In the process he went into a full blown panic attack (in the middle of nowhere) complaining he could barely breathe. During his panic he begin to prognosticate and about what might happen if he had a heart attack in the middle of nowhere and couldn't get medical help. At the time he was 21 years old and perfectly healthy without any history of medical problems whatsoever.

Not long after he was diagnosed with depression. I believe it too, because he went from being a generally upbeat and fun to be around guy that I knew in high school to a much more depressive and dreary individual to be around. Life kept on moving and he dropped out of college, moved back in with his parents, and somehow managed to continue skating through life without actually doing anything.

He didn't get his first job until he was probably in his late 20s to early 30s. Upon getting his first job it lasted a week. Fast forward to current day (he's 39 now) and he's had probably 50 different jobs but none of them has lasted more than a week. He'll get a job, work there for a week, then quit. When I ask him why he keeps doing this and has never in his life had a job lasting more than a week, he'll respond by telling me, "Unless someone is going to pay me really good money for doing all this hard labor, I'm not going to work there.". He'll then proceed to tell me about how it's not fair that other people are getting paid $100 an hour for desk work when he's getting paid minimum wage for hard labor.

At 39 years old his parents are still paying for his food, his rent (he has a roommate who we've known since high school), etc. His mom still goes clothes shopping for him, buys him clothes she likes, then brings them home so he can decide which ones he likes and which ones he doesn't like. She returns the ones he doesn't like and he keeps the rest. He's never had a girlfriend in his entire life and mark my word, he will never, ever get married or have kids.

He's socially awkward and incredibly strange. He has no friends except me and his roommate from high school. I've tried to help him many times but he refuses to put in any real effort. At some point I gave up on trying to help him and just accepted that this is the way he's going to be for the rest of his life (which it is). He's here on this earth only to exist, nothing more. He has no car and takes an Uber everywhere he goes (which he rarely goes out). He sleeps 16 plus hours a day too.

It's very hard for me to be around him these days because it's depressing. I still maintaining a friendship with him because he's one of the only guys I still talk to from way back in the day, so I like to have that connection. Still, he's squandered his life and seems to have accepted this himself. It's really, really bizarre.

I feel bad for the guy, but as I always tell him, he is is own worst enemy. I've tried over the years to be motivational towards him. I tell him that he can change his life at any moment by deciding to get up, put himself together, and commit himself to something. It never, ever works. I've 100% accepted that this is how he will be the rest of his life. It's caused me in more recent years to move away from him more. I'm married with kids, a career, a house, and responsibilities. The people I generally choose to hangout with are people in the same situation. It's hard to find time to hang out with a guy who at the bare minimum doesn't even have a wife or a girlfriend to bring around.

I don't know how people end up like this, but it's certainly not uncommon it these days. Some of it I blame on him being an only child. Other parts I blame on his mom being one of the most neurotic, overbearing, and OCD people I've ever met. He was never even allowed to have a pet as a child and his home always resembled that of a clean, well kept museum on the inside. He was always too afraid of girls to ever make a move or even attempt to talk to one. He would always marvel at other people's successes, but instead of going out and making his own success he would look to me and say, "That's not fair that they get that but I don't.". In recent years he's even tried to float the idea to me that he'd thrive in a communist society because everything would be given to him. I have to not so gently remind him that in a communist society if they give you a job you don't just get to quit it. You work when they tell you to work and if you don't they'll throw you in a gulag. If you don't work there they'll simply kill you.

With all this being said, does anyone else have a friend or someone they know that is like this?

No, I don't knoww anyone like that but from your story I'd suppose the only way someone would is if they grew up with the person as good friends and this happened. Now that it's happened your friend is so isolated he probably doesn't make new contacts, much less friends with people. Definitely strange. His parents should have kicked him out 20 years ago.
 
No, I don't knoww anyone like that but from your story I'd suppose the only way someone would is if they grew up with the person as good friends and this happened. Now that it's happened your friend is so isolated he probably doesn't make new contacts, much less friends with people. Definitely strange. His parents should have kicked him out 20 years ago.

He doesn’t make new friends at all. He never leaves his house and he’s incredible anti-social. I’d wager that from now until the day he dies the only people he will have as “friends” are me and his roommate. No one else, not a single person.
 
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He doesn’t make new friends at all. He never leaves his house and he’s incredible anti-social. I’d wager that from now until the day he dies the only people he will have as “friends” are me and his roommate. No one else, not a single person.

Has he ever had a girlfriend or is this the 40 year old virgin?
 
He reaches out to me all the time, sometimes way too much. I don’t dislike him in any way, it’s more that I’m just flabbergasted that anyone could choose to live their life like this and somehow be okay with it. Or at least okay enough to not want to change. I’d love to be inside his head.

Common misconception about those with clinical depression, anxiety, and other social disorders (DASDs) - none ever "choose" to live like that. Similar to addicts. It's easy, albeit completely erroneous, to think that people should "snap out of it", or "just say no", or whatever. Comments like that do nothing but show the lack of understanding, or sometimes just plain ignorance, of those saying it. I always encourage those who feel this way to 1) feel happy that they have had a relatively privileged life in the sense that they have developed coping mechanisms that work for them or simply don't suffer from any imbalances that can ruin their days/weeks/months/life and 2) dig deeper into some of the current research on DASDs - it's quite intriguing and will open up your mind not only to those with DSADs, but in general in regards to life's "ups and downs".

Sounds to me like your friend has had depression the majority of his whole life but can no longer cope with it. More than likely, his mental state has worsened, which often happens post puberty and during the final stages of the frontal lobe. What makes young adults more "mature", also can unfortunately make those with DASDs worse off. I have had a few friends like that over my lifetime, as well as a number of family members. It's sad to see them go through life without living up to the potential that you can see in them. It's worse when their spark has died, leaving nothing more than a shell of a person going through the motions. For me, I set boundaries when and where needed, but try my best to be the person I would want them to be to me. I think of Winnie the Pooh and his gang with Eeyore: love and acceptance.
 
Your friend is a net consumer of (positive) energy. That's reason enough to me to discontinue relations until he makes some hard life changes (probably never).

Also, ever hear the postulate that "you are the average of the five people you spend time with"? I would not want your friend to be one of my "five" people...
 
I think of Winnie the Pooh and his gang with Eeyore: love and acceptance.

Now you understand why I continue to be friends with him. We don’t have much in common anymore but he has been my friend since grade school and I’d always lend him a hand if he ever needed one.

Most of what I’m saying here is rhetorical. I know why he is the way he is. I’ve grown up around his parents. I know the way they are and it’s certainly not conducive to a good childhood.

And yet decades later I still sit here pondering how it is some people end up like this. Again, that’s rhetorical because I’ve read enough to know.

At best this thread is here merely to invoke a discussion. I’m curious who else has a friend like this. It’s interesting to me because it seems this is more common than uncommon these days.
 
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Raises hand. I beg to differ. I should be as fucked up as a football bat being used as a soup spoon and I'm at least a few parental guidance steps short of that.

You’re one of the fortunate few that manage to break away from that cycle. You see those folks that have the worst childhood imaginable and somehow go on to be very successful in life. That takes a certain type of person I feel like.
 
No desire to “hunt”, sad

Oh no, he talks to me all the time about women. Then he will sit there and tell me no woman his age would want a guy who is 40 and has no job, no car, no hair (🤦🏻), no real money other than what is mom gives him, etc.

He’s been on more anti-depressants than I can count but none of them seem to do much.
 
i got a dead beat buddy, never held a job more than 3 months been livin on peoples couches for yrs until they boot him to the next guilted into it victim.
bastard always come up ahead and IDK how , he's hit the lottery, won a corvette, been left inheritance $. he blows through in just months buying the dumbest toys too.

you gotta accept him as he is without expectation of change, or begin cutting the tie.
 
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Raises hand. I beg to differ. I should be as fucked up as a football bat being used as a soup spoon and I'm at least a few parental guidance steps short of that.

Parents can play an influential role, but it's not all determinative because people still make their own choices. Case in point...and other cases in point.

LIke your new company Blaine. Looking forward to the recovery gear being available and hope its a good venture for you.
 
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There's a Japanese name for this type of behavior. It's called hikikomori and affects a lot more people that you think. Google states "Hikikomori is currently viewed as a sociocultural mental health phenomenon, rather than a distinct mental illness." It's at least somewhere to look to get more familiar with his situation.
 
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