Find it hard to form substantive friendships

LegacyUser

From when I was very small, I've always found it hard to form and cultivate 'proper' friendships with others.

By that, I mean that I can quite easily progress from being a stranger to being an acquaintance, but it's the next step, from acquaintance to good friend that eludes me.

I have one best friend and I would consider us to be very close, however I do feel that I'm more dependent on her than she is on me. Her friends have always been by extension my friends, but I've never felt entirely comfortable around them, even though we all went to secondary school together.

I was always told that true friendships are formed in college, but sadly, I'm not finding that to be true for me. I'm staying at home for college, as UCC is within a 50 minute walk of my house. While I do like my class and would consider many of them to be friends to a certain extent, in that we would chat away and sometimes go out for lunch/dinner/clubbing, their close friends are all either their new roommates or the people they went to secondary school with.

I've grown apart from all those I went to secondary school with. My best friend is repeating the Leaving Cert and so rarely goes out this year. The others with whom I'd have hung around in school are all in UCC and we would stop and chat briefly if we bumped into each other, but invitations to go out etc. are not extended to me.

I'm involved in various societies, but I encounter the same problem there. I feel comfortable chatting to them during the society events, but that's where it all ends. I can't see myself forming true friendships there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not searching for some kind of a deep philosophical connection with people. What I would love is to really feel part of a group, to 'belong.' I'd love to go travelling the summer after next but I've no idea who I'd go with.

I'm really starting to get worried about it. Even though I don't mind living at home, I'm seriously considering saving for the entire summer so that I'd be able to afford moving out, in the hope that I'd miraculously find a group of close friends that way. Part of me feels resentful towards my parents, for not really entertaining the notion of my going to Dublin (or anywhere else) to college, where I feel like I could have reinvented myself. I know that's not fair though.

I'm quite sure it's something to do with me and my own personality; I just can't seem to really connect properly with people. Even within my own family, I don't like being left alone with one person, I get on far better with people when there is a small group of us there, as that way I don't feel under pressure to be funny/amiable/witty etc. I feel that part of it comes down to the fact that I'm just not a particularly interesting person. While I do have a sense of humour, the idea of 'banter' doesn't come easily to me.

I've always pretended that I prefer my own company, and while I do enjoy it sometimes, most of the time I'm alone because I have no alternative.

I'm trying to be proactive and do something about my situation, but short of a personality transplant, I can't think of anything. The generic suggestion is most likely going to be to get involved in more clubs, but that doesn't address the real issue with me - that I just can't connect properly with people. It doesn't matter how many acquaintances I have, I still can't seem to find proper friends.

qwertytlk

Perhaps im wrong but i think if you went on some nights out with the people your friendly with im class, or tried to make the effort to either get involved in outings they are planning or suggest an outings to the group, that this would help to develop these frienships more. In my experience a night out in with people u dont know that well - into town, have a few drinks and a dance with the girls, and by the end of the night they will go from being aqyantainces to friends! At thats not just the drink talking (like everyones ur bestey with a few drinks) but it will extend to the next day as you will have had a laugh together, made little jokes, had funny things happen so you have things to laugh about etc. Obv if you dont drink thete are other things to do like go for something to eat, go shopping, cimeme etc, or you can still go to a club or disco bar without drinking.
Anyway i think you should just try amd imclude yoursef in their mnext outing. Just simply ask 'what are you doing the weekemnd', and if they say oh were going here bla bla blah. Then you say 'oh that soumds great, i wouldnt mind that' or whatever but its easy enough to do it. Hope this has helped.

qwertytlk

Perhaps im wrong but i think if you went on some nights out with the people your friendly with im class, or tried to make the effort to either get involved in outings they are planning or suggest an outing to the group, that this would help to develop and cement these frienships more. In my experience a night out with people u dont know that well - into town, have a few drinks and a dance with the girls, and by the end of the night they will go from being aqantainces to friends! And thats not just the drink talking (like everyones ur bestey with a few drinks) but it will extend to the next day as you will have had a laugh together, made little jokes, had funny things happen so you have things to laugh and talk about etc. Obv if you dont drink thete are other things to do like go for something to eat, go shopping, cimeme etc, or you can still go to a club or disco bar without drinking.
Anyway i think you should just try and include yoursef in their next outing. Just simply ask 'what are you doing the weekend', and if they say oh were going here bla bla blah. Then you say 'oh that sounds great, i wouldnt mind that' or whatever but its easy enough to do it. Hope this has helped.

saa

My Dad is very intelligent and uses his vocabulary, always over analyses, over describes and is not on the same wave length and what would be going on in social situations so its never helped him make friends but ultimately it was his choice not to put the effort into progressing social connections, I'm sure he would have if he knew how.
I did attend a educational psychologist before and the test showed I had an extraordinarily high vocabulary, but growing up with my Dad that's not surprising. However I'm not sure why but it seems to just happen that if you use the obviously large vocabulary you've shown in your post in conversational language it will isolate people from you, just my experience. Although you might not, that is me assuming!

Anyway It's not something that can be answered on a boards forum, I think you have to figure it out for yourself, I somehow did and it led to me making friends in my third year of college.
I really did listen to what others were saying and enjoyed learning more about them, I go out with them but they're never going to be my group of friends from school which are gone now and that's fine. I don't think I'll make true friends for life until I leave college and base myself somewhere because college goes by really quickly and as for making friends its not a big deal its about getting a good degree. It sounds like you do go out with people, that's the limit to a lot of college friendships.

LegacyUser

I know how you feel. I find it difficult to engage in conversation with large groups of people. For example with societies there are people there that already know each other and its like a barrier to converse with them. Also I find that I don't even bother trying because when I do I find that there is no connection. I've made friends in the past and lost them through relocation/different cirumstances but in general I find approaching people and then having something in common with them arduous. Its my own fault in many ways, the only way to establish connections is to go out there and make them but the repeated debilitating experience of meeting people and finding you are on a different wavelength sets a precedent which is to say, based on past experience I have been unsuccessful, therefore the next attempt will be unsuccessful, even though the conclusion drawn isn't true. What can I say, life doesn't forgive mistakes, otherwise we wouldn't learn from them, make connections and be strategic too. Go for clubs/socs/whatever that appeal to your interests or people you might reasonably expect would go to them that you would get along with, don't let it get you down by using logic.