In my defense, I have gone through bouts of “trying” to make friends. But it turns out to be just that…trying. It is forced and unnatural for me, and as a result it doesn’t stick. I remember walking into the staff room where most people were talking about their kids or some romance novel off the shelf…I am a single 26 year old male…that stuff doesn’t interest me.
I helped out the potluck this year, I went to a staff social last year (where I was embarrassed through serious pressure to drink. It was an uncomfortable drunkenness which caused me to be stupid in an awkward way…not my style. I don’t want to go again this year), and I’ve tried just to generally be happy and positive. I compliment people on a job well done and try to do my job well.
I don’t watch sports. I have no TV. I like to read, but more topical things than romance novels. I like to exercise, but alas don’t play any sports. I practice my instruments, and work on recording. I guess I’m damning myself however you look at it.
It took me awhile to make some good friends, but at least the friends I found off work have similar interests as me! My soul feels better this year.
Sometimes I think my lack of significant friendships at work will hurt me in the long run…but dammit I can’t stand not being myself!
I don’t work at the moment, but in my cubicle hell days, no way. I had “work friends”, meaning the people I would chat with or eat lunch with in the break room, but never anything more. I never had anything in common even with the people with whom I was friendly. I was just not on their wavelength.
From my current firm, I have one close friend who is still a coworker, and three close friends and one decent friend who used to work there. We were, until recently, a very small firm (about 15-20 people at any given time), and several of us were all around the same age. We definitely do things outside of the office together. We’re a pretty close group.
Fuck no. I made that mistake exactly once, and I’ll never do it again.
Your co-workers are not your friends. There’s a fundamental conflict of interest there, and they’ll sell you up the river just as soon as they see an advantage to doing so.
I get along very well with my colleagues… and why wouldn’t I? We’re all within the same age bracket (late 20’s and early 30s), we’re all in similar places in our lives (partnered up and settling down), and we all have a similar temperament (loud, opinionated, analytical).
I wouldn’t say we’re close friends, but we’re friendly enough to occasionally get together for drinks after work or sneak out for a long lunch if we have downtime.
That said, building a strong personal network is a survival skill in our business, so even the socialising is considered to be part of the job and we’re all careful to keep things at least somewhat professional. Plus there’s a definite separation between my regular friends and my work friends in terms of what we do, how long we hang out and what we choose to talk about (for one, I’d never do a tequila shooter with my work friends… EVER)
I think the main distinction is that some people are friendly with their coworkers, and some people work with their friends. You want to avoid the latter… much high-school type drama usually ensues.
I think it’s fine and probably better to keep some distance between you and your work friends and to have a strong network outside of work. If your entire social life is tied to work, it can be problematic when you leave the company. Then again, if you have a job where you work 80 hours a week, where do you meet people outside of work?
If you absolutely can’t stand or can’t relate to or think you’re superior to all your coworkers, it’s time to find a new line of work or a new industry to work in.
Interestingly, we used to routinely do rounds of tequila shots at my last place of work.
Yes and no - I don’t have very many but I do make friends with coworkers. One of my oldest and best friends is someone I knew through work although we were in different departments. In my current job there’s a few people who’ve been to my house for dinner or we’ve done social stuff outside of work, but only two currently that are definitely friends and not good acquaintances.
I’m generally very friendly and personable at work and get on with most people, but there are few people I work with that I like enough to want to choose to spend my personal time with.
I’m friendly with people at work. There’s a core of us that eat lunch together and chit-chat in each other’s offices/cubicles during breaks. A few times I’m met up with these coworkers outside of work to socialize. We’re probably going to exchange small gifts for Christmas.
But after some craziness at my old job, I’ve decided that it doesn’t pay to be too close to coworkers. This summer a coworker invited me on a three-day weekend trip to Atlanta (my hometown) so I could be her personal tour guide and chaperone while she hooked up with some guy she’d met online. She’s a nice enough person, but I knew that her quirks would (literally) drive me crazy and that we would inevitably have a Very Bad Time. So I turned her offer down. She was pissed off–which only confirmed to me that I had made the right decision–and our relationship wasn’t quite the same afterwards. Which is just fine with me.
I get along fine with most of my co-workers, but I almost never make friends with them and I see them outside of work even more rarely. Generally speaking, I have little or nothing in common with my co-workers, aside from the job, so I see no real reason to spend my precious personal time hanging out with them. Ultimately for me, I’m there for a paycheque, not to make new BFFs. As much as possible, I avoid all the after-hours “team-building” exercises and bullshit, because I really have nothing to say to these people outside of work and, frankly, I’m not very good at small talk.
That said, as it happens, I went out for a couple drinks just last night with a couple co-workers and a former boss who was unceremoniously fired earlier this year for the crime of not being able to get his bosses to do their jobs properly. Had a good time and everything. But that is definitely an exception to the rule for me.
Marketing/graphic design. Small company (like 6-people-in-a-room kind of small), with an intentional “hip, laid-back, we’re family” kind of culture, which I bought into, thinking they actually meant it. It was actually a major selling point for me when I took the job. Paid for it later, as in it would have been illegal (under federal law) if only the company had had 50 employees.
Couldn’t find a lawyer who liked my chances of pursuing it only under state law, either.
I have grown quite friendly with some people I’ve worked with over the years but the problem is, once I leave a job I really don’t tend to keep in contact with them. I have quite a full social life with a core group of lifelong friends who have nothing at all to do with the area I work in so to be honest I’m not sure if I have ‘capacity’ for more friends. I definitely agree that there’s a difference between work buddies who you occasionally socialise with and real friends who know your history and have lived through some of the major milestones with you.
Well… this particular rule of mine has a lot more to do with how I behave after a couple of shots of tequila. It would be hard to be taken seriously by my colleagues if they’ve seen me in a stumbling drunken haze.
Nope. I never go to any office social event, and never see a single co-worker outside of the office (with the exception of 1 guy I work out with over lunch.) If we didn’t work together, we’d never see each other again.
Why? I don’t have to relate to the people that happen to work in the same office that I do. I like my job well enough (as much as I would any job) and they just aren’t that relevent to that.
I prefer to take my breaks and lunch alone and most of my work I do myself at my own desk.
As having been one in the past (not vindictive, but resentful of not fitting in with a “clique”), I would take the flip of that - being excluded socially at work by others who seem to be close friends outside of it can be a pretty shitty feeling - you’re part of the “Team”, but not really…
It would be hard to be taken seriously by my colleagues if they’ve seen me in a stumbling drunken haze.