I am 26 and seem to have no friend, family or anyone to talk to. The reason for this is that I cannot adjust myself to this fake world. Whatever seems real is fake here. I know many relatives and friends who talk about everyone but appear that they cant live without that person on their face. And due to this I kept distancing myself from everyone. I also want to know if being fake is the only way to survive in this world?

7 comments

  1. I would like to be your friend. Feel free to message me.

    If you have social anxiety like I did, this should help:

    Visualize a fountain of love above the person you’re going to talk to’s head, and imagine the words you say are going to cause this fountain of love to pour on them. Rather than focus on the fear that rises in your chest of “oh no, how are they going to respond” focus on the fountain of love over their head.

    Memorize:
    -where are you from?
    -where did you grow up?
    -what do you like to do for fun?
    -what type of movies/tv shows/books/music do you like
    -what have you been up to

    additionally memorize:
    -what’s been the best part of your day so far
    -what’s been the worst part of your day so far
    -what’d you have for breakfast/lunch/dinner

    (You can use the last 4 everyday.)

    Treat additional questions as a chance to be creative. You can monkey branch off of memorized questions and brainstorm up new questions in relation to those.

    Contribute information about yourself as well, and give compliments.

    ——–

    (The reason you use memorized questions is because you don’t want to spend a bunch of energy figuring out what to say – you want to have questions ready to fire off.

    If you have mixed feelings about the phoniness or insincerity of using memorized questions, realize the fact you care how the other person will respond means the questions aren’t insincere.)

    Treat everyone as a friend, and don’t put them on a pedestal.

  2. I just made a similar post. Right after submitting, I saw yours. I am also 26 and have no real friends. I mean, I have long distance friends who I made in college, but we’ve for the most part drifted apart. I don’t know how to make friends outside of a school setting. Nobody seems interested in really making friends. If I happen to meet a random person when out in public, it’s always the cordial small talk that you do when like interacting with a cashier or petting someone’s dog on the sidewalk. It is polite, but superficial. The words are what’s expected and appropriate for the encounter. It does make me feel so alone.

    I suppose see each person as a potential friend.

  3. Imo you are wrong here.

    You look at everyone with the same lens. You think everyone you’ll ever meet is going to be fake and just pretend to be nice to you. That’s unfair. Your bais about meeting fake people keeps you from giving people fair chances. Now I’m not saying you’ll find the right person the minute you start giving fair chances. There’s a chance you’ll get your trust broken a lot of times. But if you completely shut everyone out just because they could be pretending to like you, you’ll never meet the people that are actually nice and want to be with you.

    I have relatives and friends who pretend they love people to their faces and then talk behind their backs too. But that doesn’t stop me from talking to new people. Just know that you never truly know how a person is until you give them a chance. Not everyone in this world is fake.

  4. You don’t need to _be_ fake, but you usually have to put up with other people being fake- at least at first.

    Just remember ‘fakeness’ isn’t an attribute about a person. If someone is putting up a front, there’s a reason. I think 95% of people out there are putting on a front when you meet them. That’s usually them putting their best foot forward / hiding all of what they perceive to be their flaws or things you wouldn’t like. It can also just be them avoiding doing things which went poorly for them in the past.

    Some people keep the facade up 24/7. These are people who never accepted themselves or never felt other people could accept them, so they leave the mask up.

    So yeah, most people will have their mask on, at least at first. Putting up with that for a while might mean you can dig deeper and see what’s underneath. On top of that, most people will lie whenever it’s easier than not lying, so you have that to try to understand/accept about people, too. Lies are social lubricant, sometimes.

  5. I thought I was the only one who noticed this. I’ve been socially isolated for years now, and looking outside in, I’ve noticed how fake some people can be. There definitely are legit people out there, but are far and few between.

    Maybe “fake it until you make it” is more common than we think?

  6. I think that, like me, you may have to learn to distinguish “fake” from “has rational negative thoughts about people.” I know this is an assumption that you haven’t already, but just viewing it how I used to- I used to think that if you were someone’s friend, or cared about them, you were never allowed to think or say ANYTHING bad about them. I have since learned how unrealistic that is. Is there anyone you like every single thing about, OP? If not, why would you ever hold anyone else to that standard?

    I personally, now, expect that people are discussing my flaws behind my back. This doesn’t make them fake. It means they trust someone to understand they don’t like a small thing about me; I do not need to hear this. After all, I have unlikeable qualities. We all do. Even you, person who read that last sentence and scoffed. Probably *especially* you, actually.

    Now, this talking CAN be malicious. Fake people do exist. But the work to be put in, is in learning to distinguish malicious talking behind someone’s back.

    So are you wrong? Yeah, kinda, but not completely.

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