AIBU to wonder why many posters find it harder to make friends than find a life partner?

I'll be torn a new one with you then because I absolutely agree with you.

Of course it's not a "gotcha". It's a genuine question. Saying you "hate people" just screams immaturity to me - it's the kind of thing a stroppy teenager says when they don't get their way.

Besides, - how do you know if someone will be a positive in your life unless you actually get to know them and give them a chance?

Also, as @Thepeopleversuswork has just said, if you dislike people so much, why are you on a forum interacting with them?

I thought your initial post was intended for people who want to make friends but find it hard.

But now the whole thread has become about people who never, ever want any friends and think people who do are 'desperate!' 😀

I think it is very easy to fall out of the social circle loop to find new friends after the age of 35 especially if you've moved locations, houses and jobs a few times . Most people have settled down by 35 with really that don't allow themselves or their partners to socialise as such while they have young children and teenagers and mortgages.

. I also think think Apps have become the new norm for dating and meeting potential partners, but far less so for new friendships. Gen Z is apparently the loneliness socio-economic group because they now talk about their problems via an AI chatbot, rather than having a heart to heart with a best friend. It's sad.

If people are a positive in my life then that’s fine. If they aren’t, then I know I don’t need to bother.

When people say they hate others then there are always comments like ‘do you hate yourself’ - it’s ridiculous. Do you think it’s a ‘gotcha’? It’s like when people don’t like children and someone thinks they are being clever by pointing out that that person was once a child.

I would rather not have contact with people than have to deal with those who are so desperate for friends that they latch on

I wouldn't (and haven't) label everyone as kind and nice, though.

Of course humans are selfish - that's how we've got where we are as a species, but that doesn't mean we can't also be good friends and a positive in other's lives.

No worse than labelling them all as kind and nice.

Of course there are good and bad but people as a general concept are selfish and nasty.

IME the good ones are in the minority

But none of that explains why someone would claim to hate people.

It's just a really sad state of mind to me - there are so many wonderful people out there, it seems such a shame to label them all as bad or cruel or nasty or something best avoided.

Well you know what they say - when you have met one autistic woman you have met one autistic woman.

The autistic woman I know are much sharper at reading people that their NT counterparts. We don’t ‘need’ people in the same way.

But having children does rip relationships apart.

I sort of agree that romantic relationships are just as dodgy (hence why I don’t have them) but people wanging on about society doesn’t help.

I think all of us have this: trouble moving from acquaintances to friends. I felt so lonely with the empty nest and not having local friends that I actually started a walking group in my area. Has taken a lot of effort but we now have 6 to 7 women- complete strangers to me!- turning up. I would call a couple friends.

I don’t struggle to meet people, I’m perfectly happy to speak to people in new situations. I do find it hard to move from acquaintance to proper friend these days though. Lots of my close friends moved away and whilst we’re still in contact virtually and occasional meet ups it’s hard to find people local. Everyone I meet is happy to chat on a superficial level but generally have their own friends for nights out and meet ups. As busy parents to young children this means it’s hard to fit in new people. I do feel quite lonely sometimes. I’m fairly senior at work too so unlikely to make lots of close friends there whereas when I was younger and more junior I had lots of friends through work. The other senior people are significantly older than me and in different life stages. I keep busy by volunteering and doing kids activities like swimming and sports classes. My youngest has just started school and I’m hoping to make some friends that way.

I think mainly OP, it's society that's changed and that's had an effect on people's outlook and inner world. But as others have said, breakdown of community etc is a big part of it. I guess depending on experiences, temperament and opportunity then we will respond differently to friendships etc within those new confines. The social structures affect the psychology. It's so much easier to opt out/be excluded now than it ever was before and people build their own narratives around that, good or bad etc.

Thank you ❤️

But also if you stay married then you move with that person, often your. Younger friend group gets left behind and it's difficult to recreate that .

I don't know if 'fixable' or being 'fixed' is the best thing to strive for, tbh. What about - there are always ways we can help to make our lives a bit better? I hope you find ways to feel more comfortable and thrive. Bon courage.

Really? I'm not sure why you'd think something would make her different, aside from the fact that she's in control of herself, and so doesn't have to worry about hurting, irritating, frightening, boring, or abusing herself, or any other thing. She also doesn't have personality clashes with herself, or anything else like that.

Who you are is all you've ever known, and it's you, and it's very different to how you experience people external to yourself.

In fact, quite often people don't get on with people who are too similar to themselves, because when seen in another person, their own behaviour is intolerable for some reason. But in themselves, it's not even noticed by them.

I thought these things would be obvious?

I wish it had worked for me. I have tried so many different types of therapy. I guess I'm just unfixable :(

Even if the OP has got a lot of people's backs up, it's been really interesting for me to hear people's experiences of friendship and romantic relationships and how easy/difficult they are.

I've realised I have quite a strong association from my late childhood and early teen years that romantic success comes with being popular, and so I associate romantic success with having social skills to a degree at least. So women who don't feel comfortable with friendships and navigating social relationships but are happy to initiate romantic/sexual conversations are fascinating to me - that seems very confident and I wish I had that. Fear of rejection is very strong for me in that domain.

I was always pretty as a teen but that didn't seem to help (although I was also small and flat chested and that was definitely a factor in not being popular with boys), but I was also shy, quiet and studious and although I had a small group of friends I definitely wasn't Miss Popularity, so I never had a boyfriend. But as I got into older teen years and went to 6th form I made a new circle of friends, and got my first boyfriend - so to me having friends and a social life were connected to having a romantic relationship. I was never bad at social skills exactly, just more introverted and quiet, but as I went through university and got older I got much better at social situations and friendships, but when a relationship ended the social connections often also drifted away because they were often connected to the now ex-boyfriend.

I think now, being a lot older and having had all kinds of life experiences, including moving countries and having to make new friends, career changing, a long-term relationship end, I am much more confident about making friends - I don't think it's easy and it does depend on being in circumstances where you can meet like-minded people, and then be able to turn at least some of those new acquaintances into friendships over time. I also don't have hugely high expectations of friendships, they're a lot about proximity and repeated connections for me as well as shared interests and compatibility.

Although I still definitely find the idea of openly initiating something romantic with a new person very daunting and I don't think I could make the first move, I do have more confidence in navigating romantic cues and that comes from being more socially confident in general now, so the two things are connected for me.

I don't despise everyone. There are some very nice people and I have some good friends. But in general, no, I don't like people

That's a shame it hasn't worked for you - it's not my experience of therapy.

But the PP is a person the same as anyone else. If she's going to claim she hates everyone then I don't think it's silly to ask what makes her so different from all the people she claims to despise.