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UglyStru

Making friends is one of the hardest tasks I've ever felt required to do

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1 hour ago, Chewyninja69 said:

In my experience (YMMV), people generally suck. It's why I work 3rd shift and why I only have 2 friends (and a 3rd that lives 900 miles away). But it's ok, no biggie, imo. Kind of "it is what it isand me not giving a fuck. If you're unique enough and/or whatever, then people will dig you. If not, don't worry about it. They weren't/aren't worth your time. I dunno what to say, really. 

The thought of third shift and two friends is so fucking glorious to me right now. I'm actually jealous dude. 

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On 8/9/2017 at 4:45 PM, stru said:

The thought of third shift and two friends is so fucking glorious to me right now. I'm actually jealous dude. 

Lol it's pretty chill where I work. If you really only want 2 friends, just pick the 2 you like the most and alienate the rest... ha. Jk.

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I listened to this podcast not long ago and was surprised to hear that something like 82% of men don’t have a friend they can call on in a time of need. I’m there too, so hearing this made me feel better. I think that men are naturally independent. I can get lonely, but then I spend time with others and am just utterly bored and feel even more lonely from the lack of connection. The close friends I used to have lead different lives now. Those friendships took years to develop during college or high school. Without such environments to slowly grow friendships it’s tough to build new connections. But we do have the net now, so we can make these posts and form a different kind of connection. It’s not as fulfilling as those deeper friendships from the past, but I still find enjoyment from them.

 

There are lots of negative stereotypes about loser basement-dwelling guys who have no friends. Just know that not having close friends is actually the norm for guys these days. If you’re in that place you’re far from alone and it speaks nothing of your character. Learn to find happiness where you can is the best advice I can give.

Edited by NaturalTvventy

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On 6/24/2017 at 4:09 AM, stru said:

How is this even possible? I’m 23 years old, and I have nobody left. The friends I had since high school have all gone their separate ways.

Almost the same situation here, but 21. Most of the few friends I've made during high school are now gone in other cities to study and I'm left here with my own business. I miss some of them, but not a lot.

 

My problem is not necessarily finding friends, but rather keeping the relation alive since I've never been too fond of these things and with time have only become even more detached from people. I sometimes think that if it wasn't for the school, now college, and soon work, I'd probably rarely talk to someone else. In general, when I feel the need to talk with people I usually sign up on a forum or whatever, it feels strange sometimes, when I end up getting attached to someone I've never met in person, and never will either, and yet I find online interaction much more satisfying.

 

Despite making friends easy, when I'm looking at most of them I really only see a very low number of common interests or preferences that really tie us, and incompatible with almost everything else. These are also some of the reasons why I don't have a girlfriend, and won't have for quite a long time, far too detached, self-centered, and cynical to be bothered with this. I can also be an extremely difficult person sometimes, so there's that as well, let alone finding someone more or less on the same ideological side, yeah, that's no easy task. I'm also fed up with other people's bullshit in general, and on top of all, I've learned a long time ago not to trust people, hell I'm not even exactly trusting myself either most of the time, so others expecting this from me is nothing but laughable and sad. But truth be said, perhaps I wouldn't have such a negative opinion on people in general had I not been running into far too many shits than I'd like to.

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3 hours ago, Agent6 said:

Almost the same situation here, but 21. Most of the few friends I've made during high school are now gone in other cities to study and I'm left here with my own business. I miss some of them, but not a lot.

 

My problem is not necessarily finding friends, but rather keeping the relation alive since I've never been too fond of these things and with time have only become even more detached from people. I sometimes think that if it wasn't for the school, now college, and soon work, I'd probably rarely talk to someone else. In general, when I feel the need to talk with people I usually sign up on a forum or whatever, it feels strange sometimes, when I end up getting attached to someone I've never met in person, and never will either, and yet I find online interaction much more satisfying.

 

Despite making friends easy, when I'm looking at most of them I really only see a very low number of common interests or preferences that really tie us, and incompatible with almost everything else. These are also some of the reasons why I don't have a girlfriend, and won't have for quite a long time, far too detached, self-centered, and cynical to be bothered with this. I can also be an extremely difficult person sometimes, so there's that as well, let alone finding someone more or less on the same ideological side, yeah, that's no easy task. I'm also fed up with other people's bullshit in general, and on top of all, I've learned a long time ago not to trust people, hell I'm not even exactly trusting myself either most of the time, so others expecting this from me is nothing but laughable and sad. But truth be said, perhaps I wouldn't have such a negative opinion on people in general had I not been running into far too many shits than I'd like to.

Wow, I feel pretty much related to this on a lot of points.

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I really have to appreciate what I have. They say "you can only count your true friends in one hand", I'm happy to say my hand is full.

 

And I'm a massive introvert, I may not show it when I speak to someone personally but I value my time alone like crazy. It's my friends who push me to hang out which has been going on since I was a teenager. But it's not that I don't put effort into my friendships, in fact I do a lot of things that would otherwise make me feel uncomfortable or never wanted to do but committed to please my mates. Nothing crazy, things like various 4wd trips, camping, meeting strangers, watching entire anime series etc but remember I am a massive introvert and would never do these things otherwise.

 

Like in a loving relationship, you need to change and adjust yourself to suit the other and if they are willing to do the same, you're both relationship material. I believe this strongly applies to friends as well.

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I'm not exactly doing great but on the friends front I recently severed connections with a couple of them (I'll use the term "friend" almost like a passive aggressive jab towards said people, they're actually complete scum and I'm glad to be rid of them), I am lucky however to have some very good friends close by who also noticed how utterly monsterous those others were and were very supportive and helped immensely when I decided to cut the dickheads out of my life.

 

I don't like doing things like this as friends are very valuable to me and I hate the idea of not being liked but these "friends" were actually a fucking drain on me, I love interacting with people yet these "friends" actually made me dread interacting with people. To quote one of them, unironically and seriously:

Quote

You're not actually my friend, I don't care, I only keep you around because you're funny, I only like you because you're funny, the moment you disagree (with his sociopathic world view) or stop being funny then you're gone. Fuck your feelings.

After a year or so into our "friendship" he revealed that fact, that I'm little more then a fucking jester. This was just after he reduced a close friend of mine to tears (after he basically said the same thing but worse after constantly sexually harassing her for ages and she asked him to stop, "fuck your feelings, I'll sexually harass you all I want because I think it's funny", for context), I decided to take the role of neutral for that engagement because I saw both as friends, I diffused the situation and achieved an outcome preferable to both sides yet now I see I should never have done that, I should've picked her side and denounced that monster. I'm so sorry, it haunts my thoughts every night.

 

You see, I think my problem is that I make friends too easily and are too trusting with said "friends", I end up caring for and liking a lot of people and for every good person I give a shit about I also find and see myself just as caring and sympathetic towards complete fucking monsters. I have so many regrets, so many faces I wish I didn't know, so many bad things I just accepted because they were my "friends", yet I've been turned on and betrayed by them and people just like them almost annually.

 

I've always questioned it (the whole reoccuring event), I've often wondered if I'm to blame. Maybe I'm not stern enough and don't question people's actions enough, maybe I'm bad at judgement, maybe all this time I've been the real monster (either I'm literally the bad guy or I'm bad by letting these absurdities and evils occur, doing nothing can be just as bad as taking part after all), maybe I feel though it's wrong to push my morals onto them, maybe it is wrong to do that... I can't stop questioning it.

 

There's more I want to say but this has already deteriorated into nonesense, so all I can say at the end of this is to not be afraid of making friends but also be careful who and what you align yourself with, if you feel as though they are bad people then I'd recommend ending your attachment to them ASAP as it'll just hurt harder later.

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5 hours ago, Chezza said:

And I'm a massive introvert, I may not show it when I speak to someone personally but I value my time alone like crazy.

 

Like in a loving relationship, you need to change and adjust yourself to suit the other

Totally identifying myself with the first as well.

 

As for the latter, for me that's largely depending on what is meant by changing. I've always been very strongly believing that if people like you for what you are, then that's perfect, but if they want to change you because they "don't like X, Y, Z about you", that's just a huge no, I'll never change just to please someone else.

 

Of course, however, if we're talking about improving one's self, then that's a completely different story.

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43 minutes ago, Agent6 said:

Totally identifying myself with the first as well.

 

As for the latter, for me that's largely depending on what is meant by changing. I've always been very strongly believing that if people like you for what you are, then that's perfect, but if they want to change you because they "don't like X, Y, Z about you", that's just a huge no, I'll never change just to please someone else.

 

Of course, however, if we're talking about improving one's self, then that's a completely different story.

Yeah change is a strong word. Make some tweaks, learn to tolerate some more, be conscious of other values etc. This is more to what I'm referring to. In the end of the day, if others do the same it could make a big difference.

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8 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

You see, I think my problem is that I make friends too easily and are too trusting with said "friends", I end up caring for and liking a lot of people and for every good person I give a shit about I also find and see myself just as caring and sympathetic towards complete fucking monsters. I have so many regrets, so many faces I wish I didn't know, so many bad things I just accepted because they were my "friends", yet I've been turned on and betrayed by them and people just like them almost annually.

More or less identifying with my former (to say so) self here. I also ended up caring too much for low shits and did a number of stupid things for them in the past (perhaps not to the same degree, but a dumb thing is a dumb thing regardless of severity anyway) and that's something I'll never do again because now I'm questioning these "friends" much more to see whether they really are what they pretend to be, there's far too many multifaceted people out there. I'm no one's toy or clown, and no one ever should be.

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That's interesting. I've never had an issue of caring too much for people who probably don't deserve it. I can't really think of any good advice for something like that. What keeps you from ignoring these types of people until they go away? Do they just keep coming back? Do you not realize they are a lot of baggage until after you get too close?

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Well from my experience it was not due to not realizing what a pain they were, but rather an inability to severe the relation with them. It was like being "addicted" to them, if you can get this, since it was somewhat comparable, in the sense that it's very difficult to get rid of an addiction as well if you lack the sheer willpower required to do it. But that changed naturally with time, so I can't really point out any causes or provide suggestions to get out of something like this.

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@stru Don't worry about things, your simply at that stage when its time to spread those wings! I got to 25 and realised that hanging out with the lads from the old school days, every weekend wasn't for me, to many drugs, roids and a constant obsession with getting laid.

 

So I started getting back into painting miniatures and after a while started going to the local gaming club, hard at first (because everyone is a judgemental prick after all :-) )  but after a few weeks I ended up play a fella called Kev at a game of epic and I beat him on the final dice roll, he called me a c##t and we have been friends ever since. Made lots of friends from that club, best thing I've ever done. So if you are looking at clubs for your interests, stick at it and things will work out. 

 

And an experience I will share with you, the most annoying, load mouth twat at the club when I started (and for the record I wanted to punch him on a regular basis) has ended up a really good mate, he just happened to be new as well and took control of the situation very differently to me.

 

I do still see some of my better school friends, normally once a month for a few pints, thankfully most of them have chilled out considerably nowadays.

 

And the last thing I will say about making/having friends, don't dwell on political points of view, that is utter bullshit. I have friends that are socialist / Jeremy corbyn supporters / remain supporters which is totally different to my point of view, but we either talk about it in a civilised manner or we don't. Agree to disagree and all that. I do however recommend drawing the line at white supremacist or antifa characters, no good can come from them numpties.    

 

Onwards and upwards matey!  

 

 

Edited by Liberation

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Making friends is easy. Keeping them isn't.

 

It would be nice to keep friendships that I actually like, but considering how much I'm used to people entering and leaving my life, combined with personality flaws such as assuming things all the time, providing almost nothing on my end (would like to provide a lot more than just talking about myself; how, I'm still figuring out), having plenty of occasions where I just didn't think enough about what I was gonna say or do (all it takes is one perfect slip-up to completely destroy a friendship), dwelling on the past, and ultimately parting ways over even the most minor mishaps, yeah, it's not easy. I'm spending more effort on rebuilding faded/destroyed friendships than I am keeping them, and that needs to change.

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I've not wanted, or needed, friends since high school.  Seen enough of people to know that I don't want any part of 'em.  Some people need friends to feel complete or something like that, but I guess I feel they're unnecessary.

 

Honestly, living a life without having to work for constant validation and pleasing others is liberating.  I mean, unless you work in customer service or something.  Then I can imagine that being a bummer for someone with the same thought process.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is strive to be the best you that you can be, and you won't need anyone else.  Just my two cents, I guess.

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