Friendships Don't Always Start With a Conversation

Sometimes, just having somewhere to hang out makes all the difference.

Remember being a teenager and just hanging out with your friends?

Maybe you met at someone's house, played video games, listened to music, or spent hours doing absolutely nothing in particular.

Nobody planned an activity. Nobody handed you a schedule. You just hung out.

It was such a normal part of growing up that most of us probably never gave it much thought.

But what happens when those opportunities aren't readily available?

Activities Are Great. But What About Just Hanging Out?

For neurodivergent teens and young adults, social opportunities can sometimes revolve around structured programs.

Bowling nights, classes, organized outings, and activities designed to encourage social interaction all have their place. They're valuable opportunities!

But there's a difference between participating in an organized activity and having somewhere to simply spend time with people your own age.

Sometimes you don't want a lesson, an instructor, or a planned event.

Sometimes you just want to hang out.

Friendship Doesn't Follow a Schedule

Research on autistic friendships has helped challenge some longstanding assumptions about how autistic people experience social relationships.

For example, a 2015 study by Sedgewick and colleagues explored friendships among autistic and non-autistic adolescents, highlighting the importance of understanding autistic friendships on their own terms rather than measuring them only against traditional social expectations.

Research into the double empathy problem, a concept introduced by Damian Milton in 2012, also suggests that communication difficulties between autistic and non-autistic people can involve differences in mutual understanding, rather than simply a lack of social ability on one side.

In everyday terms?

Connection doesn't have to look the same for everyone.

Two people might play video games together without saying much at all.

Someone might spend the first few visits quietly observing before deciding to join in.

Others might walk through the door and immediately start talking.

There's no single right way to connect.

Creating Space, Not Expectations

Recently, conversations with families and others in our community have reinforced something we've been thinking about for quite a while.

There is a desire for more informal social opportunities for neurodivergent teens and young adults.

Not necessarily another class or structured program.

Just somewhere to go.

Somewhere to meet people, play games, share interests, or simply enjoy being around others.

That's one of the reasons we introduced our weekly Wednesday evening hangouts at Camp 1315.

No elaborate agenda. No pressure to participate in a particular activity.

Just a welcoming space where young people can spend time together and hopefully build connections at their own pace.

Will everyone make a new best friend? Of course not.

But everyone deserves the opportunity.

Maybe We're Overthinking It

Sometimes, in our efforts to help young people socialize, we forget how friendships often develop naturally.

Through familiarity.

Through shared experiences.

Through seeing the same faces week after week.

And sometimes through doing absolutely nothing special together.

Maybe we don't always need to organize the interaction. Maybe we just need to make room for it.

Because sometimes the most meaningful thing we can offer isn't another activity.

It's simply somewhere to belong.

Camp 1315 — Where Living Is Learning

Research Behind the Conversation

Sedgewick, F., Hill, V., & Pellicano, E. (2015). It's different for girls: Gender differences in the friendships and conflict of autistic and neurotypical adolescents. Autism, 19(8), 999–1010.

Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The 'double empathy problem'. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887.