Dont have any friends, lonely and depressed

LegacyUser

I am a 23 year old female in Dublin, I have been living here for about 8 months with my bf. I don't have any friends here and don't know how to make new ones. I did not go to college here in Dublin, and have drifted out of contact with friends from college and school. I don't really get on with a lot of people at work, a lot of them don't speak english so it is hard to try to make friends with them.

I have tried using websites like meetup but most of the people there are a lot older than me, and I want to make some female friends my own age. My boyfriend doesn't have any close female friends. I work very irregular hours so I cant really join a group that does something on a set night any week. My relationship is getting worse because I am bored and depressed.

Any idea how to make some female friends my own age?

Dean820

Hmm...I understand it must be hard. How about your family members? Like maybe a sister has a few friends and you could all go out on a night together. But I guess that wouldn't work since you're away in Dublin from your friends. Maybe others here can help you better than me.

LighterGuy

My advice would be to stay away from the internet to make friends for a start. Although yeah sure some people have made friends that way - alot of who you will encounter will just be looking for "more than friends" - and im not just talking about the guys, even some of the girls :eek:


Only way to make new friends is to meet new people. All the cliche answers "join a club, course" etc are all based upon one aspect - Coming into contact with new people.

I know you say your work hours make this hard. But sadly its the only way to go forward and expand your social life.

G86

LighterGuy wrote: »

My advice would be to stay away from the internet to make friends for a start. Although yeah sure some people have made friends that way - alot of who you will encounter will just be looking for "more than friends" - and im not just talking about the guys, even some of the girls :eek:


Only way to make new friends is to meet new people. All the cliche answers "join a club, course" etc are all based upon one aspect - Coming into contact with new people.

I know you say your work hours make this hard. But sadly its the only way to go forward and expand your social life.

There's a boards meet up next weekend, the thread is in the AH forum. You should go, I bet you'd meet at least one person you get on with

LegacyUser

How about trying to reconnect with your old friends on Facebook, and suggest meeting up the next time they are in Dublin?

Also, how about sisters or girlfriends of your boyfriend's friends?

If you are into music, I find going to gigs great for meeting friends of friends and then arranging other gigs / nights out.

magneticimpulse

Hi OP,
well unfortunately once you leave University/school and enter the real world...you have to accept that your friends can be anything from 21 up to 45 lets say (even beyond).

I would suggest giving meetup.com another go. Try more groups, cinema, gigs, hiking. There was also womens only meetup.com dublin groups. As for age...I know my friends do activities with this group and they are 28...is 5 years older then you really that different?? If you really want to make friends, can you not let the age thing go?

Give it a few months. It took me at least 5 months of going weekly to meetup.com events (language exchange) to finally meet any real friends and now I dont know what I would do without them. I was starting to give up on it, but it got me out of the house and i was going for counciling at the time (boyfriend broke up with me as he felt i was depending too much on him). Anyway the councilor each week wanted to hear that I was getting out to meet people weekly.

So eventually 5 months, after Christmas time, a guy from the meetup group was leaving our city and moving to Ireland. It was at this night that anyone and everyone from the group came along for his leaving do. Its when I got to meet my now best friend. Yeah she is 27 and 2 years younger then me and another is "only" 23...another is 38...so yep all different ages, but once you get to know people there age isnt an issue. Ok the 23 year old guy makes some inmature jokes, but you just let it go as he's just trying to have fun and overall good company.

There are so many things happening, your bound to find something...they have things in evenings, but also mornings at the weekends etc. Check out the Ilac centre library as they do language exchange and I think its during the day time. The library would have information of other groups going on. I know I have friends who run groups in the library.

Apart from that there are things like indoor rock climbing or rollar disco which you could do which doesnt involve teams or for you to be present every week.

If you are not willing to live your own life, your relationship will fail or at least continue to have problems. Its not possible to have a healthy relationship if you depend 100% on your boyfriend 24/7. You need to have space from each other and do activities with other people. Dublin is a great lively city, with companies like google and facebook having their Headquaters there...this attracts lots of international interesting people who are in the same boat as yourself. Im sure they are not all hooked up and married. Either way, im sure there are lots of them eager to meet people exactly like you!!!

magneticimpulse

nofriends wrote: »

I am a 23 year old female in Dublin, I have been living here for about 8 months with my bf. I don't have any friends here and don't know how to make new ones. I did not go to college here in Dublin, and have drifted out of contact with friends from college and school. I don't really get on with a lot of people at work, a lot of them don't speak english so it is hard to try to make friends with them.

I have tried using websites like meetup but most of the people there are a lot older than me, and I want to make some female friends my own age. My boyfriend doesn't have any close female friends. I work very irregular hours so I cant really join a group that does something on a set night any week. My relationship is getting worse because I am bored and depressed.

Any idea how to make some female friends my own age?

You say the people in work dont speak much English?? Brillant opportunity to learn a new language from them. Thats how I met new friends in France. My french is just Leaving Cert level, but I had to do a Post Graduate degree here. I have 2 different Language exchange groups that I attend weekly. I know this exists in Dublin to via meetup.com!

Ok so you might not want to do a language, but people from other countries want to improve their English and you can pick up something from a native speaker and something to add to your CV. Say Spanish for instant..it will help you if you want to travel to South America for a few months. Best way to learn a language and meet new people, is just have friendly down to earth conversation in the pub. If you get really good at it, you can actually earn a living teaching foreigners English and surprising get paid to do it!! All my English friends make a career out of that in France.

Besides that you can try Couch surfing. You dont have to host someone, but you can meet a person visiting Dublin and show them around the city or have a coffee with them. I do this as well as car sharing and have met loads of great people.