The more I hear, (i could be mistaking you for another poster) the more I like you (not like that!)
Thats a ton from someone perfectly happy with just his immediate family and a maximum limit of 3 close friends
I spend all day at work pretending I like people. I get paid to be there and am expected to be building relationships as part of my job, so I 'fake it ‘til I make it’ each day. I’m not doing that shit for free, too.
Age is also a factor. The younger you are, the more likely you are to want to meet people, spend your free time with other people, etc. In college I would seek out friends when I had free time. Now decades later I relish my free time to just sit around and do nothing. I think that’s because things get so much busier. If I’m on my own for several days, after I while I start to think it might be fun to go do something with a friend. But on a day-to-day basis I’m trying to find moments of time where I can just relax and do whatever I want to do.
I don’t like making friends at places I’m at a lot, like the gym or my neighborhood. When I’m working out, I don’t want to have an extended small talk conversation with someone. When I’m walking my dog, I don’t want to have a long conversation with neighbors who drone on and on. I actively take steps to avoid making friends in those environments to avoid those situations.
My request to any extroverts out there is to please not think that a friendly, polite person is really interested in what you are saying or wants you to interact with them. Try to look for signs that they are are actually interested versus just being polite. Is the conversation balanced or are you doing all the talking? Look at their body language to see if they are turned toward you or if they are trying to move away. Are they in the middle of something like walking their dog or working out? Do they come up to you when they see you or is it always you going up to them? There’s nothing wrong with getting to know people, but just be respectful if the other person would prefer to keep an arms-length relationship. [Not talking about anyone specific. Just making a general request to the world.]
I wish life were more like Major League Baseball. If you meet someone interesting, but your friend list is full, just send the potential friend down to the minors where they’d interact with other potential stars, developing their friend skills, looking to get their chance in the big leagues.
Then, one of your friends borrows your good cordless drill and returns it broken. You call down to the farm club and have them fly Nate up to the bigs. That night, Nate buys you a beer and introduces you to Kathy.
Perhaps, in the style of Black Panther, the prospective new friends could engage the old friends in a fight to the death? Probably at a cocktail party.
I invest a lot in the few friends I have. I’ve got nothing left to give. And…big thing…my family is HUGE. They suck up all my good will.
And, to the victors, go, . .hey!
Older people tend to be less good with change.
It is harder to meet people outside of school. At work, people quickly form cliques, generally based on when they trained. As you progress (or stall), you and your friends shift and you don’t know anyone there well any more. Breaking the trust barrier takes time and effort (it is far easier to do that when training or at school). It’s even difficult to eat lunch with friends (or with people who might become friends), due to trouble coordinating schedules, or some want to eat out while others want to eat in the lunchroom, etc. I have “work friends” (basically acquaintances) where I don’t know basic facts about them, such as hobbies, if they’re married,and so forth. (It goes the other way as well.) In a few cases, I don’t even know their names! (It’s too embarrassing to ask someone their name if you met them two or three times.)
Bad experiences, often related to stereotypes. I am not (just) talking about stereotypes involving race, gender, religion, etc, but even when it comes to “personality types”. “I don’t want to deal with [X job] as I think they’re uneducated. Everyone at [Y job] seems to cause drama at a drop of a hat.” And so forth.
I think a lot of people use dating websites because it’s simply too difficult to meet people at work. Even finding out if someone is in a relationship is difficult. There are some pretty women where I work who I wouldn’t approach, as they have probably already been approached by almost every guy and said no, so they don’t need someone else hitting on them.
This is probably based on where you live, but people often don’t know their neighbors. I live in an apartment, so my next-door neighbors are to my left, right, and across the hall. I know one by name, the one to my left, but he’s a psycho, so I don’t want to know him. The one on my right has a dog (a new one after the old one died), and I recognize his face, but that’s about it. The ones across from me could walk right in front of me and I wouldn’t recognize them or their dog. Age doesn’t seem to play a role in this: when I was a kid, I made friends at school, sometimes very quickly, but I only knew two neighboring families; one was toxic, and the other was an old guy who gave out cookies (so he was friends with all the kids).
A good way to meet friends would be to just go out and do stuff. Join a meetup group and talk about Dungeons & Dragons or whatever floats your boat. Go to the gym, or dojo, or sailing club. Once you’ve been able to talk about group-related things, you break the trust barrier and can talk more normally. Of course, these things take time, and sometimes money.
Oy, I actively avoid trying to befriend co-workers, for a muted down version of the reason I would back away in fear from one that seemed to want to date me - work drama is something to be avoided like your life depends on it. Friendships and relationships involve risk of things turning out poorly, and you can’t just never talk again to a coworker. The last thing I want to do is make the work environment hostile to everyone, including myself!
Forget friends, and certainly forget creeping on the women working near me - the proper approach is to be pleasant and friendly, but not a friend.
As with any group of people forced together by circumstances, my neighbors have nothing in common with me and we have nothing to talk about. Attempting to befriend them is pointless.
Plus a lot of them have dogs. I can’t stand the things. (shudder)
This sort of thing is great if you’re an extrovert hoping to add another few friends to the pile, but to me the introvert they sound very tiring and unfun.
I really like this answer. I guess i would describe myself as an “introvert by acquisition”. I probably have a rather unique perspective on this subject, as i am naturally an extrovert but due to the circumstances of my life the past 20 years, ive been thrust into a somewhat unnatural position re social interactions. As a result, i just have NO DESIRE to intermingle with people and undergo the grueling, disheartening, tediously monotonous, predictable and frankly lonely process of attempting to break thru the seemingly (and often truly) impossible wall of invisibility, otherness and ignorance just for the hope of connecting with another person in a genuine way. To say it’s tiring is to say metastatic colon cancer is annoying. Haha.
This is a much more succinct way of saying what i just said. 
I think this all depends on definitions. People define “friends” and “relationships” differently, sometimes significantly so… I used to have a much broader definition and thus number of whom i considered friends.
Ironically, it wasn’t until my ability to easily make connections with other people was severely curtailed that i developed a deeper understanding and love for the handful of people that were actually real friends. All those others in my life were just fairweather acquaintances. And my life was fuller with fewer of those.
But you can never really know if your talking to a Nigerian scammer, an actual gorgeous woman who really really loves iTunes or a sentient ad posing as a person. But yeah, other than that, it’s fucking gravy for meeting people for social chats. 
I would like to have more friends, but it’s not easy for me. Although I have always thought of myself as introverted, now I think of it as having social anxiety. It’s also true that I have never developed the skill of talking to strangers about whom I know almost nothing. I’m a pretty good listener, and I ask good questions if there’s the opportunity, but social occasions are not a good way for me to meet and get to know anyone, especially if it’s noisy. And if the other person is at all like me in this regard, then chances are we’ll be sitting in silence.
On the other hand, I have made two new friends in the past couple of years through my volunteer work. I got the chance to work with these people in a fairly low-pressure situation and things just grew from there. So I guess Dear Abby was right about how to meet people.
Seriously? I’m not alone with this? My brain tries very hard to parse ALL speech in my vicinity… I can’t filter, so the end result is just internal confusion.
So, yeah… No crowds for me.
I’ve never been a “go out and meet people” kind of person. I’m around people 8-10 hours a day at work (and at school when I was younger) and when I go home I value quiet. I’m just not that social.
One concept there is ‘networking’, IOW expand relationships for what other people can do for you. I’m not looking down my nose at that, it’s just part of how people are IME.
Anyway this is one, not necessarily the only, reason why older people tend to be less active in making new relationships. It is in my case. I don’t need to network anymore. Although all along I was one of those for whom making new acquaintances could be rewarding or not, but always a chore. Now it’s a less practically beneficial chore.
I’m surprised only one response I noticed mentioned wanting acquaintances to pass tests of socio-political views compatibility, that being such a big factor at least on the internet nowadays. Where I live, most people’s socio-political views are pretty different from mine. But unless it’s the type of person who insists on steering conversations that way, I don’t care. And I’m not really enthusiastic about new acquaintances who share my views and want to make a big deal of it either. I find I get more than my fill of socio-political stuff on the internet. In real life I just vote how I want, contribute or not to whatever, boycott or not whatever, get socio-politically angry or not about whatever, you do what you want as to those things, and let’s just skip talking about it. 
I’m inherently introvert, although people who don’t know me well won’t necessarily know that.
“Forced” into a new social setting, like a new job, I’m happy to talk to people, get to know them at least superficially, hang out after work if they want to or if we discover common interests.
But I don’t seek out “additional” people. Getting to know people is tiring, hanging out with people ditto. Getting to know someone just to network is doubly tiring, and my cost/benefit analysis falls down heavily on “won’t do it”.
Because I’m a natural introvert, and have always been somewhat lacking in social skills. When I was a kid other kids teased me. I found it very hard to make friends, and once I made them, I found it a tremendous effort to keep them.
As for networking, why would I want to invest the time and effort to build a personal relationship with someone just to become acquainted with a potential business contact? I already have hundreds of “acquaintances.” I’ll get to know you after the contracts are signed.
Most people are assholes?
Half right Gato,
To a lot of us who aren’t interested in meeting new people, it’s because they’re boring assholes. Painfully mundane boring assholes.
For me anymore, you have to have something different, even if only mildly so, about you to really catch my interest.
Take Pantastic as an example. Here is a person who apparently is involved in a style of relationship I find fascinating, and is very casual about it (as should be imho) but is different what is considered to be (so far) the “norm” of a one on one monogamous relationship. Pantastic is someone I’d ne interested in knowing
People change over time, but I’m not sure everyone gets less interested in social connections. I find I’ve become much more extroverted as I get older, although I am currently at the limit of the number of relationships I can juggle.
Now, pardon me as I go set up some social dances, help organize the neighborhood christmas party, and call a close friend I don’t get to see much any more.
When I was a kid I tended to be a guy who got along with most people without really belonging to any particular group or clique. Everyone had their close circle of friends but I enjoyed being with different people on different days. Contrary to the hollywood stereotype I think most schoolkids are like that. The idea of the nerds vs the dumb jocks vs the mean girls makes for a story but it’s not really true.
And that’s carried out through my adult life. I was never one to go out regularly. I spent time in England when colleagues would head to the pubs and now and again I’d join in - what I did like about English pubs is while for most people it’s for socialising they are mindful of giving individuals who just want a quiet time to have their space. I sometimes went on my own to watch plays or live music. I like solitude but I also don’t mind solitude in public places if that makes sense.
Plus one of the nice things about living in England was you go to a public park or a gallery and can strike a conversation with a stranger, open up, then shake hands knowing we’ll never see each other again. Conversations typically start by musing about the weather!