Why does no one like me?

[Avotoast9]

Name changed for this.
Please be honest, I've got a thick skin.

I don't know where I'm going wrong. I don't have very many close friends at all. I think most people see me as a bit pretentious and possibly too intense. I don't think of my self like that at all. I've always struggled to make friends within my age group. My closest friends have always been older and I've NEVER been part of the in-group or had lots of girl friends. I can't remember ever arguing with anyone or falling out over anything specific. I guess I just fall out of touch with people. Sometimes I wonder if my defenses rub people up the wrong way. One thing I would like people to know about me (but I don't always get a chance to show) is that I am fiercely loyal. I would change my plans in a heartbeat to support a friend if ever they needed me.

So yeah, ask me anything. Why in your opinion am I rubbing people up the wrong way. I don't have a problem making friends initially but they never really go anywhere. Is that normal or should I take a long hard look at myself?

If you got this far, thanks ☺️

I made a huge effort when the DC were small to hang out with other mothers and be part of a community. I wanted the DC to grow up around other families with a similar outlook and values to ours. This was actually OK when the DC were primary aged and I felt happy in a friend group. However, as mothers gradually became less intense about their mothering role and started investing in other areas of their lives, many of the relationships fell by the wayside as I didn't share those other interests. I do still have friends from those days but I mostly see them 1:1 and I have other friends with whom I share my real interests but they are not a group.

One thing I have noticed with women in their 50s is that some of them seem extraordinarily different to the people they were in their youth and are obsessed with visible consumerism to the extent that they don't seem to know who they are. All conversations end up as listing purchases, holidays, brands of university and employers for the DC. They know little about politics or history or science or anything else that requires them to read, think, observe, analyse and take a position and so friendships aren't really in order.

People always seem to hate me lol but they like me superficially when I mask. Until my mask slips. I have one amazing friend and she's like mate like we may not speak for 6 months but that's OK lol. I'm late diagnosed adhd. This job i have ive been in now 8 years as I don't work closely with people and they get me lol. I will never leave due to people just not liking me. Anyways since meds I've seen why they didn't like me.
Topic changing 1000 times to something irrelevant. Not letting them finish. Etc etc. Anyways I'm medicated now so I'm normal to a point. But tbh I cannot be doing with intense friends. Don't have the mindset for it.

Sorry if I’ve missed it but what are your relationships like at work with your colleagues?

So are you saying you are happy? Because on the basis of your initial post… I can’t see it

Sorry but @Waterweight is talking complete nonsense. Those of you who are troubled by this should remember this. If there is a small subset of people who judges friends by their looks then they are by definition not people you want as friends.

They don’t, it’s a perception of one person not a fact.

Most decent human beings have more about them than that and although I hated it at the time my mum was right when she said if they’re not nice people why would you want to be friends with them.

OP it’s really hard to say why you don’t have close friends without knowing you. The things which would switch me off a person would be someone who is negative all the time and their company is draining, people who have values and opinions which are different to mine and are vocal about them and people who are very self focussed.

OP having read your initial and later posts, you sound very similar to me in many ways. Including having a 'proper' voice and being misjudged for that!

I don't have trouble holding into friends, but if people don't seem bothered I will withdraw rather than keep in touch, and it's also often them who text first because I'm a bit spaced out on remembering to text, or else I don't want to be "too much" so I hold back. But I'm really happy to hear from them and catch up when they text. I also find it very tiring and anxiety-provoking getting to know new people and it takes time until I can feel like I don't have to be 'on' all the time with them and can be relaxed.

I have done the online tests that others talk about and I'm not autistic but I do have ADHD (inattentive type) which I try hard to control but maybe makes me a bit different. I also grew up in a house where my parents only socialised once or twice a year, they only had one pair of friends. I wasn't allowed friends round or to go to others houses, and I was the weird kid who wanted to sit and read rather than play with kids I didn't understand, so I missed some socialisation, but to be honest a lot of kids were mean and horrible so I probably dodged a bullet! People say I come across as very warm, stable, emotionally switched on and safe, so I'm not worried about being weird. And I don't think you should be, nor does it sound to me like you are autistic.

I think you just have to be unashamedly you, and you will draw the right people to you.

Don't worry about your DD but make sure you are pleasant and friendly to others so she has the social opportunities even if you don't develop deeper friendships for yourself from the other school mum's. Your own friendships will probably lie in a different crowd.

?? You wouldn't see it. We don't know each other ?

No chance for me then. I had Bell's Palsy as a child, so my face is disfigured. After several spinal fractures, my body is too. I am the ugliest person I know.

@Avotoast9 - I was going to respond one way but then read that you do have close friendships and haven't struggled in the past but are finding it difficult right now- is this the case?

I had the same situation when I moved home/job - some places are more difficult to find people you gel with than others. Few things I'd recommend - get more exposure to other people (new hobbies, classes etc), don't try too hard/keep things light (people back off if relationships feels intense too early) and widen your view of who might be a potential friend (e.g. older than normal etc). Above all, take things easy and slowly (light pleasantries for months before going for coffee invite). People feel safer in groups too - so invite a few at a time (e.g. a group going for a coffee after a class etc).

Good luck.

Are you watching mafs Australia? I realise that I need like minded people to be with. I recognised myself in Lauren when she told the others at the retreat that she was bored with them and they didn't interest her. I was shocked that I actually identified with her and now see why I don't have many friends!!

So you are happy then? With friends and life?

Are you a glass half full or half empty type of person? Do you reach out to friends for a chat or to suggest activities to do? I'm just thinking about two people in my friendship circle who I'm struggling to maintain friendships with despite them deep down being decent humans. One is unremittingly negative and this is getting worse as she gets older. She also will try and find the negative in anything anyone tells her about their lives. It leaves me exhausted as having a conversation with her results in having to police everything I say and having to be overly positive about everything to combat her Eyore approach to everything. The other expects everyone else to arrange everything and moans when they don't which people are fed up with. I've known both of them for over 20 years and i know they are not bad people but they are so self adsorbed and impossible to shake out of it that I find myself dreading interacting with them as it leaves me feeling very flat and exhausted. I have a very wide circle of friends so I have options but to engage with them. You might not be doing any of this but if you tend towards the negative in conversations it could be this which is putting people off.

🙄 did you miss the bit where autism can involve social communication challenges or did you just want to be ableist

i could have written this post myself. i thought for years i was just a thoroughly unlikeable person as i have no ability to sustain friendships. i often say the wrong thing, i think, and perhaps just don't know how to have the conversations people expect. i know now however that i am AuDHD, which explains A LOT. although a big part of me craves isolation i do realise now it's very unhealthy for me to avoid social contact, so i try to focus now on regular superficial interactions - for example through my work, or through volunteering, or through my kids' school - and have accepted that i am not someone who will ever have 'friends' in the usual sense.

I have gotten a lot better since then. It was a good few years ago that we feel out. I would only be 30 minutes late maximum. I always thought I had more time than I actually had to get ready, so I'd leave things until the last minute.

Said person couldn't drive and used to bag lifts off me all the time anyway, like I was her personal chauffeur, so it was no great loss really.

I have a friend who may be a bit like you @Avotoast9. I do find her a bit draining as when we meet, it feels like she's bottled everything up to tell me. It's always very intense. I feel like I know everything about her and she doesn't know much about me because she's not really interested. When you try and change the subject, she steers it back to whatever she was on about.

Even if you're just stopping to grab a coffee or something, it's likely to turn into a rant on how expensive everything is and cost of living crisis and what a terrible state the world is in.

Sometimes people just need to have a casual chat about what's on telly or something.

Don't worry about your daughter, she'll make her own friends and your relationships with the parents won't affect that. But also don't expect to much from them.

Completely agree with this!!! I see this all the time!

Again, if I enjoyed hanging out with you (and I wouldn’t arrange to meet you if I didn’t) this wouldn’t bother me. I’d probably make allowances and tell you a time and then just show up 15 mins late myself but it’s no biggie if you drop a quick text to say you’re running late

A good friend of mine is similar to me in that we hardly ever pre arrange times and places. We will have loose plans to see each other on a Saturday and just update each other on when we may be ready. Sometimes we only get an hour or so, other times it’s the whole afternoon but it works well for us

I hope you’ve read enough of the thread to see that this is the opinion of a very limited number of people and that most people are attracted to someone because of who they are, not what they look like and if someone can’t look past differences in your appearance then fuck them, you don’t need that person in your life.

I think that post suggesting, on no evidence, that the reason the OP struggled to make friends is as much of a nonsense as the frequent, and equally baseless, assertion that if someone doesn’t like you, ‘they’re just jealous’. It’s the ultimate cop-out. It puts all the blame on the other person and makes the OP, again on no evidence, the too-pretty, too-successful victim.

Im in a walking group . I've been a member for 3 years and in that time we've had a lot of new starters . The people who 'stick' and become a proper part of the group are generally doing these things

1. Chatting easily. Making an effort to answer with more than yes or no to a question. Being open but not oversharing.
2. Talking about themselves for max 5 minutes then asking about the other person AND LISTENING to what that person says.

3 . Not being too keen. We've had some very intense people and I personally find people like that make me feel very nervous and 'on guard'. Men who bring a giant back pack and then insist on carrying all your stuff or who latch on to one person and interrogate them for the whole walk, rather than swapping to talk to other people at intervals. People who want organise bowling or a meal out or a trip to a silent disco the first time they meet you. Just relax a bit and let things grow slowly . 4.People who give off a 'manic' vibe. Anyone who says "ooo I'm mad me" " ooo I'm absolutely crazy". I will give you a very wide berth.

1. People who have strong opinions and share them very forcefully in the first few times they meet you. You said you have opinions Op and you stick to them. That's fine but , in general, politics, sexuality, money aren't topics for conversation with people in a friendly situation. It rarely ends well.
2. Friendships that are real take years to grow. I want to suss someone out very, very slowly. I want to weed out the manic people, the cheeky fuckers, the users, the weirdos and find the people I truly gel with. If you are giving off " I'm extremely loyal' vibes ( and you will be even jf you think you aren't) I would keep you absolutely at arms length.

My observations are totally the opposite. I really struggled with the school mums because I found I had very little in common with them. The competitive parenting and consumerism was rife at school but now I’m older, the friendships are more straightforward, based on common interests and hobbies. My only ‘complaint’ is the massive focus on menopause and HRT. 🤣

I am glad you are eye-rolling so hard.

Try spending 50 years feeling like the odd one out, having no real friends, becoming exhausted by social interactions because you have no clue how to navigate them.

Your post is ableist and unkind. As someone who has an official diagnosis - not even sure why I feel the need to defend this - I recognise so many patterns and feelings in the OPS post, that very well could be due to undiagnosed ASD, ADHD or both.

I would bet that you wouldn't be so dismissive of a 'real' disability. Give your head a wobble.

How does getting a diagnosis help? I really worry about all the people so desperate to label individual variation (aka personality) - does it not risking boxing you in? Crystallising your difficulties or failings and give you a reason not to change or be reflective and make an effort to learn or improve?

Obviously I am NOT talking about the severe end of any spectrum. But OP seems to have a normal functioning life, so how do labels help? You are who you are - due to brain design, childhood environments, experiences, genetics, and most likely a complex and wonderful chemistry of all of these - and have to work with it.

But I see this in a friend, hovering over her young adult extremely high-functioning child ('but he can't do that, he's autistic!'). It's so disempowering.

Anyway. That aside, I agree with PPs that friendships are about how you make other people feel. If you concentrate on that, the rest will come. Having 'strong opinions' (not interested in learning from the opinions of others?) is an exhausting trait in a person. What is the point of a conversation if someone is so certain they are right? Try making a person feel heard even if you gently (or silently) disagree.

It's absolutely untrue that you can't make friends when older, but you do need some kind of bonding mechanism - children the same age that grow with your friendship, a hobby, studies, work - so you need to engage in bonding environments.

It is also absolutely untrue that it is about how you look. Either written by someone who thinks like that, or who is not attractive themselves and has a very large chip (neither of which will make you a very attractive friend).