I don’t have friends, only acquaintances.
I (23 M) feel pretty much alone and with no one to actually call a friend. I’m tired of reaching out to people who don’t care about me through texts. I just want something irl. I literally just put my hoodie sometimes, walk outside and hope I’ll feel better if I had some human contact other than my parents. My parents are good but I came to realize they live a very boring life. My mum stays almost everyday at home and doesn’t like to go out that much. Sometimes her only idea of changing the scenery is looking from the balcony or the window. Like I said I have a great job and it pays well but I don’t consider my co-workers as friends as I try to separate between my personal life and work. Growing up, I was always this super energetic funny kid with a lot of friends in school to someone who doesn’t have the energy for human interaction because every time I do now it end up like an interaction from one side, which is me. I just want to make some genuine friends, even one or two are enough, any suggestions?
TLDR: I don’t have any real friends, only people I have to interact with. Any ideas about how I might approach this problem that is really affecting my life.
7 comments
Good friends are hard to come by and I can very distinctly remember periods of my life where I couldn’t count anyone outside my family as closer than an acquaintance. So I get how you feel.
I stumbled onto my best friends at work. I was a barista and he transferred into the store I was working. We had way too much in common not to hang out after work and from there we just kept hanging out, even after I left the job. That’s not to say it’s always a good idea to make friends at work, but hey, sometimes that’s how you meet people and you shouldn’t discount it just because you met them at a job.
What are your hobbies? Do you like to play video or board games? Do you do any kind of art? Into hiking or photography? It may be easiest to meet people at events that focus on something you’re passionate about because you’re likely to find people who share those interests. If you don’t have a hobby outside of work, this might be the time to find one.
Great thing about hobbies is you can usually find someone eager to teach, or talk about their hobby and letting people share something they’re passionate about with you is an easy first step towards building a friendship.
Be real, be humble, and the hardest part… be vulnerable. Honestly if you just play it cool you’ll never get beyond the initial pleasantries. You say something like “Hey, you seem really cool and I’ve been trying to meet new people… want to do X sometime?” that goes a long way.
I hope some of this has given you an idea of where you can start.
Good luck!
>I’m tired of reaching out to people who don’t care about me through texts.
Quite right, better chance of encountering caring people on these forums, from time to time.
>but I don’t consider my co-workers as friends
And yet, you considered your schoolmates as friends (& had a great time).
See a pattern, here?
We’re able to make good friendships in school because we’re being forced to socialise with the same ~25 people for ~30 hours a week – among those there will of course be those that you develop alongside in a way that makes you friends. If the only people you regularly meet in your adult life are your colleagues who you know you have little in common with, it’s unsurprising that you don’t know anyone who could become a friend.
Is there a hobby group that you could join? A community choir, a book discussion group at the library, a board game group at the social club, a regular folk dance event, Friday Night MtG (or any other card game!) at your local game store, joining a Saturday soccer team, etc etc etc. Anything that you’re interested in that a) has structure so you don’t have to spend 3 hours just making conversation, but b) has enough downtime that you can talk to people and start building connections, and c) isn’t staying in, watching TV or playing videogames. You do need to be confident to make some small talk with strangers, but soon they will not be strangers because you’ll be meeting them week after week.
I personally don’t think you should be so quick to say you can’t become friends with your co-workers. I made two of my best friends while at work. I also developed a very close relationship with someone else at work too, granted I think that was more because I was the son he never had. He had 3 daughters and I was the same age as one of his kids.
It sounds like you experienced a type of trauma and are distrusting of people now
Are there any sports clubs or societies you can join? All my friends after school and university were made via this way. No matter if you’re into sports or Dnd or hiking or gaming or painting etc…there’s probably a club or society you can join to do with these and then you can start meeting up with them regularly and make friends with people who share your interests.
You
need
to
sign
up
to
regular,
in
person
actiities
and
attend
regularly,
for
years.
That’s
how
people
find
friends.
A
club,
running
group,
working
for
a
local
candidate.
Lots
of
options.
Also,
consider
creating
a
3
year
plan
to
get
out
of
your
parents’
house.