My social skills are really bad. They always have been, ever since I was a kid. It’s probably a combination of just how my personality is and some external factors I wasn’t able to control as a kid. I think I might also be autistic, but I don’t have a diagnosis either so I can’t speak much on that.
I haven’t really made a friend on my own in almost 14 years, at least not any good ones, and even that was honestly a stroke of luck. I kind of gave up by the time I was in middle school. In fact I honestly made an effort to avoid talking to people because in my head that meant there wouldn’t be an opportunity to bully me (spoiler: it made it worse). For awhile I would sometimes outright ignore anyone who didn’t have authority over me. I quit that in high school, but I still had no idea how to maintain a social life.
Now I’m in college (living at home) and yeah, still totally lost. I haven’t made any friends still. And you know, *one day* I would like to meet someone who can be *more* than just a friend, and that seems less and less likely to happen by the day with how socially inept I am. I don’t know, I feel like I sort of fundamentally don’t understand the process. When I was a kid, my first and really only friends I made, I met them because an adult tried giving me advice because I had no friends, and they told me “Talk to someone else who seems lonely” and I did just that- and it worked because their only other friend was absent that day. And that’s the only knowledge I have of making friends, the bare bones advice given to a six year old. Every other friend I’ve tried to make went on to bully me in some way.
The conventional wisdom I see usually says something like “go join a club!” And I cannot express how much I do *not* want to do that. I would be absolutely terrified. The thought makes my stomach twist. It goes beyond just stepping outside my comfort zone. It’s the social equivlant of jumping into the deep end of the pool when I can’t swim.
What do I even do at this point?
1 comment
Do you have cousins/siblings around your age? You can always ask to hang out with them, and eventually, you will be exposed to their circle of friends…which can lead to potential new friends.
Do you have a part-time job? Are your coworkers around the same age as you? If they are, then great, there’s another chance to make friends the same age! If they’re older, you can learn a lot from them too, and maybe after a few drinks with your coworkers, you might even meet people at the pub!
I also used to be super shy, quiet and timid. But what really changed my personality was when I started working retail/customer service…and that’s when you kind of realise that nobody really cares about you, they are not analyzing your every action, they literally do not care!! I was so scared for the first day of that job as well, but after stepping out of my comfort zone, it became obvious that I had literally nothing to worry about. The customers aren’t gonna be screaming at me and my manager certainly wasn’t going to give out to me (and if they do, just quit that job!!).
The same applies to when you approach new people. I started my new internship a few months ago, and the first thing I did was to introduce myself to everyone, and talked to the other interns…and now I’m really good friends with most of them. Remember it will always be harder to make friends the longer you wait. So you have to take action the minute you enter a new environment.
Don’t overthink when you are approaching people. Just be like “Hi !! I’m your-name, nice to meet you!! What’s your name?”. Depending on the setting, you can ask the other person how long they’ve been working here? Are they in college? You can complain about the class if you guys are taking the same class? Just make any small chit chat – talk about the weather, the football game going around in the field around the corner, talk about anything that’s pretty generic!! You can always give them a compliment as well, be like “I love those shoes!! Where did you get them?” and maybe that can lead to another entire conversation! If the conversation is getting dry, you can always give them a smile and say “it was so nice talking to you! I’ll see you around tomorrow as well!”, or you can ask to follow them on social media as well!
Over 7 billion people on this planet, you have so many chances of making friends. If you fail the first time, you still have a second chance…and the third…and the fourth…!!!