To think friends aren't worth the aggro

[poobag]

This is something that bothers me literally every day of my life. I don't have any friends.
I make friends easily, but find almost no pleasure whatsoever in keeping them. When we arrange to do something together I look forward to it with the same anticipation and enjoyment that a trip to the doctors might bring. Eventually I drift away, or f me some silly excuse to severe the friendship.
I think I'm happier without 'friends', spending time with my husband, kids and wider family. But I see everyone else having these fulfilling friendships with members of the same sex. I see them huddled together chatting in the playground on the school run. I see their photos of nights out together on Facebook, and I really feel like I must be missing out on something. Every single day I think about this...what's wrong with me? Why haven't I got any friends? Why can't I be bothered to engage with people properly? And when I do, why do I get so very little out if it?
Am I alone in feeling like this?

Have you read the book Quiet by susan cain?I suspect some of you might be introverts. This doesn't mean you are shy or lack confidence etc but it means you find social interactions exhausting even if you enjoy yourself, and absolutely need alone time for sanity. Perhaps the solution i book one get together with friends once a month or bi-monthly which will keep the friendship alive but overwhelm you.

Correction - not overwhelm you

With regards to male friends, my experience with 1 individual was of a 15 year old girl. We have been friends for 15 years during which he and his wife, also a friend, split up in a very acrimonious divorce. This left him quite bitter and since then his attitude to women, in particular women he met on dating sites etc began to make me uncomfortable. I think he forgot he was talking to a woman and expressed some attitudes that shocked me and eventually I disengaged from him.
He was neurotic, needy, bitchy and as resentful as any woman I knew following a split. In fact, I know women who displayed more grace than him in similar circumstances.
I put this down to personality rather than gender but the emotinal landscape was very different and I felt quite lost in it.

If you are happy in your life then it doesn’t seem to problem and i wouldn’t worry. From your posts though OP it sounds like you push people away and maybe look for reasons not to carry on friendships. But if you don’t feel you’re missing out then I don’t think you should worry.

From a personal perspective i can see why you might find socialising difficult, it can be a lot of emotional labour to keep up interest in people and go to events you don’t enjoy. But I have a handful of close female friends I love, yes I put the work in but I get it back in their love and support. I feel they understand me in ways my DP doesn’t (possibly a female perspective) and my life is better for having them in it.

Right, i'll be totally honest and say i don't do friendships with men very well because i flirt with them. I know it's not right and i don't want a result, but i can't seem not to. I adore my DH and wouldn't want to lay a finger on anyone else as long as i live but i habitually flirt with men. So not good friendship material.

More honesty - i don't feel i need a label but i've done a few of those personality test things out of interest and i score close to sociopath. I don't actively enjoy hurting people or anything and will turn myself inside out to avoid social unpleasantness, but inside my head i don't give a stuff about anyone except my DH and my kids. Really really don't care a jot. I've just learned to look as if i care. I want people to think i care because that's what's normal but immediate family aside i just flat line. I hate injustice, rudeness and miscommunication mind you. I'd never ever be rude.

(i'm going to have to name change after this thread)

laiste you are really only saying, out loud (if that counts on the internet) what so many people would never, in their fucking WILDEST dreams dare to even admit they think to themselves.
I have just learned to look as if I care
Oh haven't we all though. My latest experiement is to stop telling people I don't mind, when I bloody well do.
The GPS messed up appointments. Before, I would have stood there being all well meaning and saying it doesnt matter, while inside i was ready to explode.
I find it much easier now to let people know, in a firm way, that something is really not alright with me. Not go beserk and kick off, just steadily tell them I am inconvenienced and they ought to sort it out.
That goes for friends and family too. I let people take me for granted, snigger and poke fun at me. I pretended it didn't matter but it did and it has left me insecure around people but much happier to call them out on their rudeness. It doesn't make you popular but, bugger that.

I really struggle to make friends as an adult and I see old friends 1-4 times a year max. DP says I should make more of an effort but I just can't be bothered, I am tired.

I do wonder what your definition of friend is though, as you say you make friends easily but don't like them much? That doesn't sound like a friend to me, because in my mind you have you like someone in order to be friends with them.

Thank you lola.

Interesting about taking less shit off people as time goes on. Just today i told my DM not to keep saying a certain thing to DD4 as she keeps repeating it and it sounds iffy out of context. (knicker related comment. DM's 80, DD is just 4. we all live in the same house. fab).

Sounds like nothing but it was a big thing for me. I felt disproportionately angry. (there is back story) I said it calmly but felt like exploding. Challenging my mum takes monumental effort from me and not so long ago i'd have left it and simmered on. Like you I think i'd be better off if i hadn't spent years pretending to 'not mind' all the time.

It's a can of worms this isn't it?

I think because I have so little spare time I don’t want to waste it with people where I have to make a huge effort or if I don’t really enjoy the company. I tried really hard with a group of friends for a few years but endless dinners listening to them trying to outdo one another about their DCs, their houses, how many gym classes they took, how many holidays they were going on etc. and I just thought I really don’t enjoy this and slowly backed away.

I do wonder what your definition of friend is though, as you say you make friends easily but don't like them much? That doesn't sound like a friend to me, because in my mind you have you like someone in order to be friends with them.

Hi PaintingOwls. Yes, I've always found it easy to strike up conversation with strangers and to make friends with people. I like to think of myself as someone who is approachable and I'm told that I'm a good listener and i'm quick witted.
I think my definition of a friend is someone whose company you enjoy and who makes you feel good about yourself. It has to be about give and take, whereas the group in the playground that I said I didn't particularly like fulfilled none of this criteria. They were bitchy and judgemental of other people and each other. The feeling I got was that once I walked away the topic of conversation would probably become me, what I was wearing etc.
If you have read my posts you will see that I've spoken about school friends that I miss. About a couple of women I became friends with last year who were wonderful...and whom I could see becoming exactly the type of friends I'd love to call my own. But for some reason I couldn't sustain a friendship with them, it was just too much for me.

I've only mentioned once about a group of people that were not very nice, and consequently have been called 'superior' and 'judgey' and that one line has been dragged up numerous times now. And apparently I should 'try to see the good in people'

poobag I sort the world into proper friends (there are 3) and people I met once.
Seeing the good in people in my experience means wading through a lot of shit to find there isn't that much there in the end. Some stuff that is worth it but over all, not enough to base a life long friendship.
That sounds callous, judgemental etc. and it most likely is. It is my life, my definitions and entirely my decision about the time and effort I want to exert on others when I have learned I do just fine as things are.
And, I do not expect people to be dancing around me trying to find the good in me. Whatever good there is, is easily found within about 10 mins of talking to me, the rest is piffle. People do make their minds up quite quickly about folk because there is simply so much going on, there is a limit to how many people you can have in your life and decide their are meaningful, profound relationships. Otherwise, you are simply collecting people.

Lola, to me you sound anything but callous and judgemental. You sound like a realist.

poobag I defer to your excellent taste .
At 50 I have had to take some short cuts for the sake of my own sanity. And I think anyone else who hasn't reached that conclusion, is a liar or deluded.
I know I am going to get shit for that last sentence ...

I’m not very keen on the whole ‘girls’ night out’ thing and big circles of friends.
Groups, in my experience, are more trouble than they’re worth. There’s always some kind of queen bee, spreading poison.
I have a number of good friends but they are mostly from different times in my life and they don’t really know one another. I much prefer to meet up on a one to one basis.

There’s always some kind of queen bee, spreading poison.

This is true especially with some school Mums often they are worse than the children. I just can’t be bothered.

I just want to be with my DDS my DH and my family. I do have friends but I don't spend time with them apart from the odd cup of coffee. I don't seem to need other people/entertaining. Some 'friends' are more trouble than they are worth, imho you are right OP.

I'm like this. Don't have the group of friends that I see most people have on social media. If friendships drift they drift. I am sociable and have no trouble talking to people and beige friendly. I just think I don't have the emotional capacity to take on full blown relationships. I find it exhausting and I'm already pulled in too many directions. I've always been like this.

☆'being' friendly and full blown 'friendships'

I'm so with you OP. Even the friends I see or talk to daily I go through phases where I just don't want to interact with them. I find it exhausting, testing and so many friends I have have a sort of half picture of what I'm really like and what I think. Because I'm a terrible people pleaser. It's draining and I have to make myself make the effort a lot of the time. I try to spread myself thinly over lots of people but inevitably you have a few people you overlap with daily and it can feel overly intense.

I can totally relate.

I used to have bad anxiety so whenever I saw friends I over analysed every single thing I'd said in case I'd offended them after.

It played on my mind that much it was easier not to have friends.

TBH, I've found the same thing. Bizarrely at uni I was a complete socialite and extrovert.

I had a bunch of friends at uni and school but since graduating we've all gone completely separate ways. They are still into going out and spending all their money, but I'm now into staying in and saving all mine, and neither of us understand each other's life choices.

I've become less extroverted and love a weekend to myself and eventually my friends got more and more annoyed I was only seeing them once every month or so for people's birthdays, whereas I found them clingy for wanting me to text them everyday and see them every week. I've fallen out with my 2 best friends and stopped seeing other friends that I realised just weren't very nice people and were, quite frankly, not worth paying £10 to go into London for.

I have a couple of friends that I meet up with every 2 months or so, but no more than that - and when I went on holiday with them I just wished I was alone.

Nowadays I either want to be alone, with my boyfriend or with family. Friends just aren't high on the list. It's also that ever since I met my boyfriend (who is the easiest person in the world to get on with), I've realised how bloody annoying everyone else is.....

Naughty 1205 am loving beige friendly. That is just so brilliantly descritptive of the kind of thing I am talking about.
Beige friendly. Nodding along and making nice but not really bringing any sparkle to it.
I wonder is this a modern life complaint.
Where my parents families are from, which is very rural Ireland, you interacted with a small amount of people, half of whom you were probably related to. To survive you had to sociable and reciprocate socially as the day might come you needed help but it was understood where boundaries were drawn.
We expect a kind of intimacy very quickly with new people that we meet, throw yourself into a kind of exchange of details that my grandparents would have been appalled by. People get into your life very quickly. Want to know the ins and outs which puts my back up.
Whats wrong with chatting about the weather?
No, I don't want to talk about my DD's school achievements, Parents evening outcome or where she will be going to secondary or where we are going on holiday.
I meet one mum, every morning, she is japanese and she gives me a japanese word of the day and I give her one in English. Perfect.
Fuck off out of it, mind your own bees wax.

Actually, my 2 closest friends RN are male because they're just easy to get on with. They don't get offended at every tiny little thing and if I don't text them back. They don't say stuff like "if you only see us every 3 weeks then no-one will be honest with you about their problems" and "I dumped my boyfriend for the 100th time and you didn't text me for 5 days to check how I was!!! You're such a bad friend!". Guys don't give a shit, I meet up with them every 2 months for a catch-up and that's that.

I think it's because I'm the sort of person that never expects anything from anyone, and can't cope when people expect stuff from me. If I broke up with my partner I wouldn't expect anyone to "check in on me" (well, apart from my mum) and then get offended when they didn't, I'd just fucking man up and deal with it.

I've found that female friends expect far too much. The girls I lived with sent me into a mental breakdown - "let's have dinner together every day! Let's have a TV show we watch together! Let's go to a local pub once a week! Let's do everything in a TimeOut book!". I was counting down the days till I could move into my own flat. Now I live with my partner but he is the most chilled out guy and he is out 3x a week playing rugby anyway.

But the thought of a free weekend or a cancelled social plan fills me with bliss! - literally me.

I am considered very outgoing and socialable with lots of friends.

Reality: I find some of my friendships extremely tiring. I avoid nights out, and am constantly fielding to try and get some time to myself. It can make me physically ill when I ignore the warnings signs.
I love some of my friends, others put me on edge, many make me laugh make my troubles evaporate, others I Wonder why they are still my friend at all.
I take them all for what they are.
For you, I would consider developing just one or two very special friends and think about the setting you would feel most comfortable in. Nothing should feel to forced but accept it will initially and for a while.
Ultimately if you are happy why bother? Come off Facebook and see the playground friends for what they are. If you are missing a friend then be selective and choose someone just like you.

Wow. I love spending time with friends. And no, we don't have drama, but then I don't make friends with people into drama.