Generally, I can say that I “put myself out there” a lot. I can talk to groups of people pretty easily and public speaking has never been too much of an issue for me. I even sing and perform on stages fairly regularly. However, despite my apparent comfort talking to groups or expressing myself publicly, I seem to have a much more difficult time starting conversations with people individually.
Because of this, I have found myself in a weird situation where a lot of people around me know me and even generally think positively of me, but none of them will talk to me or hang out with me at all. I hear all the time “I really like John Doe. He’s a pretty cool guy, ” but if I’m sitting alone, not a single person walks over to interact with me. It sort of seems like I’m a mascot: nobody dislikes their team mascot, but it’s not really your friend either.
Honestly, at this point I don’t even get upset about it anymore but I never really told anyone that I felt this way so I never really could tell if this was a common thing or not.
6 comments
i feel this way too. it’s tough post-pandemic. 🙁
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I’m 58M I guess it’s the best I can do getting along with people at my job reasonably well, I have a couple good friends on the side and they’re all I need
Realistically, you need to be the one who initiates (at the beginning), try spending more time with the same people, especially those who share common interests or activities. Just try to be friendly to individual people and try to get to know them, force yourself to be curious about them and let them do the talk.
Man I relate to this hard. I knew too many people who I thought of as friends who never really appreciated me. I kept inviting them to events and meet ups but most of them were like “I’ll let you know if I’m free” and then they never followed up on it and if they did accept my invitation they never considered inviting me to anything. So what I have started doing is just deleting their no from my contacts , so that I don’t waste my time on people who don’t value my company. This has left me with only a handful of people who truly appreciate me .
I understand this. I’m generally liked, but no one ever initiates contact, or conversation, with me. It’s always me making the effort.
No one ever thinks, “Oh I’ll call StiffAssedBrit. I haven’t seen him in a while” That never happens. It’s like I fall off the face of the Earth once I leave the room.
Trouble is I’m now too tired to make the effort as it’s just a waste of time!