**TLDR:** Experienced what feels like a lifetime of one-sided and negative friendships which makes me feel stunted at making friends in my 30’s. How to break the cycle?
My history of female friendship has run the gamut of one-sided connections that bleed me dry, toxic individuals that make me feel awful, or “fine” interactions that are only being kept alive because I’m the one putting effort in.
Whether it’s from a bad track record or negative beliefs about myself, I feel like I’ve lost any drive/skill to make new friends and develop a social network, especially in my new city. I don’t feel confident about initiating friendships because, well, look at where that’s gotten me so far. I don’t trust myself to choose the right people, and if I do make an effort, it takes a LOT of courage and effort, which means it rarely happens. I’m so hyper-sensitive to rejection it feeds into a bad cycle of feeling more lonely, feeling less likely to branch out, feeling hyper-vigilant of rejections, etc. It seems like I have some massive blind spot that others see and I don’t and I’ll never be capable of finding friends.
I’ve been in therapy to break down these negative thoughts, but it’s increasingly hard/unwise to ignore the hard evidence that I don’t have a positive friendship history. It would be one thing if life circumstances made a great friendship drift apart, then I could accept it as a situational issue and believe that I would be capable of finding other friends in another situation. But I don’t actually believe that if I had an opportunity to make friends I could do it. I feel stunted and unable, and frankly embarrassed that it feels this far out of my reach. I feel like I’d find some way to choose a toxic person or a non-reciprocal dynamic that would make me feel even worse, and descend into depression and give up on human connection entirely (dramatic, but don’t feel far from that).
How do you get out of this social slump? Especially when you really have no friends in a new place. How do you build momentum to create the social circle you want?
1 comment
You have to understand that people subconsciously attach you to the value you bring. That’s the cold harsh truth. Ask yourself why should people should care about you. It cannot be because you are lonely and need attention. Are you a good conversationalist ? Are you fun and interesting to be around ? Do you bring positive vibes and positive social energy ? Are you directly impacting or adding to other people’s lives ? People look at these things in deciding to invest in you.
People notice the way you act and carry yourself around them, especially in person. They can pick up on things like whether you are quiet, anxious, unconfident, insecure etc. and they deduce you are not coming off as the fun, interesting, or positive person they want to be around. They also will think that you feel unworthy around them, thereby seeing you are putting them on a pedestal. When you put people on a pedestal, they will have no choice but to look down upon you.
You need to consistently practice listening and speaking to people in a confident manner, especially in person. You also need to pursue some hobbies and goals. That will make you become self confident, interesting, and respectable in a natural way. You are not going to be valued, appreciated, or recognized as long as you remain insecure. People start doing those things when there is respectable about you. Chase excellence, not people.