Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Making New Friends
Meh:
I suck at making friends, I even almost freeze up with people, maybe I can attribute it to social anxiety or such.
If I were to make a concerted effort to be some person's friend I wonder what I would do.
How is making friends as an adult different from childhood. Are there rules of making friends as an adult? In the work place?
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: Green Bean on January 03, 2014, 11:17:39 PM ---I suck at making friends, I even almost freeze up with people, maybe I can attribute it to social anxiety or such.
If I were to make a concerted effort to be some person's friend I wonder what I would do.
How is making friends as an adult different from childhood. Are there rules of making friends as an adult? In the work place?
--- End quote ---
I wish I knew the answers to those questions, Green! I'm almost the opposite, in the sense I can do the social chit chat and the superficial stuff till the cows come home. But when it comes to the nitty gritty of friendship - intimacy, hanging in there through tough times, feeling close to people - it sort of doesn't happen. I crave company but I do find I don't really miss people? It's like one bit of me is asleep and doesn't really notice what anyone else is doing.
So I don't know. For now, I'm trying on mutual interests and just trying to hang out with people a little more and see how it goes. I find rejection really difficult to deal with and see it so easily. I'm trying to work on that. Maybe it's the old cliché of having to be friends with yourself before you can do it with anyone else?
Hopalong:
Joint exhilarating and/or meaningful activities that you do regularly (as in regularly) with a group of other people. The activity keeps the focus off self-consciousness. The flow of casual exchange just happens in a shared activity. Over time, because it is happening regularly, you get to know those you're spending the time with. One or another might say yes, if you invite them to meet for coffee before or after. If one says No, you practice going, "Oh, that's okay. Let me know if another time works." And then invite a different one.
Meanwhile, you've got the exhilarating/meaningful activity. You're befriending yourself and increasing your positive vibes simply by doing that.
Not magic, but it's how people connect.
Activity ideas: 1) art class, 2) volunteering, 3) political activism, 4) non-dogmatic church
xo
Hops
Meh:
Yah, my co-worker wants to listen to live music together and we talk about it but the logistics just are not easy to make it happen.
Twoapenny:
I thought I'd update this as things are going well.
I thought a lot about what I want/need from people in my life, and one thing I realised was that I have friends (or know people) who, although they want to get together, they want to spend the time sitting around not doing much - going out for lunch, going to the pub, hanging out in each others houses, that sort of thing. Although I do like all of those things, practically I just don't have the time to do much of it. I do a lot with my son daytime and evening and I don't often get a babysitter. One thing I do every day (or most days, at least) is go out for a walk.
So I had a think about people I would like to get to know better (this is me practising being proactive instead of waiting for people to decide they want to be my friend) and I've been arranging walks with people about three times a week now. Apart from it being good exercise, it's something I do anyway so it's not an extra demand on my time and I've been able to get to know some of these people better and decide whether I want to spend more or less time with them.
It's been really nice and off the back of it I've been to a couple of people's for lunch and I've invited someone over to my house tomorrow. I rarely do this as I feel my house is quite rundown and I worry people will criticise me for it, but this is another hang up from my mum that I need to shift so I bit the bullet. I've also arranged a cinema night with another single mum and our boys; I don't know her very well but she seems nice and I'd like to get to know her better, so we're going to see a (kids) film and go for a coffee after.
I feel like the change has been a long time coming but something has definitely shifted. I just don't feel as lonely or hopeless about it all now. I'm also finding I'm much better at not leaping in to offer to do things for people and more content just to get to know someone rather than having some sort of co-dependent or just seeing them because they want to type thing. It's also helping that I'm doing things that suit me rather than trying to fit into other people's plans all the time.
So all in all things are going well, although I do realise there may be blips along the way, I feel I'm getting to a place where I can cope with those now rather than it being a big disaster.
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