I went to social events, meetups, and used a friend-making app to meet 1-on-1. Came out with several phone numbers but I’m always the one texting first. I’m exhausted. To be honest I feel like I did a bunch of stuff I didn’t even enjoy doing that much, just so we can have a bit of common ground. And after that effort, I don’t even get a “hey, how’s it going?”.
I have quite niche interests and creative hobbies that one normally does on their own. Doing something different wasn’t exactly fun, it was just ok but it also feels lije wasted effort. Somehow I can say with certainty that I would’ve had a lot more fun if I could discuss my niche interests with a close friend who is equally obsessed with the same interest. I did go to a meetup for the niche interest, but many people had poor conversation skill, didn’t bother trying, or didn’t like me enough. The past few weeks of socializing with “normies” we had decent conversation, but it felt like a waste of time. I learned about random stuff I don’t care about, when I could’ve been practicing a craft or skill I care about to get better at it. Icing on the cake is these folks also didn’t like me enough despite my effort.
Another thing I realized in this short journey is many people who are very skilled at something have little to no time to hang out. If I decided to do something, I would probably end up like that, I could never juggle pursuit of skill with social life. Even for 3 or 4 weekends I felt like it was a waste of time because no fruits came out of my labor.
TLDR; socializing with people felt like a waste of time. Few people with my niche interest can hold a proper conversation. I feel that time could’ve been better used to develop a skill. But I still need friends.
Not to be dramatic but am I destined to be friendless? What am I doing wrong?
1 comment
So you don’t interact with people that share interest but have poor social skills and you feel like interacting with people with whom you share no interest is a waste of time. Don’t you thonk that this is what is making you not achieving your social needs.
You could teach those with whom you share interest social skills. Then you would have someone you can share stuff with and interact with.
>To be honest I feel like I did a bunch of stuff I didn’t even enjoy doing that much, just so we can have a bit of common ground. And after that effort, I don’t even get a “hey, how’s it going?”.
Here’s the thing, they don’t knkw how much effort it took you. They might also have seen that you didn’t enjoy doing that stuff and thus don’t interact with you as they don’t want to borher you and make you uncomfortable. They might see that they are wasting your time and thus don’t bother you.
People tend to move on if they see that there is nothing in common.
>What am I doing wrong?
You don’t interact with the people with whom you do have shared stuff, just because they have different social skills instead of interacting and learning social skills from each other. Instead of putting effort into doing stuff you don’t like, put that effort to mutually improve the social skills with the person you have shared stuff (as tour social skills might also be seen as poor by the other person).