A bit of a vent in addition to seeking advice.
I’m 28, in a relationship, and have extremely few friends. By extremely few, I mean I really don’t know who I’d call if I needed someone. It’s hard to even know who I’d invite to my wedding. The one person I truly consider my friend is someone I talk to frequently but haven’t met in person, and he lives in a different state.
My girlfriend has friends, but they’re in their early 20s and haven’t taken almost any initiative to get to know me. We have them over to the house fairly often and they engage with me on a surface level, just not beyond that.
My position is that I can’t find people who genuinely want to be my friend, make the effort to get to know me, and are people I’d want to be friends with.
On the other hand, I’m chronically alone because of that position and I’m concerned that it will only get harder as I get older.
Based on all that, what would y’all recommend for finding the balance between having quality friends and needing to be around people even if they aren’t top tier?
3 comments
What exactly are your standards?
You’re putting a lot on other people — that they would take the initiative, that they would want to be your friend, make an effort to get to know you. And on top of that, meet your standards. (Not sure what it means to be below ‘top tier’ in this context.)
I agree it will get harder as you get older, especially if you don’t develop any friend-making skills. On the other hand sometimes when people partner up and/or get married, they then either rely on the partner to fill most of their social needs, or the partner is sometimes social enough to bring in other couples that become a social life for both.
So you may luck out in that regard. Or, you can do the work of getting out of your comfort zone and trying to make friends. I guess it depends on how motivated you are.
But if you regard people as “less than” or “second tier,” oftentimes they can sense that even if you don’t tell them that directly. So that’s something to beware if you decide to make the effort.
Good luck!
You say people don’t want to make effort to get to know you. But are you making any effort to get to know people?