Keeping Friends

[Chimeron]

Hey everyone,

 

This community looks great, the people who come back to it over and over to give advice and support to others are amazing people. I found this place since I've had a real problem making and, more importantly, keeping friends pretty much my whole life. Recently, things have gotten even worse, to the point where now the only people who ever start up conversations with me are either friends of my sister or mum or other family friends (who talk to me more or less only because they're friends with my mum or sister and it would probably seem rude for them to not try and make conversation with me), the really friendly people at university who practically talk to everyone (but since they know so many people and I'm more of an acquaintance to them I can't exactly talk to them too much), or one of the few friends I have (who only do talk to me rather occasionally anyway). When I happen to talk to people, if they're not really talkative most of the time is filled with dead air (neither of us saying anything, me because I can rarely think of anything they end up finding remotely interesting to say in the first place and them because they've quickly depleted anything they could think of to say as well).

 

To give you an idea of how often people bother to contact me, I quickly checked the last email and the last phone text message I've received from anyone (ignoring spam and ads). The last text message I got was nearly a month ago; the last email almost two months ago, and even then that was just a forwarded email of some kittens and puppies (which was rather cute, though...).

 

In the past, most of the friends that I've made (most have been online) have gotten sick of me after a while (from a few days or weeks to a year or so) and even then it's very rarely the case that they'll contact me or anything. I've tried to be optimistic about the future and forget about the past, but after things never seeming to improve the optimism quickly gets drained away.

 

Worse, for the last month or there abouts, I've become more and more of a recluse, even though I do really want and need company. I've seen counselors in the past, but they never really helped me much, and I always found it hard to talk to someone who I couldn't consider a peer, about something like this. Hopefully I can manage to be completely honest on here.

 

Like I might have said before, I don't care so much about making new friends -- since even if I'm horrible at doing that it's made redundant if I can't stay friends with them, or improve the friendship -- but I definitely need help keeping friends and improving the quality of my friendships.

 

So what do I do?

[friscodj]

Welcome to ENA Chimeron! Great to have you here.

 

Well, let me ask you this. What is the denominator that you see common to these instances where people "get sick of you"?

 

Aside from that, make time for your friends in your life right now but also make a good life for yourself, to yourself. Perhaps the lack of such is being viscerally conveyed as neediness or cliginess to these people.

 

What interests do you share with these people? What do you have in common? Work? School? Hobbies? What do you truly enjoy doing? You'll likely find the best friendships with people who share your passions like this. I suggest if you feel you are lacking in this area to start finding or building such passions among other people. Sports, something challenging, is usually a good source of a solid bond.

 

Forget the counselors, you just need to get out and live life my friend and live it to the fullest. I think friendships will follow...

[Stereohead]

Well first I don’t see any problem with you on the surface, except a self-esteem issue perhaps? The confidence your lacking may make these people uncomfortable after while, feeling as if they need to help you be more confident and boost your ego… Of course that’s just in my case, when I use to be a lot more down and quiet, it was difficult for me to keep and make friends… It wasn’t because I lied to them, it was because of the fact I was just too depressing to be around… Not saying you’re depressing, but maybe that’s it… or you’re just shy and the people want a more outgoing person to hang with instead of feeling like they need to uphold the conversation all the time.

 

Just having fun seems like it would be enough, do what you like, talk to people that have similar interest and go places that you can meet people with those interest…

 

Well Chimeron, I’m not sure what to say. I mean, If you need someone to talk to, I’d be happy to…