/feels/ - Advice & Venting

All my close friendships have just fizzled out over time. I am also at a point in life where I struggle to get close with anyone new. It's hard not to see them as being untrustworthy since I live in an area where public morals are so misaligned with my own.

>>110738
same here. i drifted apart from my high school friends because i was the only one who made it to college. after i got my degree things only got lonelier from there, but it's not too bad.

Offtopic, but threadpic is very pretty

I guess I was always lonesome. When I was a kid I grew up in a rural place, so before I started school I had only interacted with one other child my age. I didn't understand how to relate to other children in school, and I always felt very much like an other. This, coupled with growing up I was very gender non-conforming, a tomboy, made me an easy target for bullying. It was an exclusionary kind of bullying; I think throughout school my teachers spoke more words to me than any of my peers ever did. I always drifted between groups of my peers throughout primary school, and in secondary school I was friends with 2 other friendless people and it was a ball. We'd spend our lunches stowed away in the school library chatting shit about society. After secondary school ended, I changed my given name and surname and moved 400km away from my hometown because I wanted a fresh start, and I lost contact with everyone I had known before. Clean slate. I was attending university but I found it difficult to relate to my peers; it seemed like everyone was very juvenile. Things that they went through, thought about, dreamed of, it all seemed like I had already done it all. I found them very dull, at least the crowds I was around. Ever since I was a little girl the adults around me were saying I had an 'old soul' though so I think maybe I was destined to feel that way around young people. Throughout university I made 2 friends, we lost touch after graduation because I moved yet again and I don't have social media, so it's hard to keep presence in someone's life when they're so far. I find it difficult to cross that sea of distance. I took solace in online gaming and talking to people that way; but with the pandemic a lot of those online friendships also fizzled out with the stress of it all. Thankfully I've managed to keep one really good online friend for over 5 years now, we even send each other Christmas cards. I never thought I was anti-social or that it was particularly hard to speak to people or anything; in fact, I enjoy small talk and I take pleasure in interacting with strangers. Making friends just never really happened for me organically. I was always under the impression that I was just never in the right place at the right time. That being said, I don't feel particularly lonely. I enjoy my own company, and I like to think that I lead a relatively normal life filled with things that I enjoy to do. In the future, I'd like to have it so I have a small circle of friends that I can see regularly, maybe once or twice a week. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little envious of the thought of people regularly seeing their friends every day for hours on end, but I hold out with my hope.

I've never been a social person and I'm in general just a socially awkward person. I feel lonely even though I have a husband. He's away at work for eight hours, five days a week and spends most weekends just sleeping. I've just learnt to try to enjoy my own company. I do have a "friend" but she only talks to me when she wants to rant about something since I listen. She always talks over me and never really asks how I'm doing etc. Whatever though, people are shitty.

Moved into a new town, don't have any school courses I'd want to do/benefits me that aren't online only, and didn't have luck at my old work. I go to a meet up almost weekly but it's far and takes a lot of petrol (but I think it is good because people are friendly and happy to chat without judgement or mind games). I feel like I'll just have to pay and/or lug myself out to activities I don't care about to make friends, which it is what it is so whatever, but I feel like my lack of care for the activity at hand might not help me. Sometimes it hits me hard, but otherwise it's fine because you can just drink and play video games to pass rough nights but the isolation is killing me slowly. I might think about going to bars sober, and see if I have luck (any nonas have luck with this or tried?).

I was always a bit of a loner, to be honest I think about moving back to my hometown but I feel too ashamed of the teenager and child I was, and the person I am right now to go back to where people know me, and not sure I could manage financially at all, let alone land a proper job and keep it. I feel like I'm only good for a small chat or to rant to, to fill time when no one else is around, but I just gotta hope and keep trying when I'm ready again to get out. I think I need to be stronger and stand up to people more and not mask. I don't know. I yearn for all the teenage experiences I missed out on, is it realistic to still have some of those when I'm older?

>>110742
I hope you someday find those close group of friends, it sounds like you've had a bit of a time to change your identity (or maybe not, I guess I'm just curious to what really pushed you to change your name because it seems like an extreme step). I wonder what is up with the "old soul" prophecies, I've had the same bestowed upon me though I consider myself pretty immature, but a little bit alienated. I'm happy you've got an online friend to send cards to, its very heartwarming to hear. Again, wishing you find or cultivate a group with people you can rely on and connect with, I think it does a lot for most people to be able to have a nice dinner together, chat, share stories, laugh.

>>110839
It's hard to articulate. Throughout my whole life, I've always felt as though I was in two places at the same time. Like I was here and somewhere else. I came from a broken and negligent home, the only family I had known was my parents, and even them I resented greatly. As a young girl, I was so depressed. I was all torn up inside. I still suffer, but it's the dull kind of ache now, not the intense burning that I felt in my youth. The summer in between secondary school and university, I decided that I wanted to kill myself. I didn't want to die, but I wanted to get rid of all the parts of myself that I didn't like. I looked into the mirror for a long time and I thought of everything that I wanted to be, and I wondered where the other me would be. I wrote down all the things that made me unhappy, all my thoughts and memories, down on a piece of paper and I put the paper into the hollow of a tree in the woods and I forgot it there. I decided that it made sense to change my name since I was reborn. I wanted to give myself my own name, so I did just that. Best $100 I ever spent. When I moved away, I became the other me, the me that was always somewhere else, somewhere better. I changed so much in those years that I became unrecognizable. I'm much more content with myself now; my whole outlook on life has become much more positive. Nobody knows who I was before, but in a way I think that that person that I was is dead and rotting in that tree hollow. It's confusing I know.

>>110848
hmm, is it dissociation that u experience? Its something our mind does during traumatic childhood, giving a feeling of separate from ourselves. Im happy that you're now no longer feeling the old pain that troubled you, no matter the circumstances. If you're comfortable about it, maybe you can try and have intimate relations with new friends

>how did it happen?
i dislike most people and find faults in pretty much everyone. i self-isolated my whole life so it's easy to end up like this.
>are you content with it?
yeah, i get more than enough socialization from my family and my bf. sometimes even that annoys me. i prefer it like this. being expected to continuously talk to the same people over and over bores me. i hate when people i have to be around irl talk to me about their personal lives. i don't care about your life and don't want to hear about your day, go away.

>>110737
I grew up abused and isolated by my parents and that didn't set me up well for my future.
Nowadays, though I have friends, none of them are ever very keen to hang out or do things with me, I'm always invited if people are doing group things, but I have no close friends except for one online friend who lives on the other side of the country. I'm the common denominator here so I assume there's something wrong with me. I try and be cheerful and kind to others but it doesn't seem to help much.
the other reason is a lot of my interests are things like movies and games and writing, and I don't enjoy social media or the more common things that other women my age enjoy. It makes it hard to connect on surface levels that way; it's easier for me to make male friends but 90% of the time, they're not really looking for friendship, just a body

I'm in my 30s and havd no friends.

In elementary school I had a best friend, but it turned out she didn't even like me. She made me confess she was my best friend and then told me I wasn't her best friend. I had a few neighborhood friends but I nevet got invited to do things.

I had a best friend in high school. Like, I know she considered me her best friend, too. She had other friends but she was my only friend.

I also had 3 friends in freshmen year of college. One dropped out, one ghosted me. The last one was my best friend. Again, she had a regular social life but she was my only friend.

I didn't make friends at work because I was shy and I was embarrassed about my home life. Then people thought I was stand-offish.

Never had internet friends or fandom friends, I don't know how to make them.

Everyone think I'm friendly, but nobody sees me as a friend. I give people too much of myself but they never give me the same intensity back.

One day I'm going to get punished for being too honest, vulnerable and transparent.

Only have 1, and we reunited after 10 years of just sharing a message or two every couple years. I still have dreams of laughing with a group of friends and doing crazy things, it's always 5 people, they're always the same 5 people, and I feel like i know them but they don't exist.

I went into hospital for a long time in a foreign country and they just drifted away. My real life friends are either totally insufferable now or trooned out. My online friends found partners or careers and don't have time for anything more than a message or meme in the group chat each week. I'm lonely, but then again I was stuck in a hospital bed for 3 months unable to speak to anyone but the doctors and one nurse who had zero patience for me, so I've been lonely long enough to get used it.

My only social interaction is with a coworker, who I share maybe 20 words with in a day. He actually pays attention to me when I talk, but we work in separate annexes, so we only see each other on breaks and errands. I know he does those tabletop wargames at a place near me, and I've been considering just stopping in to see if maybe I can pretend I was interested and make a friend. I've also been considering that doing that would be fucking weird.

I was always too timid to approach anyone and too slow and awkward to respond when I was approached.

The few times I did have a friend I found hanging out and keeping up boring and stressful and always wished I were alone at home and didn't have to bother with anyone.
And when I'm alone at home I feel so lonely and wish I had someone, but then I try and it's still awful.

It scares me to think that one day my parents will be dead and then I'll be truly alone in the world, with no one I can talk to or rely on, and no one who would have a single thought about me. I don't think much would change in my life, but the thought feels strange.

I used to have friends in high school but after a period of self isolation while going through some stuff mentally, I can't seem to be able to connect with anyone anymore. During this time I somehow forgot how to act spontaneous too while talking to people, it seems like I'm always exaggerating (and I feel like it too) and it's very tiring. I also deactivated all my socials and only kept the ones that I use to lurk with. I've started college classes but while there is a group of people I usually always go to class with, they already have their own group of friends and I feel like they're not interested in hanging out outside of academics either.
I wish I at least knew how to make online friends. The only close friend I have is basically my boyfriend who's put up with me through my recluse-period. I made a discord account and joined some servers related to my field of study but I have no idea how to start talking to people and have meaningful friendships. I'm hopeless.
How do people make it look so effortless?

why do you all have a boyfriend wtf

I have always gone through stints of having friends and not having friends since 6th grade. Which the only reason I got friends in 6th grade was because my mom worked with this lady who had a daughter the same age as me. The last time I had a friend group was about 4 years ago. We lived together and worked together and did everything together. I was an idiot and thought we were just friends. Turns out she had a huge crush on me and started treating me like shit when I didn’t reciprocate. She read through my personal messages complaining about her to my then bf. Then showed them to our other friend and then acted like I was the problem. As if she did not cross a boundary. So i have been pretty content being alone since. Sometimes I get lonely but it’s not worth it going through that again. I had some girls try to be my friends when I hung around this one guy. But I always ended up canceling cause I didn’t feel comfortable.

>>110737
I'm in my 30s and very deliberately moved to a very isolated area to be close to nature. I have no real IRL friends that I keep in contact with aside from a rare text.

I have quite a few online friends, but most of them are men. It makes me kind of sad because I really want friends who are other girls since we have more comradery, kind of like how one might live in a foreign country but might long to have friends from their native homeland because of shared experiences. Unfortunately I am gynephobic and I find I can't vent with other women the same way I can with men. I have one girl around my age who I talk to online but if I'm upset I very much keep it to myself because I genuinely believe women don't care about my feelings. It makes me sad because it just leads to a lot of self hatred and I know deep down that's not true, I've met and been myself around a lot of women… Not to mention male friendships always have a weird kind of undertone to them.

I had a hard time socializing from when I was a little kid but always had 1 or 2 super close friends. Those friendships pretty much all ended because of school changes/getting older and the last one I ended myself. I feel like I can't connect with anyone anymore because all my previous friendships were so reliant on both being antisocial outcasts with no other friends. It's not that I don't think other people aren't good enough for me or something, it's more that people I've met in adulthood already have lives of their own instead of us being crammed in the same classroom so it's way harder to connect and relate. I'm probably a massive autist for this but I just get really bored with most people, I don't hate anyone I just don't have shit in common with them. I'd honestly just rather practice hobbies by myself than be surrounded by people I don't even want to think about. I'm okay with being a recluse, it can be a bit lonely but it beats being a fake friend. Work combats the isolation, hobbies, concerts and events combat the monotony. In a way it's all pretty neat, I'm sure I'll have a best friend again someday but for now I'm okay living like this.

I'm avoidant and ghost everyone irl and online. I can't handle long-term contacts due to paranoia.

I got way too comfortable being lonely, and honestly, I feel like I can't be myself or say what I really think around people, they always want someone to have milquetoast opinions, either that or way too edgy opinions, there is no middle, it's so annoying, I am tired of pretending.

>>111296
I feel you anon. They'll ask for your opinion on something but when you don't really have an opinion or they don't like the answer you're boring or a bitch.

>>111234

>very deliberately moved to a very isolated area to be close to nature

Cool! How do you make it work? Remote job, homesteading, something else?

The older I get the more I long to be a deranged hermit in a hut but I certainly don't have the means (or know-how) to make it happen currently.

>>111306
>but I certainly don't have the means (or know-how) to make it happen currently.
Same.

Not that I live in a country that really has isolated areas to begin with.

>>110737
I’m ugly and weird and unsociable
I think everyone who wants to be friends with me is probably using me for something
Nobody wants to be friends with me
I’m mentally ill

I used to have an online friend as a kid that I would play video games and voice chat with pretty much everyday. I don't remember what happened exactly but I think I had a mental illness moment and blocked him for no reason. I don't really miss him specifically but I really miss having a friendship like that.

am i still banned whatd ido

I never had any super close friendships, or at least none that lasted. The pandemic, graduating, and moving to another country systematically fucked all of my casual friendships I’d managed to keep going to adulthood. Now I pretty much only have my roommates and my mom. I’m practically hikki at this point (can’t interact with others without stumbling over my words and giggling like a fucking bimbo) but in some ways I’ve never been happier. My friends were always friends of convenience, not genuine connections. Now I’m alone but at least there’s no blurred lined between a friend and a friendly acquaintance.

I feel so hopeless about how pretty much all of my friendships and relationships devolve into them berating me, insulting me, ignoring me, constantly cutting me off, leaving me out of things, feeling that hanging out with me is a chore and gossipping about me. I don't know if I have a target painted on my back or I'm just that fucking irritating to be around. It feels like no matter how much I try to build up, I only end up losing. I find one friend, we spend an enjoyable time together, I find another one, yay, now I have two friends!! and suddenly the first friend starts slowly phasing me out of their life. Maybe they were only hanging out with me out of pity?

The latest one was a person that I've known for 5 years. To be fair, he's also my ex, but I was under the impression that we've resolved all that circus and could genuinely continue hanging out after a year of pause. I know it sounds pathetic, but he's the only person who's ever gotten to know the real me, the only person I ever felt could understand me, the only person that I've truly felt joy hanging out with. But I guess even that has come to an end, because starting a few months back, all these things that he used to like about me, and other small things that imo don't even matter have started getting on his nerves to the point of publicly freaking out on me, with passers-by and the entire coffee shop clientele listening. The reason: I moved out of the way of some people who were filming in public and seemed bothered by us in the frame. I lightly urged him to come closer to me, and he blew up saying that I'm embarrassed of him, that I'm an abusive bitch, that he hates my mode of existence, hates how pointlessly self-aware I am of other people's eyes on me and how fucking pathetic that is (nevermind that at the beginning of the relationship we bonded over our shared experience of social anxiety), that I'm wasting his time, that I just want to argue etc. Once again, in public. And yet he has friends, and I don't. Female friends, who have completely frozen me out of their group, but he's fine. And all that after indulging me with talks about "how he's realized that he actually hates women" and all that tirade on people with mental illnesses or whatever the fuck. But the slimey fuck would never say it to their faces, and they would never believe my hysterical, crazy ass, right? 100% of all of our mutual female acquintances (and I was the one to introduce every. single. one of them.) like him better than me, and they make it very obvious. And he's not even hot or anything. I'm just that despicable. Surprisingly, the only person who hasn't shared this opinion is another guy friend, but he's moved away and I haven't properly heard from him for a year. Probably never will.

He never used to be like this. But clearly the problem is me, since this happens with every person that I've ever gotten close to in various degrees. Just hanging out with me becomes a chore to them, even though they seem to be having fun when they're present. I guess they're lying to my face to get a bit of sadistic kicks out of me? Then it comes to this inhuman, despicable, absolutely vile push-pull dynamic, where I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting to hang out with them? Like, I'm supposed to count my hours, watch out so I don't bother them for too long, time our hang-outs a generous amount of days apart. NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. No normalfag that I know approaches friendship like this. Unless it's with me, of course.

I've blocked him, but in the end I'm left with nothing again. No long-term friendship that I can think of. No childhood friend that I can share my memories and experiences with. Ashes and dust. Yeah I'm an abusive piece of shit, how dare I manipulate people by crying when feeling depressed and overwhelmed, don't you know that's what sick and evil people do? My piece of shit ass deserves it for not following the sociopathic rules of this society.

What is the point any longer? I'm going to puke.

I can get away with it because my family is big and we're close, which in the end might be better or not but it does make me feel empty

Like, once grandma dies and the family stops being so tight knit I might be done for.

I did it on purpose when I was 15 years old. In my country thats the year when we ably for secondary education (either high school or vocational school) so I applied to school I knew no one I know applied. I didn't make any friends in the new school and I blocked all the new people. It's my fault but I felt like my past was holding me back and those people remind of it, I wanted fresh start.

>>111839
I did the exact same thing. Now I'm in university and I'm so lonely it's making me suicidal but I don't know how to make friends. I don't want to drink or go to parties or any other student events and my hobbies are solitary. The only way I meet new people is through classes but people there are either too hard to reach or I don't hit it off with anyone. I don't know any friend finding websites for my area either that aren't filled with normies and gendies.

>>111617
I can kind of relate. In my case, I have precious few people in my life that actually care about me. Everyone else just tolerates me enough to get something from me and then leave as soon as I put up boundaries. I’m admittedly hyper vigilant when it comes to other people’s feelings and I’m quick to apologize if someone is upset with me, but I never get the same courtesy in return. No matter how I say things, people dismiss my feelings and never take me seriously until I pop off one day and then that’s it for the relationship— they don’t try to understand my perspective, they don’t care that I’m hurt, they just see me get angry and cry and cut me off. It’s not like I’m throwing things or anything, I’m literally upset that my feelings keep getting ignored.

Then I met somebody that had the same issue you have where people just seem to resent them out of nowhere and betray them. We actually had a lot in common and I enjoyed talking to her but she had an issue where she’d explode on me over seemingly nothing. I tried so hard to be compassionate and understanding, but eventually her tantrums got the better of me. She was super defensive, so we could never talk about why she was getting triggered and she never really apologized and when she did apologize it was after you and she’d literally say stuff like, “we’re so silly lol I’m sorry too you know what they say hurt people hurt people blah blah blah” and if I told her how I was feeling she’d completely dismiss me. In the end, I exploded on her after getting yelled at once again and the friendship is over.

I say all this but I don’t have any advice. I guess all I can offer is solidarity because shit is lonely out here.