does anyone have a hard time making friends?

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  • mikek333
    mikek333 Posts: 78 Member
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    I never had a problem making friends. If you are a positive, happy person people will be drawn to you.
  • MaraDiaz
    MaraDiaz Posts: 4,604 Member
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    I have a hard time with all face to face interaction. Being around people doesn't energize me as it does some, it exhausts me. I have to limit my people contact so I have some energy left over for myself, else I just get anxious and exhausted, which is not fun at all!
  • SerahLaffere
    SerahLaffere Posts: 223 Member
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    Due to my weight is why I sit in all the time playing games. And it's bought on anxiety attacks when I leave the house now, Slowly losing weight & hoping to get back out there in the next 6 months!
  • slkehl
    slkehl Posts: 3,801 Member
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    It's easy for me to make friends, but harder for me to make deep relationships. I'm working on it though. Yay for coffee dates!
  • cfranklin6353
    cfranklin6353 Posts: 30 Member
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    I've always had a hard time making friends just because I'm so opinionated and vocal. I'm blatantly honest to people. I don't know, I think I'm missing that part of my brain that sensors what my mind thinks and my mouth says.

    It's not that I'm a mean person, but I do come off as abrasive. My husband has to tell me that I've hurt somebody's feelings sometimes, because I honestly don't mean to...it just happens. I'm actually a pretty nice person. I go out of my way for my friends and my patients. I'll protect my relationships with every piece of me, but I've been guilty of saying something without thinking about it first.

    I've only got 2 friends in this world besides my husband. There are two types of people in the world. There are the types who go into relationships with perfect trust, and you have to do something to take that trust away for them to lose confidence in you. Then there are people like me - I go into all relationships with absolutely no trust whatsoever. You have to earn it from me. And once you have it, if you do something to mess it up, it's extremely hard to get it back. But there is a long, sad, drawn out backstory to that that I won't go into. Suffice it to say, it's not my fault.

    ETA: I don't make friends easily with women. Every time I've been emtionally hurt or betrayed, it's been by a catty, backstabbing, two-faced female. I make aquaintances with women, but it's hard for me to trust or get close to another woman.
  • fitpilatesqueen
    fitpilatesqueen Posts: 337
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    Yes.
    I don´t seem to be able to make friends, I meet people and they become my aquantences, it never seem to lead to a friendship.
    But I´m not complaining, I´m content with things as they are.
  • neverstray
    neverstray Posts: 3,845 Member
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    I have a hard time with all face to face interaction. Being around people doesn't energize me as it does some, it exhausts me. I have to limit my people contact so I have some energy left over for myself, else I just get anxious and exhausted, which is not fun at all!

    I feel that way too. Recognizing this is the first step toward recovery. I know a lot of people that tell me that a good backyard BBQ with close friends is si relaxing. I always am like, what the F are you talking about. It takes so much energy out of me. I deal with people all day at work, complex relationship, and then to deal with more people when I'm home is almost unthinkable. LOL.

    I think I am going to wind up like my father, where he didn't really have any friends until after he retired. Then, he made some good friends and they are alwyas messing around together. I'll probably be like that. Right now, work, kids, etc occupies all my time.
  • saragato
    saragato Posts: 1,154
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    With all the friends I've had, and I mean the close ones, I was the one who instigated phone calls, IMs, texts (unless we're talking about my friend Heather who had a habit of texting me so much I had to turn it to vibrate only when I was outside the house. Not because she texted me that much, she just hit "enter" every two words) and I was the one who had to get her mom to drive us to movies, the mall, concert venues, and to my house for sleepovers. I was the one who spent hundreds on Christmas and Birthday parties, lent my ear, shoulder, and sympathy whenever it was needed even if I was in a crappy mood. Basically I was the friend that was taken advantage of almost daily because I was nice, I gave until the pot was empty and then I MADE stuff to keep giving.

    I haven't made friends since I dumped the last of them back in 2010 because she was, surprise, a bad friend. It's not that I haven't tried, but I'm socially awkward and because I have very large lips (see picture to the left) I tend to look like I'm frowning or scowling. I can also be sarcastic as a form of humor and not a lot of people get it or like it. All of my friends have been ones that made the first move, kept following me home (so to speak), and basically established the friendship for me. I did manage to make a friend in a group therapy place once, but she lives an hour from me and her religious beliefs differ enough from mine that it's a bit awkward in some conversations.

    Course really right now I don't know if I want friends. My best friend of 9 years turned on me and 2 years later she manages to get a mutual friend I "dumped" in 08 due to her relationship problems (she's dating both a guy and a girl and both people have come off as trash to me in the years I had to be forced to talk to them) to contact me out the blue and basically told me how much of a piece of crap I was and implied my best friend had been saying some things about me to her that made me out as a heartless b*tch. Honestly I don't want to deal with that drama bag again yet that's about all the types of people I attract.

    Also, OP, I wanted to add this on: What you're going through sounds exactly like what both my mother and I go through with our own family. It's sad that it can happen even with family, but then again I was raised to think family should stick together so I don't know what effect that kind of thing has on others.
  • MaraDiaz
    MaraDiaz Posts: 4,604 Member
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    I have a hard time with all face to face interaction. Being around people doesn't energize me as it does some, it exhausts me. I have to limit my people contact so I have some energy left over for myself, else I just get anxious and exhausted, which is not fun at all!

    I feel that way too. Recognizing this is the first step toward recovery. I know a lot of people that tell me that a good backyard BBQ with close friends is si relaxing. I always am like, what the F are you talking about. It takes so much energy out of me. I deal with people all day at work, complex relationship, and then to deal with more people when I'm home is almost unthinkable. LOL.

    I think I am going to wind up like my father, where he didn't really have any friends until after he retired. Then, he made some good friends and they are alwyas messing around together. I'll probably be like that. Right now, work, kids, etc occupies all my time.

    Right there with ya, I can't even work anymore in a social environment. It just drives me absolutely bonkers.

    I find myself reaching out online and talking to people now that I'm unemployed and alone most of the day when before I'd come home, get online, play a game, and if anyone in the game so much as looked at me funny, I'd run away! Now I play a lot less and spend a lot of time interacting with people, especially on this forum. Before I couldn't even do that. Before I quit my last job, I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating, and I was really losing it. Never again.
  • JuneBPrice
    JuneBPrice Posts: 294
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    I do, absolutely. I just feel like there's some disconnect between me and people my own age, I can't really explain it...it's like I don't "fit" in my own generation. =/
  • chatnel
    chatnel Posts: 688 Member
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    I have a hard time with all face to face interaction. Being around people doesn't energize me as it does some, it exhausts me. I have to limit my people contact so I have some energy left over for myself, else I just get anxious and exhausted, which is not fun at all!


    Could just be the people you hang around with, have you heard the term emotional vampires? I am a positive person and try and only keep the same type of people around me. If you hang around negative people you will feel drained.
  • Poorgirls_Diet
    Poorgirls_Diet Posts: 528 Member
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    Since moving to UK I found it hard to make friends easily. On the outside I am quite shy and won't jump into a conversation unless I am invited lol Back home I had more male friends than women because I hated the whole *****ing that women do and it also helped that i where I worked it was all men apart from me!!
  • lalapurpledog
    lalapurpledog Posts: 28 Member
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    I have several really close friends. I have also had others want to hang out with me. I'm 30 and married. I like "me" time. After work and the gym, sometimes I just want to curl up and watch TV or read a book. I have friends now that complain that I don't call them enough or come see them enough. It's not that I don't want to. I just wish there were more time in the day, lol :-)
  • slkehl
    slkehl Posts: 3,801 Member
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    I feel like I'm at a time in my life where it's easy to make friends. Most of my friends aren't married and are down to hang out. I don't see myself settling down anytime soon though, and I wonder what life will be like when I'm at the age where everyone has kids and their own families to take care of. That would be a tough situation to make friends in.
  • MaraDiaz
    MaraDiaz Posts: 4,604 Member
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    I have a hard time with all face to face interaction. Being around people doesn't energize me as it does some, it exhausts me. I have to limit my people contact so I have some energy left over for myself, else I just get anxious and exhausted, which is not fun at all!


    Could just be the people you hang around with, have you heard the term emotional vampires? I am a positive person and try and only keep the same type of people around me. If you hang around negative people you will feel drained.

    There are people like that, but it's not the problem. It's anybody. I don't read nonverbal stuff very well (much much better than I used to, though!) so more of my energy goes to that. When I get tired, I get anxious instead of just tired, so that's a factor. I also don't have a filter between brain and mouth, so minding what I say is also part of it. My favorite topic is politics, and I'm a leftist in a rightwing part of a rightwing country, so I'm really screwed as far as that goes. And I'm interested in all sorts of other subjects that others couldn't care less about, too.

    Aside from a roomful of professors, I really can't take myself anywhere!
  • dvnjustina
    dvnjustina Posts: 114 Member
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    I do. I'm socially awkward and shy. I tend to stumble over words at first, but I make great conversation after the nervousness goes away. I think I'm intelligently boring. I can't get any of the few friends I have to ever visit for dinner. I also feel like I have no interests with other late 20's peers. I don't like the bar/club scene.
  • Briski1411
    Briski1411 Posts: 296 Member
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    hahah I seem to do okay on the internet but toss me in real life and I'm toast :sad:


    ^^^^^^^TRU DAT^^^^^

    Same with flirting it is easy on line but in real life different story.....which has been cut completely off since I got married.
    Ok so I work for the government and we move around alot. It seems like if I don't find an established group of friends my wife and our left to hang out with each other.. Which is ok but it would be nice to socialize with other adults. In Utah we had friends but we moved to the south a couple years ago and have no real circle of friends. Kind of why I got back into working out as a hobby. I also have a muscle car, and am in to dirt track racing which is huge around here but still we are kickin it alone this 4th of July.....


    And my wife has plenty of online friends most of which are real good friends that she has known for a long trime, but again no one to hang out with. At least I know we are not the only ones with this problem.
  • RainaWalks
    RainaWalks Posts: 72
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    i've always had a hard time....now i've given up and just enjoy my own company....i accept that i will never be the girl with a huge list of people who would love to spend time with....never happened for me probably never will...
  • Elizabeth_M
    Elizabeth_M Posts: 562 Member
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    To add - I also have always felt like an outsider - at school I never fitted into any of the groups, I was reasonably academic, but not a scholar, ok at sport but not in any teams, I sang but wasn't in the music set. I have always been on the edge of several groups of friends, but never quite included.

    I don't have much in common with most other women. I don't watch tv or play games, or read magazines, so I can't talk about popular culture, I can't stand shoes or handbags or underwear shopping or any of the other girly pursuits. I have no interest in coffee, cake, hair, nails, getting facials or any of that. It is like an alien world to me. Nor am I into tennis, horse-riding and sailing like the other school mothers. Above all, I hate dancing, so there's a social activity I am out of the loop on. My interests are history, biology, archaeology, macro photography (preferably insects) and opera. I don't know anyone else who shares any of those! I basically fail as a girl.

    Well I think you're being a bit harsh on yourself - saying that you fail as a girl!!! So you're not stereotypical - there is NOTHING wrong with that!! Also you're generalizing a bit about what women are like! We don't all like coffee, getting our nails done and shopping, lol! I happen to love archaeology (dream trip is to Egypt), love biology (but high school bio is as far as I go, but I LOVED genetics), and am into history to a point - couldn't care less about the royals now - but love a good documentary on the royals of yore. I don't know any other mother (in my circle) who likes tennie, horse riding or sailing, either. Anyway, point being - there are people out there that you can be friends with - I know they are hard to find sometimes!
  • MrsFolk
    MrsFolk Posts: 205
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    hahah I seem to do okay on the internet but toss me in real life and I'm toast :sad:

    I second that.

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