I find that I do fine job making friends, and I don’t feel like there’s anything about me that turns people off, but I struggle to get close to my friends, and often find that when it comes down to me, or another person, my friends typically choose the other guy. Any idea why this is, or how I can fix this?
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[deleted]
This is a very difficult question to answer but I’ll do my best.
Normally in order for you to become close with a person, either you or them has to have a real interest in getting to know the other person better.
My current best friend would just message me all the time, asking about my life, discussing common interests, sending me memes etc. We also talked a lot in person. Eventually through just interacting with a person a lot you will get to know them better.
I have another friend who i wasn’t that close with, and unlike the first friend she wasn’t quite as persistent. So I decided I would be the one to work on deepening the friendship. I just started to send her more messages, and I actually kept a notes file on my phone of random information about her to help me get to know her better. And since then we’ve become a lot closer.
So my best advice would be to be more persistent and active in trying to get to know the other person better. Ask them about their interests, and try to explore more common ground between you. I also find that engaging in moral discussions is a great way to get closer to someone and understand them better.
Now this is all advice coming from a guy with like 4 friends. But I’m CLOSE as you say with 2 of those friends. And that’s how those friendships came about.
Hopefully that’s helpful.
In my experience you have to be able to find the strength to express yourself authentically before you can form genuine bonds with other people. There’s so many people I talk to that are unwilling to be themselves because they’re afraid of being called weird, creepy, etc. Shitty thing is that you can’t form deep bonds without making yourself vulnerable.
It might be because you’re still hiding and restraining yourself around these people.