Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I feel I deeply need some friends in my life, who I can socialise with offline (face to face) sometimes.
I don't know why, but finding friends online doesn't work for me.First, I can't keep my concentration on social media or videos on screen. Second, I feel I need to see/feel people's face and reactions to capture what's heppening to our relationships. If it's all online, I recognize myself becoming too hash (critical) and sometimes I may hurt people. I think it's because I can't see others reaction. If there's a physical presense, I can sense they're hurt or laughing or confusing or... I mean I can capture more information to understand the situation.
But contrary to my needs, physical communication or going out to new place make me exhausted.At the moment I don't work (I quit last year), and this means I don't have regular opportunities socialise. I tried joining some events for the last few months (like learning tech-trends, drawing pictures...etc), but joining groups of people I always feel awkward. Like I don't know what to speak... Yes I'm very bad at small talks… Sometimes I could find a person that I can talk well if we have any common interests, we ecxchange contacts, but… I don’t know what should I do after that (sending ’thanks for a lovely talks!’ each other, and our relationships ends)
And the biggest problem for me is my energy left.Joining events physically, keep chatting people online, set time to talk to people... everything for socializing burden me so much energy.If I set a meeting with my potential future friend at a cafe on one day, or if I participate 90minutes event, that consume my whole day energy and I feel I can't do anything else on that day (I can do some routine stuffs like chores, but I can't complete any tasks that I need concentration - e.g. writing resume, learnings).This means I want to go out to find new friends, but I can't because I can't spare my energy that much for this. Because I need to live my life too.
Is it common needs of socializing in face to face?If you have any physical friends, how and where did you find them and how do you maintain your friendships for long term???
SO difficult! So this may be no help. I'm no good at parties where people mingle randomly talking about random stuff. To enjoy an event there has to be a focus for me, something that interests me. The snag with that is that more often than not I don't meet people in any meaningful way, because the focus is on whatever it happens to be. Friendships have happened randomly over the years, but it's very definitely something that I can't make happen.I did learn something a while back which might have helped me a little. Maybe it will help others. It's to do with there being different levels of communication. First level is the kind of small talk which is pretty meaningless in terms of letting people get to know you. The second is sharing thoughts and opinions. The third is sharing what you feel. Doing the latter makes you vulnerable in a way, but really allows people to see what makes you tick. I guess you are more likely to find people who are on your wavelength if you can find ways of opening up a little at times. Obviously it feels risky, but some people may warm to you (others may think you odd). Sometimes I think it's a risk worth taking.
Thank you for sharing a lovely theory. I think I always go straight to 'second' and end up with 'second'... somebody who meet me at first would surprise how I'm sharing my interests and opinions a lot (and they think I'm alien), and someone who I have relationship long-term like my partner, said I'm cold and they never felt my love to them because I'm very bad at sharing my feelings... (and they think I'm alien)