Why do I have no friends
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Hello everyone, apologies for the late response. I’m slowly reading all of your responses and would like to clarify a few things:
• I do not believe that my sister is purposely sabotaging my hobbies or potential friend making. She has always looked out for me and even invites me out with her friends but I always decline as I feel like a “tag along”. I realise again that this is my own insecurity stopping me from participating.
• I did not invite my sister to the hobby as such however as we are close why would she not think that she can join in too? She thought it would be something fun we could do together, and if I confided in her about my insecurities and concerns about having no friends I believe she would not have attended in order to support me. Again I am too embarrassed to open up about this.
• I should have explained more in original post but I didn’t want it to read too long. I have had friends in the past 15 years, good ones. But I haven’t kept them. I made friends at an old job, quite a few. We were all close and would go out together. However when I left that job I didn’t keep in touch because again my insecurities told me that they wouldn’t want to continue the friendship outside of work. Looking back, they obviously did want to, I’m the one who distanced myself.
• I have a couple of friends who I see very occasionally, my fiancée knows about this and is very laid back so what one of you said is correct, he thinks I am content. I also sometimes up-play my friendships with certain people. I’m again too embarrassed to discuss this with anyone although I know that he would be totally supportive.
• again if I discussed this with my family, mother, father, sister, brother, cousins, aunties, etc I know that I would be showered with love and support and help and suggestions and invitations, the bottom line is I’m just too embarrassed.
Please let me know anything else you want me to clarify.
One question: Have you ever reached out to therapists to do phone screenings and asked about costs? I am aware that there are very real barriers to therapy, cost included, so I don’t mean to keep harping on this if it really is something you cannot presently afford. But like I mentioned in one of my comments, I was once someone who was misinformed about the cost.
Hi Copa, thanks for your input.
I have in the past enquired and found that therapy was too expensive given my financial position, being that I don’t earn a lot. However I am going to look into this further and find out how much it would be now.
Got it! I hope you are able to find a therapist in your price range since it does sound like your insecurities aren’t really being managed in a way that allow you to live the life you want.
FWIW, at least some of what you are experiencing seems pretty normal to me. Like, I’ve made great friends through work before, but have found that many of those friendships naturally tapered off when someone goes to a new company. And as I get older, friends are simply less available because they’re settling down, maybe starting families, careers take up more time or maybe they’re moving for their job. It’s hard!
It sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right. But the thing about taking classes or going to Meet Ups is that sometimes you have to go a lot to make more than casual friends, or to find that person that you feel is some kind of soul friend or whatever.
Keep doing what you’re doing, and work on quieting that voice in your head. If it’s too overwhelming to open up to everyone in your family, you can also just confide in a couple. I can understand why you’d think it’s embarrassing, but it’s not. A lot of adults are lonely and wish they had stronger friendships.
Like all the above comments have suggested, try therapy because these issues seem a bit more deep-rooted to fix all by yourself. And please do not be ashamed of disclosing this w ur SO or your family. We all have feelings, we all sulk regardless of whether we r 10 or 40. Money is an issue for most when it comes to therapy but mental health is as important as physical health so scraping together some cash for a few sessions will serve u well in the long run.
And i get y u would be reserved. The decision u made 15 yrs ago is probably still stuck w u and u dont know how to get out of this. Maybe try initiating conversations, being more active in a group conversation or just ask about everyon else if u dont feel like talking abt urself. But dont try to imitate ur sister. You being u will be more than enough because all of us like and can definitely sense a genuine person.
One last thing, dont put off ur happy moments with ur SO just because u dont have many friends. Friends come and go, none of them stay forever and losing the truly valuable moments will cost you. You dont want to end up regretting this 15 yrs later so if ur attempt at socialising fails, just dont give a damn and value ur existing relationships.
