This is so sad!
If you really want a friend be one first. Ask questions of some one you would like to be your friend. Find something about persons you admire and tell them so.
People are lonely because they build a fence around themselves. Let people see the real you.
Do not let people define you, what they think of you good or bad doesn’t make you what you are,that is all that counts. Be the person you like and that is all that matters, you are the only one who is with you all your life.
My sister-in-law doesn’t really have any friends, outside of her family. I think a big part of the problem for her is that she moved to this area after she was already married and had a child. So they pretty much took up all her time. Now, she’s divorced and would like to meet people, but doesn’t know how or where outside of work. We’ve tried to introduce her to our friends, but she never really connects with anyone or makes the effort to give people a call and say, “Hey, I’m going shopping. Do you want to come?” The way I see it is that it takes effort to make friends. If I meet someone and really click with them, I make an effort to get their number and make plans to do things together. I do this with very few people, but I do do it. I prefer to keep a small circle of close friends, and have a larger circle of friends (for us, this includes a lot of “couple friends”) that we get together with now and then. And now I’ve rambled on too long. Carry on.
That’s not what I meant to imply. I just think that school is probably the easiest time in your life to make friends:
-Everyone is around the same age
-Everyone has common things to talk about - classes, their dorm, etc
-Everyone kind of knows of everyone else
Not that it’s that easy. But it’s a lot easier than when you get into the real world in your 20s and 30s where there isn’t this instant network of people you can just join. You actually have to make an effort to do the things you like doing and hope you meet people along the way. Take a class. Join a gym. Whatever. Hang out with some coworkers if they go out after work. See if your school sponsers alumni events locally.
If all you do is work some isolating job and go home to an empty apartment at night where you just watch TV or play on the internet until bedtime, no one is going to come look you up.
A good habit to get into is to plan to do fun stuff on the weekends - concerts, go out to the bars, rollarblade in the park, whatever it is you like to do. Then a day or so ahead of time, call around and see if anyone is interested in doing it with you. Eventually, you build up a network of people who keep you in mind for when they want to do stuff.
Good tip! Keeps the option open for the people you ask and at the same time, reminds them that you are there and would like to do stuff with them. Since I find it hard to ‘read’ people, I’ve aways been wary of being ‘too much’ and coming on too strong. This way I’d be less afraid that I do just that.
I should add you still need to learn social skills. My GF has a friend who hosts this happy hour club. Unfortunately she berates anyone who actually shows up so now no one does.
I’m very close with my family, my sister in particular, but otherwise I don’t have friends. I get along with most everyone just fine–in forced interactions (school, work etc.) I have plenty of acquaintances. My ‘problem’ is not that I don’t like people, but rather that I don’t like going out. It’s pretty darn hard to make and maintain friendships if you don’t go out and do things together- Bar hop, see a movie, go shopping, go bowling, something. And none of that stuff appeals to me. Given the option, I almost always prefer to stay home.
I don’t really have any friends anymore. I had a group of people I used to hang out with and go places with but I started working a different schedule so I was never available when the group got together. Also my boyfriend and I broke up about this same time and he was originally in the group, although I was more active. Since his new girlfriend was insinuating herself into the group I really didn’t want to hang out with them anymore anyway. Since then they broke up and the ex and I got back together and now his ex has custody or our old friends.
I have work acquaintances but I don’t hang out with them. I have online friends that I talk to on occasion. But my boyfriend is pretty much my only friend right now, he says the same about me.
I had friends before my marriage, while the kids were young, and after my divorce. Since I remarried, I can’t say I really do. My husband worries a bit about it–he had two good friends that he’s like us to be ‘couple friends’ with but I can’t stand their SOs—one’s an actual drug addict who can’t carry on any type of a conversation and the other is 20 years younger than me, never read a book or newspaper but has loud and strong opinions, mostly based on her religion.
I have lots of work friends that I occasionally lunch/shop with, but schedules wildly differ. It’s nothing like my pre-marriage Thursday night with the girls and just call them up to see what’s up. My work friends work long, hard hours and I never call most of them up just to chat. I’ll send emails, but I do call my husband just to chat and we do a lot together and I occasionally endure his friends’ SOs because I really like his two friends.
Cyn, friendless.
Good subject.
I have a job where I travel about 50-60% of a year. As a result I am away from my regular collection of friends about 1/2 of the time.
You know what? Life on the road is lonely. Over the years I have developed friends in the various citys I travel to. In Seattle I have a couple of friends that have given me Mi Casa es su Casa access to their homes. I go over and cook them dinner often.
In the Bay area, I have a couple of friends that have me over for dinner and a movie whenever I am in town.
These contacts beat the hell out of dinner with a book at Denny’s.
On the subject of long term friends there is my friend Cathy.
Cathy and I went to HS together. She was the first person that talked to me during the 10th grade (I was from a different middle school). Whenever she was between boyfriends, and I was between Gfs we would go out. More brother and sister than BF/GF. Well Brother/sister if you belonged to the incest is best club.
Anyway after HS we lost track.
At our 20th reunion we met again and sat down to talk. It was like we had been apart for 2 weeks or so. Everything just clicked.
Best. Friend. Ever. We talk 2-3 times per week. Just conversations about life and work.
In June she is getting married, and I get to give the bride away!
Bosda I think you get some of your friendship needs from the dope. You are here enough that we are your friends. Cyber friends if you will.
Perhaps you have not let yourself see the real you. Everyone starts out life a winner.The sperm that hit the ova won in the race to be conceived was you. I bet you have a lot of good qualities, but prefer to dwell on the times you failed. To fail at something just means you tried. every one fails at something,but that doesn’t stop one from trying some other things or some other way to reach a goal.
Hmmm. Partly it’s from revulsion at all the testosterone-fueled fratboy crap I saw way too much of in HS and college. And partly it’s, well, friendship has somehow become inextricably bound up with sexual attraction in my mind, so that I can’t picture wanting to hang out with someone who I’m not at least slightly attracted to. (Although I’m happy to keep it on a platonic level. My one actual relationship felt at times like I’d been dropped in the deep end of a swimming pool without a raft!)
No, I’m just talking about the usual stuff teenage boys do. Hassling innocent passers-by, commenting loudly about the physical attributes of every female within view, yelling “WOOOOOOOO!” for no goddamn reason, &c.
Well, given that you are not in high school or college any more, and most men do not behave like you describe — what does this have with your inability to have male friendships?
I thought only drunk girls yelled “WOOOOOOOOO!!!”.
Men (hetero) generally have friendships based on the following:
-A shared interest in cars, sports, girls, technology, barBQ and other “guy stuff”
-An ability to drink with each other
-Demonstrated to both give and receive amusing insults and jokes - especially to their friends
-And a certain desire to “rough house” - being loud, giving each other Charlie Horse’s, etc
If you do not derive some form of enjoyment from these activities, it is not surprising that you don’t have any friends.
Also, needing to be “attracted” to your male friends is pretty gay.
Well, a few months ago I was walking down the side of the road (no sidewalks) minding my own business when some teenaged moron, driving by, stuck his head out the window and screamed at me. Damn near gave me a heart attack and made me wish I had telekinetic powers over his gas pedal. “Bet you like to go fast, don’t you? Well, let’s see how you like going really fast!! Asshole.”
