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

[Thepeopleversuswork]

I'm baffled at the number of people on Mumsnet who struggle with the most basic social interactions and find making friends to be traumatic, but have found a life partner to settle down and have kids with.

A significant number of posters on here struggle with friendship or social interaction to various degrees, manifested in the extreme in the declarations that they "hate people", "don't want new friends", find friends to be too much "drama" and only want to spend time with their families. There is a classic of the genre running at the moment in which an OP has taken umbrage at a coworker making fairly mild friendly overtures to her as a gross invasion of her privacy. (But admits that she met her partner at work?) Or just at the milder end of the spectrum the huge amount of anxiety which making new friends seems to generate.

I genuinely don't understand why people who have managed to find an intimate relationship in which to have children can find the prospect of exchanging words outside the school gate or sending a text to a coworker so traumatic.

I found attracting a partner and building a relationship to be a far more fraught and involved process than making friends: there's so much more to lose, so much more vulnerability needed and the prospect of loss of face and self-esteem in the process of dating is far greater than in making friends. But texting someone (platonically) to ask if they want to have a coffee seems to spiral posters into paroxysms of self-doubt. The "school mum" threads are a whole sub-genre in their own right, where the paranoia and suspicion is often seriously irrational.

Why do people find it relatively easy to find a partner but finding friends so difficult? From my perspective it should be the other way around.

I totally agree that it is like a muscle and have experience and know others in my life who have had periods of isolation and lost it for a time to then gain it back again when they or I have either been forced or decided to socialise again. I've seen people who were once good with this stuff completely change and become v insular and unhappy when isolated and then later on when are amongst a good variety of people again blossom and become much happier people again.

I don’t think this is true. Certainly not always. Friendship is also about opportunity and geography. Evidence shows that most friends come from people you see very regularly (school run etc) and things gradually progress. There is a rarely a friendship ‘coup de foudre’ with a woman you are in a lift with for example

I have occasionally pointed this out when it’s situational: for example I have a friend who was in a long abusive relationship and I did point out that her at the time that boyfriend was deliberately excluding her friends and it was affecting her confidence.

The self awareness point is very true but you have to tread carefully with this as its quite difficult to be told that you push people away with your behaviour or manner and a lot of people will shoot the messenger. I have done this with very close friends but it sometimes takes a while for them to accept it.

I know ND people sometimes don’t prioritise being social: I think there is also a factor with not reading social cues but the people who get very upset about not having friends are not usually ND in my experience, they are people who are socially anxious and isolated and lacking in skills and over invest in the early stages with the burgeoning friendships they do make and scare people off.

Not that extreme but for me there is either an immediate connection or there isn’t. Most people can just be dismissed as of little interest.

If that is there, a friendship can grow organically.

Well yes - the ND people are often sharper at reading cues than NT people because they observe behaviour from outside.

If I’m not close to someone then I can come across as positively obnoxious. But I have enough self awareness to realise that and would change if it benefitted me in some way.

I’m not sure I agree with this either: sometimes you do “click” with people but sometimes it takes a while to get them.

When I first met one of my oldest friends (at school) I initially found her very chilly and repressed and it took several years to get to know her. Some people are naturally easy to be around and others are much more guarded so they don’t show their true self for a while.

I do think basic social skills are your friend here: you won’t click with everyone but you never know when there’s more to someone than meets the eye and if you maintain an openness to them you are enabling something deeper to develop but you don’t lose anything if it doesn’t.

For me, if it’s not there immediately then it’s not there.

There is always a negative or positive sense from someone. Both are strong. Saves a lot of time and is a bonus of being ND. I’m not going to go to the effort of getting to know people personally if I don’t like or trust them.

You do actually lose something if they turn out to be arseholes - the investment of time and niceness. The worst that happens if you write off someone immediately is that you don’t make a friend.

I've definitely had an instant positive or negative vibe from people but I don't necessarily always trust my first impressions: sometimes I meet people and am initially dazzled by them but grow to perceive their shortcomings over time. Very charismatic or clever people in particular can seduce people by being socially gifted and then turn out to be a bit hollow and self-obsessed.

Conversely sometimes very apparently quiet and withdrawn people can turn out to have a deep confidence which doesn't come across initially. It's very possible to misread people.

Also you can fall into the trap of thinking that if someone has similar interests or behaviours to you that you'll be compatible but life is much more complex than that.

Obviously I'm not going to invest time on someone if I get a really bad feeling from them, but I know from experience it pays to keep an open mind.

Hmmm... unless they are a raging arsehole or start stalking/harassing you I can't see what you lose from being civil to someone and making a bit of basic, friendly conversation/oiling the wheels.

You don't have to spend all your time with someone or live in their pocket but isn't it better to give people the benefit of the doubt in social situations?

I work in an industry where I am required to be fake nice to people all the time (some of whom are proper, grade A arseholes) so I'm used to turning this on but I think as a general principle it's good social insurance not to go around pissing people off until they've earned it.

I am well aware of people being charismatic etc and I’m not stupid enough to like someone purely because of a mutual interest but weirdly I tend to dislike the people everyone else raves about and I’m rarely wrong. Overly friendly people irritate me and I watch people being taken in.

I’m a bit like this too: I am naturally suspicious of raging extroverts and people who are super “nice” (the former usually are very insecure and the latter manipulative).

But you can think you know how to read people and get them wrong!

Are you under the impression that I tell people I don’t like them? I’m AuDHD but I can be let out in public’!

I can be civil to most people that I work with even if I loathe them. I don’t directly piss people off until they have earned it, but that is usually about them pissing off one of my friends rather than me. I just have minimum contact with them. I will have a chat and appear friendly if I have to.

As long as I’m civil then why do I need to given anyone the benefit of the doubt? I either want to get to know someone better or I don’t. I don’t see what I lose if I don’t bother - I would rather miss out on a good potential friend than waste time being friendly and then finding out they aren’t worth it.

Outside of work it’s not an issue anyway. I don’t chat to people j don’t know and hate being approached by randoms - I am a bit more direct sometimes.

Its a running joke within my friends that people are split into two groups for me - I would either take a bullet for them (probably literally in some cases) or I couldn’t care less.

Never been let down by someone I genuinely read and trusted. I’m happy to risk ‘missing out’ on someone who could equally be a waste of time

Honestly I’ve found quite a few good friends online, mainly discord. Good friends, in the UK, where we chat daily and even meet up! You can find ‘your people’ if you are willing to look outside of the usuals methods 😊