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Making friends/loneliness

tetra

Hi Wave  I'm a bit new so please be patient with me:)

Something I've struggled with my whole life is making friends and finding likeminded people. Lately I've felt so much more isolated than usual and I feel a bit hopeless.

I'm 26 but every time I try and make friends or socialize with people, I feel like I'm that weird, lonely 13 year old again who doesn't have a place anywhere, and although it feels embarrassing to even say, I'm really, really lonely. Everyone around me seems to have friends and I just don't get it. 

It's so hard to make friends as an adult. How do you even do it? Where do you even go? Does anyone else find this really difficult? 

Parents

  • I can't say anything helpful, but I can relate to this. I just find it impossible to make friends and I don't understand why. Sometimes I join a group and it goes OK until someone starts being racist or spiteful and I just can't get past that, can't get past the fact that the group goes on as if nothing's happened when someone in it has done or said something utterly despicable. Then the group feels poisoned for me and going there becomes gradually more and more intolerable until I just can't anymore. 

    Other times, I'll put effort into going out with someone who's friendly, only to find that they are a really pushy, overwhelming person that I just can't cope with at all.

    So, I feel I clearly give out some sort of signal that I'm completely unaware of that puts off most people, AND the people I think I'll try to make an effort to become more friendly with turn out to be completely unsuitable for my needs because they're pushy, etc.

    At some point after I turned 50, I decided that I'm probably just a person who's not meant to have friends. And a lot of the time that doesn't bother me, but sometimes it really does. (Luckily, I am married and our relationship is good.)

Reply

  • I can't say anything helpful, but I can relate to this. I just find it impossible to make friends and I don't understand why. Sometimes I join a group and it goes OK until someone starts being racist or spiteful and I just can't get past that, can't get past the fact that the group goes on as if nothing's happened when someone in it has done or said something utterly despicable. Then the group feels poisoned for me and going there becomes gradually more and more intolerable until I just can't anymore. 

    Other times, I'll put effort into going out with someone who's friendly, only to find that they are a really pushy, overwhelming person that I just can't cope with at all.

    So, I feel I clearly give out some sort of signal that I'm completely unaware of that puts off most people, AND the people I think I'll try to make an effort to become more friendly with turn out to be completely unsuitable for my needs because they're pushy, etc.

    At some point after I turned 50, I decided that I'm probably just a person who's not meant to have friends. And a lot of the time that doesn't bother me, but sometimes it really does. (Luckily, I am married and our relationship is good.)

Children
  • in reply to Bee68

    Thank you for replying! 

    I can definitely relate. A lot of the times I find other people are either really overwhelming or just so disinterested it makes me feel like I've done something wrong. It feels like I've missed an instruction manual or something.

    But I'm really glad I'm not alone in this - i think this thread alone kinda proves that we're all in the same boat. Being ND is hard.