I just cannot find my 'people' anywhere.

[mymoonandstars]

I suppose I should just write it as it comes out.

I have lots of friends. I have quite a good social life that if I wanted to take a more active role in, I could. But I just always feel on the fringes of friendships, the friend you always forget was there the time that funny thing happened. People talk over me. Someone will say something I just said and it will raise a laugh where as mine just fell flat. I have just returned from a night out where I felt like the most isolated person in the entire world. The things I like and enjoy are considered eccentric by the mainstream (alternative music, I don't watch television, I read ALOT) and I suppose I am essentially an introvert who would still like to 'get out there' but at times I just need to rest my soul.

I dont think I will ever find friends I can totally be myself with without at least some degree of checking myself. Anyone out there with any advice or who have similar feelings? I would be really happy to talk.

[GarlicJulyKit]

YY, Honey. Tempting to make the inane comment "Is it Pimms o'clock?"

[TheHoneyBadger]

has anyone noticed that the older generation is better at being open and chatting? i don't think it's just that oh they're lonely or 'grateful for someone talking to them' type patronising business. i wonder if they were just more used to community and friendliness or something? i smile and exchange a pleasantry with an old person and they'll often smile and chatter and talk about a breadth of things with you as you wait for the bus or in line at the shop. done with people my age or younger it doesn't have the same result, they look shifty or embarrassed or vaguely annoyed often.

[GarlicJulyKit]

Not sure I'm qualified to answer, Honey - I suspect I am the older generation! I've always been a talker-at-bus-stops and would certainly not say it's common throughout my generation or the older one (only one older generation left now.) I think I realised, some time around turning 40, that queues and cafés are actually full of people up for a small chat rather than thinking it was just me and a few others.

It also depends on how preoccupied each person is, doesn't it? You're likely to be rebuffed by someone who's trying to work out how to tell their boss their DC's school has just demanded they come & get their child again, or whether their DH is really at a work conference. While I was going through bully hell at work and home, I became incapable of random small talk. Old people are probably less likely to be facing an urgent crisis, though more likely to be in constant pain of some sort - perhaps that leads us to welcome distractions?

[stubbornstains]

Oh dear. It's often me looking shifty and embarrassed and vaguely annoyed at old folks starting small talk with me . I have very little patience with its inanities. And to think I was going to chip in with my stories of social isolation (shuffles off to the "I'm my own worst enemy" corner).

I did want to add that sometimes we might have a tendency to consider ourselves more misunderstood and special than we actually are? I'm very guilty of feeling that the majority of my village wouldn't understand me, etc etc.....I went to see the Pixies on Wednesday ("best gig of me life!" etc), and was fairly surprised to bump into lots of the village mummies there . Who knows, maybe they think I'M the conventional one....

By the way, so engrossing have I found this thread that DS (4) has actually foraged for and made his own lunch for the first time while I've been reading it from beginning to end. Peanut butter on cream crackers- sounds reasonable to me. Am now scared to go and see what state he's left the kitchen in....

[TheHoneyBadger]

i doubt you are garlic - the older generation round here i'm thinking of are in their seventies onwards.

[TheHoneyBadger]

actually round here they were probably also likely not to have had cars when they were young. so they'd have walked and known people around them and passed the same people day in, day out. most of the ones i'm thinking of you would not have been wealthy either in all likelihood. i should imagine you chatted to and got on with your neighbours and the people you saw each day or you would be lonely and disconnected so maybe they needed to be friendly and chatty to meet their social needs?

whereas on from that generation it was cars and moving around and having 'leisure time' or clubs etc.

could be doing teleological bullshit armchair theory here but hey plenty of evo psych eejits get paid a fortune for doing that

[GarlicJulyKit]

Very good point about walking around, Honey! "Management by walking about" ... works :)

Management by ignoring DC clearly works, too, Stubborn! Congrats to DS on his lunch.

[springydaffs]

It's why I enjoy the WI brigade - the older ones, anyway; the younger ones are a bit sniffy and, well, competitive (I kid you not..). I currently don't have a car and meet many interesting people on the bus. I got talking to a 94yo on the bus recently, gadding about (she announced her age in a loud voice and looked about the bus hoping for a few No! You can't be!s but none were forthcoming) and I had an in-depth convo about wimbledon recently which involved the whole lower deck, all ages. Nobody thought I/we were lonely and desperate for convo, we were just talking about something we enjoyed - though, admittedly, it takes an extrovert/s to jog the convo along.

Whoever posted about the 'sin' of introvertism upthread (J somebody, sorry, previous page) - not well put, certainly, and typical of an extrovert to be offended by introverts - as, frankly, happens the other way around plenty re introverts who don't understand, judge?, extroverts. I often find 'introverts' very painful, I wonder why 'they' can't stop to think how I might feel - it can be so hurtful. Someone on room 101 wanted to put introverts in the bin, for the reasons your mum gave, J, and an extroverts general incomprehension of, and offence at, introvertism.

[TheHoneyBadger]

at the expecting 'no, you can't be' from the crowd i have an image of cam from modern family in my mind for her now.

i don't think conversation and chatter is the issue so much really as how you go from that to actually choosing to spend time together and arranging things. though if you live in a small enough local with people living similar enough lives and routes then all of that chatter might add up to 'enough' social interaction.

[Brightoncheery]

Stubbornstains - the Pixies, I'm jealous. I don't think that anyone where I live would have heard of them but maybe I could be wrong!

[stubbornstains]

That was so blatantly a stealth boast, wasn't it?!

[maggiethemagpie]

I am so glad I found this thread, I like the comment someone made up thread 'we are all weirdos pretending to be normal'. It's taken til now for me to see that though, most of my life I thought I was the only 'weirdo' and everyone else had friendships sorted.

I've made a couple of friends through baby groups, and a fair number of acquaintances. To be honest I don't care if the friendships I make are a bit superficial, I'm happy not to share my deepest secrets with my new friends, just so long as I have a few people to meet up with every now and then on a play date or for coffee.

I don't think I've ever really got the hang of this friendship lark and don't think I ever will. I have a few really good friends, sadly they are scattered all over the place now so I can't meet up with them all that often - but I know they are there. It seems to be that those kind of friendships happen when you don't expect them to - a bit like in dating - and the more you try to find them the more they elude you.

So although I'd like more friends I think I've kind of accepted now that it's not something that happens that easily. For me anyway. And for a lot more people than would admit it in RL. I mean, it's the one topic of conversation that is still really taboo isn't it.

[springydaffs]

We have to start somewhere, honey - if we aren't even getting off at the starting blocks there's not much hope of a deeper possible connection.

So many of us on here seem to have 'our people' scattered far and wide. Perhaps everybody has their 'people' scattered about. Even her next door. There's a thought.

[Openup41]

Excellent thread!

A poster mentioned giving away little bits of herself to different people. Sometimes I feel like a fraud - that I hide my ugly parts in order to be accepted. I fear if people see the real me
moody, angry, depressed, insecure they will not want to know.

I stood behind a group of mothers at school. Two turned and said hello. I said hi and proceeded to stare into space feeling awkward. They have only known one another since September and get along so well.

I will never be the woman that others fly around. I am the woman people say hello to if passing and if they can be bothered. I just do not have the confidence to see a group of mothers and join them in banter. I worry they will not want to know and I will be forcing myself onto them.

I was outside of friendship groups at school and it appears I have accepted my place.

[unrealhousewife]

Having read the post about putting others at ease being more important than our own needs and how other find that it's some kind of victim blaming, I wonder if perhaps we have different friendship styles in the same way as we have different learning styles?

I don't think it can be that hard to engage in small talk with others, most people probably don't like it but we do it to get a feel for the other person. It's a way of getting past pre judgment, the enemy of all social cohesion. I do get J's mother,
seeing small talk as a kind of social duty.

But back to my point, after the small talk we probably do have different social styles. For me, when the small talk is done, I hate more small talk, yet some want to chatter for hours. I don't get that at all. I usually talk to men as they go straight to banter and laughter, or sometimes women who are like that or the occasional group that wants to discuss something quite deeply. Trouble is that the deep people are frequently interrupted by the chatterers who seem to get freaked out by anything personal or meaningful. I could never understand the purpose of the phrase 'never discuss religion or politics in a pub'.

[TheHoneyBadger]

oh it was don't discuss at the dinner table that i heard unreal. yes, i think i had to literally learn to not be too deep and meaningful in late teens as in recognising it apparently made you some terrible bore or crazy/weird/whatever. i seem to remember having to learn the art of small talk and relying rather heavily on alcohol and other substances for a few years to pull it off

springydafs, i've erm already kind of crossed the line rather intimately with my neighbour iyswim. it is interesting how things actually can be right in your backyard

[TheHoneyBadger]

(thing being it was worth it to have a social life at that stage of my life ((the small talk and being 'less me')) whereas now i think i'd just die of boredom or get far too drunk to cope with it, neither of which appeal)

[unrealhousewife]

There's a difference between Garlic's bus stop banter and small talk that goes on for a whole evening. Although I do know some real extroverts who are great entertainment every time they open their mouths and can keep it going for a while too. The interesting thing about them is that they are actually silent a lot of the time but when something does come out it's quality chat. I am completely in awe of these people.

Also - did anyone else have this - the girls that always latched onto me at school (won't say bffs) were also chatterers, rarely let me speak at all. It was quite convenient really. DP is a male chatterer - I could call him a droner for the purposes of this thread.

[unrealhousewife]

I've just had a few days away with my DD16. Just me and her, both introverts. It was bliss. We only talked when it was important or interesting or to work something out and occasionally had a good giggle at something strange. There was also quite a lot of non-verbal chat in the form of facial expressions. We hardly needed to talk at all, this left our minds free to soak up the experience and look around us.

[Laska42]

OP I think you are me.. dont watch telly.. love to read, dont face book etc considered 'brainy' at work (im not) and definately eccentric..

I love music and pubs dancing etc but living ruralish, not much going on .. , I rarely go out these days

I do have a circle of old friends but dont see them that much due to distance and havent made any more since moving here 8 years ago , (it was easier when i had school age kids) ..

In fact now my work collegue has decided (and announced to office) that she thinks in I'm 'aspergers' and now i think my boss bmy boss believes it .. .

[TheHoneyBadger]

that sounds like bliss unreal. i'm a big noticer of things and love the company of another observer on the same wave length so you can giggle together without needing to say much. lovely that you and dd have that together.

[ProfYaffle]

Thought of this thread today as I'm trying to sort out an itinerary for meeting some friends in London. I'd like to go mudlarking on the Thames foreshore, visit the crossbones graveyard and have a pint in the Ten Bells. They ask if Cats is on and can we go to Harrods.

I think that's the common ground I see evaporating on the horizon .....

[GarlicJulyKit]

Ten Bells does nice lunches and Harrods is crap. Looks like you might be able to organise an East/West split during the day, then meet up for the theatre? Even if nobody wants to ferret on the beach with you, there's a ton of East London shopping to be done. Good luck!

[ProfYaffle]

Well, it's only 4 of us, dh and I and another couple so a split would mean we don't actually see each other all day! That may not be a bad thing .....

We may be able to squeeze in lunch at the 10 Bells before the others arrive though so it's not all lost.

[GarlicJulyKit]

Great. Have fun! And enjoy Cats