Growing up, I never had any friends. I never had any siblings. No cousins. No relatives. Just my parents. We kept to ourselves and never interacted with our neighbors. I feel that this started me off on a very bad foot and emotionally stunted me.
At work, I have nobody that I’m interested in hanging out with outside of work. I behave pleasantly enough while I’m around them, but that’s the extent of things.
I don’t belong to any organized religion, and so I don’t attend church/synagogue/temple.
I belong to no social organizations or clubs, because I find that nothing interests me.
I have tried volunteer work, and quickly grew bored with it and realized that it wasn’t for me.
I tried using Tinder and OKCupid to go on dates, but they made me so uncomfortable that I uninstalled these apps in less than an hour.
I’m all out of ideas. What can I do to find human contact to make friends?
TL:DR: I have no family or friends. I want to make some friends desperately, but all of the different ways people try to socialize have not worked out for me, and I’m at a loss.
4 comments
Do you have any hobbies??
See a counsellor or therapist.
Do you have ADHD or anything like that. I struggle to have the emotional bandwidth for people when I’m not medicated. I still need more alone time than a lot of people but unmedicated I’m very vanilla. And people are mostly annoying, and I just want to be at home if I’m not doing something I’m specifically interested in, and even struggle to be consistent doing things I am interested in that are outside. I didn’t realise it was a problem in relation to social stuff until I found myself with no friends or energy for friends in my 30s. Being medicated means I just spontaneous do all the stuff that makes freinds. Being interested in coworkers and happy to have long conversations, sparks more meaningful discussion. Talking about hobbies in common, going to events regularly that relate to my hobbies brings me in contact with people that are also into the hobby and I actually it enjoy it and organise meetups to go hangout with people I met at hobby events. Absolutely the opposite of unmedicated. idk if ADHD is it specifically but there might be something else a therapist could pinpoint. Maybe you are Asperger’s or something and just never got picked up.
Dating apps are actually a great solution to your problem. What is it that made it uncomfortable? It’s just a mean to meet people maybe you are over thinking it?