From my experience now I can say that I was on the full spectrum from no friends to a few friends and to a lot of friends and throughout the years (almost 30 years of age) I am confident in saying that if you dont bring equal value to the table then ur not seen as someone they want to hang out with anymore and ur pretty much screwed.
Now you will say no shit mr. Obvious, its clear u need to provide value and give people a reason to have u in their circle, but what I mean by that is that the general wisdom that u need to be “cool, chilled, funny, witty and nice dor people to want to hang out with u” isnt really the highest priority when it comes to defining if someones being of value to a friendship. The most important factor is if in the “thing” they seek out for u are of value which they can potentially benefit from by being close to you.
Explanation:
For example what I could ALWAYS again and again observe was when u at the activity at hand were greater than most of the others in the room (skillwise for example) then u were automatically deemed as approachable and basically “the life of the party” no matter how great ur communication skills or how funny and cool u are. On the other hand if u werent good or at least not average or lets say u werent at least as good as anyone else in that space who you could resonate with because u would inevitably be in the “same boat” then ur done, no matter what kind of “nice and cool character u have”.
This has to do with the general human tendency in a social hierarchy that we look up and not down and want people in our circle who r at least on our level or above us who we can resonate with (same level) or benefit from (higher level).
With the same character (funny, cool… or not, whatever u may call me) I was in all different situations. I always have been great at football and had a very easy time socializing in that context and being approached by almost everyone, basically being the center of attention, being invited to every kind of event, like even strangers approaching me. Also had my bad times at other sports where I was trash and no one would even give a fuck, even better, they avoided me like the plague so they wont get socially scrutinized because humans fly around the center of attention like flies around shit and dont want to be degraded socialy by being with the loser at the “activity at hand”.
Same goes for jobs, where I gave my all in the corporate world and got my successes and were the center of attention, people wanting to get closer to me and at other jobs (also tech industry) where I didnt give as much power (for other reasons) and therefore no one wanted to be with the low performer bcuz they would again scrutinize themselves socially and professionally in that case. Examples can go on and on and not the surface is important but the underlying structure which stems from natural human behaviour in social contexts.
That goes hand in hand with the fact that people leave u once they find other priorities and where u were once a great companion because u shared the same priority for the same “activity” and u both were at least at the same level, they now dont see value in u anymore because they dont benefit from u anymore regarding the new priority and theres basically no overlap anymore.
Conclusion:
Doesnt matter how funny, witty, cool, chilled or whatever the fuck u r,
what matters is what u bring to the table people can benefit from (being funny and that bs is not included and not first priority) which will ultimately want them to be close to u. There is no relationship without such a beneficiary component.