The advice I oft hear and read is that you should go to events for the sake of the event or activity, not actively seek out to make friends, or you’ll look desperate and clingy and everyone will be put off by you.
The problem is that I KEEP constantly thinking about how I need to make friends, I need to make friends, I have to speak in a funny and clear way and perform perfectly and FUCK I’m still losing their attention and it prevents me from enjoying the thing at all. I have executive dysfunction and it takes a lot of spoons from me to even drive to a place and attend an event where I’ll be trapped for hours with people I don’t even know, so every time I do and I walk away discouraged that no one even remembered my name, I’m much less willing to go out next time.
I guess it makes me act unnatural. If anyone has tips about just forgetting about the friendmaking aspect and chill out then please let me know
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Try attending so many events until you’re eventually just too physically exhausted to care or put in extra effort. And you’ll see that it is okay to relax as well.
A couple of things. One is that it’s REALLY difficult to make friends from a one-off event or activity. The best setting to make friends is a place where you have the opportunity to see the same people with some REGULARITY. So don’t blame yourself if you can’t just waltz out to an event, be perfect, and then come home with a new friendship in your back pocket. It usually doesn’t work that way.
The second is, you need to get out of the mindset of “performing.” Because performances tend to *feel* like performances, and while they can be temporarily entertaining, they don’t give the sense of familiarity and authenticity that helps cultivate a true friendship. So all you’re really doing is cultivating some acquaintances.
There ARE some traits that will help you connect with people better, but you need to develop them for your own sake, and start leaning into them because they’ll help you connect better with EVERYONE around you. The idea is to make it easier for others to access the real you, and incidentally that’ll help you attract friends as well.
Here’s an article I wrote on that:
###[Do YOU Have Good Friendship Traits?](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPRForYourSocialLife/comments/13jp5gv/pick_me_do_you_have_good_friendship_traits/)