Wow, you're a braver man than me. I usually give up after 6-7 seconds or so and that's when I'm in a *very comfortable* situation. On a good day, with a stranger, I can do maybe 3-4 seconds before using some kind of "trick". I haven't stuttered my entire life, so a lot of this is new to me, so forgive me if this question is a bit insensitive. But how the hell do stutterers have friends or any kind of relationship for that matter? I totally get the whole "people won't think less of you because of it" thing. And for the most part, they don't. But not thinking less of you is not the same as enjoying spending time with you. I mean you have to concede that listening to a stutterer can get annoying, and requires a great deal of patience. And that definitely has to be a deterrent to people wanting to be friends with you; I mean it's not that they are being *bad* people, it's just that they don't want to deal with having to wait long for us to convey even the simplest of thoughts. Those conversations simply aren't fun. Plus, in addition to conversations requiring a great deal of patience, stuttering can often ruin moments. A lot of moments depend on spontaneousness. If you take a while to express something, the moment has often long passed. A lot of things need to be said at a certain time to convey an effect, and I feel like stuttering doesn't allow you to be able to express these things. And these aren't small things; a lot of them are very fundamental to a happy life: romance, jokes, witty remarks, etc. Considering all of this, I can't possibly imagine why someone would want to be *friends* with someone who stutters. Tolerant and patient? Absolutely. But I can't see someone wanting to talk to us out of *enjoyment*. A mild stutterer maybe, but certainly not a moderate or severe one. Honestly, if I was on the other end of the conversation, I would definitely not want to be friends with stutterers. I wouldn't make fun of them and would definitely be patient with them, but I wouldn't be interesting in having a friendship with one.