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I once hosted a surprise 16th birthday party for one of my best friends when I found out her family had nothing planned. It was just an after school hangout at the beach, but I called all the kids in the neighborhood to invite them. I arranged for a cool kid to be in charge of the music. I baked a cake. My mom helped me sweep up the area and hang decorations and put out chips and soda. I had come up with a subterfuge to keep my friend away I until the guests were in place. And when I brought the birthday girl down to the beach and she realized there was a party in her honor, she turned to me excitedly and asked did you know about this? Because one of the problems with ADHD is that your friends probably don't expect you to remember their birthday at all, let alone have the wherewithal to throw them a surprise party. ADHD affects pretty much every aspect of our lives and one of the areas it hits hard is our ability ability to make and maintain friendships. I'm Alex Delmar, a certified ADHD coach and person with adhd. This is Thoroughly ADHD where I share what I've learned to help other people with ADHD enjoy better lives. You may not yet realize how much your ADHD affects your behavior or the power you have to modify your behavior, but to figure out the best way to go about it, you first need to ask, is it me or is it my adhd? So here are some common ways that ADHD might show up in your friendships. We forget our friends, birthdays and other important dates. We think 10 to 15 minutes is an acceptable amount of time to be late without checking in. Either we're six paces ahead of the group or our friends seem to be waiting on us to get out of the car to find our ticket to run back for something we left behind. Our home is too messy for friends to drop by unexpectedly and comfortably hang out. We have random bursts of energy that might include breaking out in song or dance and freak out people who don't know us well. People accuse us of negative thinking. We double book or forget about plans. Don't show up, show up late, leave right in the middle of things and don't seem to understand when it's time to go home. If you're only ever asked to bring a dessert or something obviously redundant, your friends do not count on you to show up in a timely manner. Other ways that ADHD can make us seem unreliable are that we borrow things and then damage, lose, or just forget to return them forever. We often forget to email or text or call back. We don't reciprocate invitations. We don't like to commit to things too far in advance, so we never rsvp. But we don't do well with last minute plans either, unless it's our idea. We don't like to say no to people, so when pressed, we agree to things we don't really want to do and then look for a reason to back out. You might notice that you're not often invited to smaller gatherings, or that you're not invited back again. People with ADHD tend to dominate the conversation, make thoughtless remarks, or make comments we think are witty but that accidentally hurt people's feelings. We might find ourselves vigorously defending a point we don't even believe in. We lose track of the conversation when someone else is speaking and then don't know how to respond, or we just go off on a tangent. When it's our turn to speak, we tell long, circuitous stories with lots of background information, often losing our audience before we get to the point. In a conversation with someone new, we might respond to an anecdote by telling about that time a similar thing happened to us. We're trying to connect, but they mistake it for one upmanship. As for playing games, we don't want to take the time to go through all the instructions, but we do want everyone to follow the rules. Waiting our turn feels like an eternity and we become irrationally angry when people delay the game. Also, when people cheat, we might be accused of taking the game too seriously or of being a spoil sport. We dread occasions requiring presents because either we got something so far ahead that we forgot where we put it, or we've agonized over finding just the right thing for so long that we have to scramble at the last minute or we forgot entirely and have to go empty handed. In any case, we show up stressed out because we don't have the perfect gift. We are terrible at staying in touch even with people we really like because we only think of them at the most inopportune times. If you're older, you probably have a box of filled out birthday cards, thank you notes, and half written letters that you've never sent. We can get really mad seemingly out of nowhere, blow up, and are ready to be friends again immediately afterward. And we've had ridiculous meltdowns, including tears when our friends did something without us. By the way, these particular behaviors are very confusing to people without adhd. ADHD can make us seem boorish so people don't want to get to know us better and can make us seem inconsistent and inconsiderate, which drives a wedge between us and our friends. If we become aware of which of our behaviors are ADHD related and how they are affecting our friendships, we can choose to substitute other behaviors that strengthen our friendships rather than sabotage them. People with ADHD also tend to be loyal, tolerant, open to new things, super fun, and hugely entertaining so we can make great friends if people give us the chance. Leave a Comment if I missed the ADHD trait that gives you the most trouble or the most help when it comes to making and keeping friends. If you heard something relatable here, please like follow, subscribe and come back next Tuesday for more Thoroughly adhd. Thank you.