“I know you don’t have much to vent about…”

Years ago, well before my autism discovery, I was on the phone with an allistic friend offering support about a big issue she was having with her then-fiancé. She ended the call by thanking me and saying, “I know you don’t have much to vent about, but if you ever want to I’m here.”

I remember feeling offended and disappointed by the comment when she said it. It was an invitation to vent, yes, but the first part felt jarringly dismissive (and far from the truth, tbh). But I pushed it to the back of my mind for a while. Lately though, I’ve been less interested in having a close friendship with her post-diagnosis and have been thinking about why this might be.

There are a few factors at play, but this comment keeps coming back to me. Not as a defining moment for our entire friendship (there have been good times of course) but it was a revealing moment in terms of what it says about our dynamic. I think masking is part of why it’s been hard for me to be open with others and easier to opt for people-pleasing, but it hurts how well this works sometimes, you know? As in, people grow accustomed to getting their own needs met without thinking really deeply about mine. I’ve been working on this in my relationships since diagnosis, but also there are people who’ve been in my life before diagnosis and afterwards that wouldn’t say something so…offhandedly inconsiderate? A small part of me wonders if I’m overreacting but a growing part says I’m right to expect more.

Have any of you experienced feeling similarly misaligned or misunderstood in relationships? How would you have responded to a comment like that?