What pushes you from liking someone to actively getting them into your life?

[ToGoBoldly]

Hi,

What the thread title says, really.

I'm really struggling with feeling isolated and lonely. I've felt like this all my life, but it's been really intense recently so I have been feeling even more low than I ususally do.

I have a handfull of friends but no one really close, and they are all kind of fairweather friends. They've all kind of retreated away from me into their own lives, which is fine, I accept people grow apart, but it feels like everyone in the world has a network of friends and a partner, and I am being left on my own. I try really hard to get out and meet new people and stuff, but I feel like I am constantly rejected and it is really, really difficult to bear.

I have been doing some work on my feelings around this with my therapist and have been asked to drill down on why I believe I don't form close bonds with people. I can only think that people don't like me enough - they don't dislike me, but they don't like me enough to actively want me in their lives. It's as simple as that. She's tried to suggest I might be familiar with the feeling of rejection so kind of invite it, but I really don't think that's true. I try really hard to go out of my comfort zone with people - I am shy but friendly, I invite people to things, I make the first move, I volunteer myself for things, I am generous, I'm laid back and not pushy... but none of this seems to count. It feels like plenty of people think I am nice enough but they don't want or need me as a close friend. I don't blame other people for this - no one is obliged to be friends with everyone - but I just feel like everyone chooses people to be in their lives, but no one chooses me. And I've really hit a wall in trying to work this out.

This post sounds really needy and whiny, I promise I am not like this when I am trying to make friends or boyfriends! Like I said I am having counselling (for various things) but we've kind of reached an impasse on this one.

I've felt like this forever. I felt it at primary school, at secondary school, at university, at work, and in my love life. The only way I could explain clearly to my counsellor was how I felt it at primary school, so their behaviour is clear, not because they are horrible children but because they don't try to hide their feelings. But you can see more clearly with kids how people naturally gravitate towards those they want to be friends with, and that often is the really pretty girl, or the boy who is really good at football or whatever. I don't think things change a lot as an adult, it's just more subtle. And I don't think anything bad about people who have those who gravitate towards them and want to be their friend, but I just feel really sad because it feels like no one naturally gravitates towards me. It makes me feel really unloved and depressed.

I try to be proactive, no matter how many knockbacks I get I try to carry on with life and try new things, but it's really overwhelming. I asked my counsellor what she thinks I could do differently, but she is either stumped, or wants me to work the answer out myself. But I really can't think of anything beyond "people don't like me enough", which is their prerogative, but really hurtful when it feels like I'm not good enough for anyone I've met in my whole life.

So I guess I'm trying to bash out these thoughts a bit more. Am I just hideously unlucky that I never seem to meet people at the right time for them to want to pursue a friendship or relationship with me? Or what is the magic ingredient that makes people want to move things forward? I feel like there is a locked door and people will smlile and wave at me through a window and think "there's that woman, she's nice", but they won't ever invite me in, if that makes sense.

I am sorry if this sounds quite immature and self indulgent

Hi Flowerpower. Yes I think I agree that there is a certain birds of a feather mentality. Sometimes it's helpful, othertimes if you just can't find an "in" you can end up feeling ostracised if people aren't being mean, they just don't want or need you.

As if by magic I just came across an article about the very topic of loneliness and feeling like everyone but you has a support network. This is in an online magazine aimed at, I'd guess, women in their early 20s. The author says university was her loneliest time and "Even the ducks and geese on campus ran in cliques, confronting me in great, quacking gangs as I limply waved a book at them" . It puts a lot of it down to social networks and people giving a falsely positve representation of themselves and while I think that does happen (especially for people younger than me. I'm not even that old but there are totally different norms, so god knows what kind of pressure they feel), I think it's way more complicated than that.

I had to laugh at this line: "Making friends isn’t easy. It takes a lot of confidence. But the wonderful thing about doing it as an adult is that you’re going to be approaching people who are grown up enough to appreciate your efforts. ". Ha, ha, ha. Dream on, people are as shallow as ever. It then goes on to say it's not like school anymore, again dream on - cliques are thriving as much as they ever did amongst my peers.

Yep, but if you don't fit in with one team, move on, there will be a team that's just right for you!!

Now it's Friday and a lovely day, sun is shining, shopping done, weekend cooking done, just about to have a snack and then set forth for a dog walk in the beautiful countryside where the hedgerows are studded with scarlet rose hips and the last of the juicy blackberries waiting for the weekend pickers to take them home!! All's well with the world. So I want to say something positive and uplifting to you. You are unique and will have many great qualities and much to give. Remember that. It's so easy to get into a negative train of thought.

It is true. People are attracted to positive happy people who seem balanced and successful. But they also sometimes need to show their vulnerabilities or others think they are too perfect and it makes them feel inferior.

But equally, and please don't think I am criticising, it's not meant as that, nobody wants to be with negative people for long. They drag you down, they are full of woe. I used to be a Mrs Fixit. Trying to help people who seemed to be struggling with life. I have learned my lesson. Yes I still am a Good Samaritan, but am more wary. As Oscar Wilde, I think, said, No good deed goes unpunished!! And it is true trying to sort someone else's life out usually bites you in the proverbial at sometime!! Lol!! I realise it is tricky to change a mindset and long established ways of operating but it can be done.

We all want to be with people who make us feel good about ourselves, who are positive happy people, who may need support occasionally.

Why not make the first move? Set yourself a goal to talk to a new person every day. I talk to perfect strangers in the supermarket, in shops, all over the place. If they don't want to talk, fine, I leave it. I haven't got the time to take on any more close friends.

Most of my friends I don't see often! we are all busy, but we chat on the phone a lot. Some friends I talk to almost daily, some weekly, some monthly and some yearly!! I see my sisters around once a year, my son and grandchildren a few times a week only because they are temporarily living very very close at the moment and I am helping out domestically.

You sound young and have a wonderful life ahead of you, embrace it, live it and learn to love and cherish yourself.

So agree about the 'account' marzipan. I've actually said to a family member 'you have put nothing into the account, you are in no place to make this massive withdrawal'

Oh my gosh ToGo, fiction represents the deepest 'real'! What do you want to be reading about a manipulative cheat for?. I'm a bit lost for words reading fiction isn't a huge part of your life as it addresses all the things you talk about so well. Gobble up books my dear, it's all there in spaces. OK chic lit has its place like a bar of chocolate: high sugar rush yum that does you no good at all in the long run. Good writers broaden your sense of connection to humanity. It's essential to me to keep me connected, validated, when so many around me are flakes. I appreciate your attention span is short - could be longstanding stress (and you've certainly had that) or maybe you are used to getting everything fast? Your generation tend to be (sorry to say it - irritating). I've struggled recently with a Donna Tartt (the Goldfinch) but bcs she can be so long-winded and my attention-span can't take that at the mo. But her books are amazing, couldn't recommend them highly enough for rl turmoil, pain, suffering, longing, love, rejection, roiled around with a cracking plot. I read it twice: first as a plot junkie then for humane, validating content. I can't get my head around waiting until Christmas to read a book - what's up, start it tonight. Or do you prefer to mulch on shit relationships and shit choices with shitty people who give you no love?

I've been good, like you - good friend etc etc. Bloody marvellous, actually. Gradually, though, I don't make people a priority to whom I'm an option. I back right off. They come running! I don't gush: they were cavalier and I'm not going to be turning on a sixpence.

Nah I'm holding off on A Christmas Carol because I love Christmas so much that reading about it now will make me sad and impatient . There are plenty more books to keep me entertained in the meantime.

Also, in my book, Christmas starts in mid November ish so there's not all that long to wait. Patience is a virtue etx

I don't know why my attention span is short. I don't think it's an instant gratification thing. I think it's because my mind easily goes off on tangents and I start thinking about other things and my imagination starts going off on one. Which is fun, but means it can take me a while to complete open ended things.

CD books to ease you in? Short stories? Sorry to bang on about it. You could break it down, even read the end first if you can't wait - I did that for a while. Skipped through, back and forth, speed read. Has your attention always been short or is it only recently? Are you better at meditative reading eg poetry? Because you say you love words so what's going on?

I'm with you Springydaffs. Why focus on the shitty things in your life all the time. Keep talking about it simply keeps underlining how crap everything is. I learned this from men actually. They are not like women in this respect. Women seem to want to go over things again and again and again. Post mortems, detailed analysis, they won't let it go. Men are better at just moving on without the endless soul searching. If some women wonder why they can't attract and keep a man, here's a tip, don't over analyse!!

I overheard my DS talking to a newly married friend of his. Mark, the friend, said, 'Well, of course all women are crazy really, but the secret is to find one who is much less crazy than the rest!! lol'

Oh short stories, poetry and lyrics, I read all the time, didn't think they'd count. Audio books, I'd probably nod off, and I listen to music all the time, don't want to lose that. It's just novels aren't my favourite, though I like them. I'm really into language and linguistics.

I've always been a bit of a daydreamer. What more I could have achieved at school had I not spent half the time staring out the window daydreaming.

I hardly ever talk about shitty things in company, unless I am in a real difficult situation and need help. This whole thread is how I have no one to share neither the good times nor the bad. There's a difference between being a negative nelly and being depressed. I'm not unsettled because I am focusing on the bad (isn't that what constantly raking over my bad childhood would be doing, focusing on the negative? ), I am unsettled because I know life can be so much more. There are only so many hobbies and readings etc you can do, you need touch and discussion and general intimacy with people. Jokes, laughing, giving.. it's pretty hard to do these essential things on your own. Trying to get a new positive that you feel is missing isn't focusing on the negative.

Not sure I'd appreciate that remark about women being crazy, either...

Actually, forget not appreciating it, it's a total crock of shit, just as saying men are uncaring, emotional bulldozers would be.

Btw I didn't mean your generation is irritating to be expecting things quickly, I meant it was irritating to be bringing up the point.

Yes that's how I took it

Not that I thought you were!

the people you associate with are as shallow as ever. [ed!]

^cliques are thriving as much as they ever did amongst my peers.

Precisely.

Yy ppl can be horribly cliquey a lot of the time - but not everyone is at all. A lot of cliques I have been associated with are very aware of avoiding cliqueness, find it embarrassing.

Oh fuck - a lot of GROUPS I have associated with etc.

Time for bed!

Maybe you need to seek out more adult company. Because you seem to be hanging out with the nursery kids. The cool kids? Sounds like you need more grunge.

So do you want dense prose to keep you hooked in - or do you want stuff that scans easily, pulling you along?

Perhaps you could do some writing courses to appreciate (literally) the mechanics - therefore seeing layers and craft to keep you focused/prevent you drifting off.

Short stories don't count??

Exquisite craft my dear!

Now here is a suggestion I am categorically going to reject. I don't hang out with cool kids, or adults, or goths, or actual children. I meet people as individuals and try to get to know them. I've had some shit friends, I've had some nice people who drifted away, leaving fond memories. But I don't have anyone now. People who are perfectly nice and not able to be put into some sort of box but don't have the inclination to make a new bond with a new person, don't want me. I am struggling to find people who are open to making a bond with me.

I am just trying to find nice people who do want me, I'm not trying to join the cool gang. My problem is that I don't ever meet anyone that I click with.

This is my problem - I have had poor relationships with people in the past. I ended them quite a long time ago. I didn't seek out poor friendships, I just haven't managed to meet the right people at the right time, and the ones who I have spent time with have either grown apart (fair enough, that happens, that isn't a problem) or they have turned out to be backstabbers. It's not because I am too negative and depressing and drive people away, I know how to behave my (how many people marry someone in good trust and then find out that they are the biggest disrespectful tool on the planet? Same can happen with friends).

I can't articulate it any better than I did in my opening post. If the conclusion is people find me a drag because I am negative, and I am failing because I am trying to make friends with the mean girls, and all I need to do is remember birthdays, make chit chat at the supermarket and invite people round for nibbles now and again, make the first move (but don't do anything overbearing) then maybe I'm not as articulate as I thought I was. I already do all these things but I am not able to bond with people. I'm seeing now why my counselling is hitting a wall.

Do you know Chris Ofili's work. Black guy (Nigerian I think), won the Turner prize [white-centric institution]. He plays up the badass black guy to piss off the establishment but isn't at all.

Though I don't know if you militantly identify with brown... were brought up white, black, both??

Nigerian heritage, I should say (Chris Ofili)

I'm not trying to join the cool gang

I'm not saying you are! I'm saying this is what you've ended up with. The culture around you?

If your counseling has 'hit a wall' as you see it, your counselor isn't getting you. You need, we need, a counselor to 'hear/see' us.

Or you're not getting your counsellor?

I don't identify with brown at all I am brown but to me it''s just a descriptor of my colour, I don't feel it is part of my identity, as such. Other people do, and seem perturbed that I do not have a more "black" persona and do not particularly identify with black culture, even though I am equally white. In fact, logically more white, as the person who made me half black pissed off when I was two and has had zero contact with me since, hence zero influence on my life. I grew up with white grandparents and a white mother, but they were born in another country and my grandparents were not native English speakers. So I am everything and nothing, I am a citizen of the world and take the best bits of all! I feel European, I feel British, I feel English, I feel like a Londoner...but my skin colour has no bearing on what I feel shapes me as a person.

I don't really pay much attention to identifying with any one ethnicity or anything, that to me doesn't shape me as a person and does not influence my personality, and it is also very restrictive as it can mean you miss out on so many wonderful things through narrow-mindedness. Being nothing in particular has meant I am open to everything and not pigeonholing myself. I don't feel pride for any one culture, but I feel I can celebrate many cultures, even if I don't have a personal connection.

So maybe that's what identifying with brown is. Open to everything. They should call it rainbow instead. I just don't understand why we can't see people and not races. I struggle with the concept of banding together with people based on their skin, because it's so arbitrary. It's not something I ponder too much, because it's so illogical and stupid that I can't be bothered trying to understand it.

When I was doing GCSEs, there was a poem called Half Caste, written in patois, on the English Lit syllabus. In class one day the teacher asked for a volunteer to read it, and a couple of black girls started egging me on to read it. Then the whole class joined in. I was the only "half caste" person in the room but I had no fucking clue about patois as I had never been around it and wasn't about to embarrass myself by struggling to work out the phonetics of a poem with words that meant absolutely nothing to me, it may as well have been Japanese. So I said no, I don't want to read it; then even the teacher started egging me on to read it because it would be really fun to hear it read by a bona fide half caste person, and then the whole class and teacher was exasperated at me being difficult and having a chip on my shoulder, being confused about my identity, denying my ethnicity and wishing I was white . It kind of soured my enjoyment of the poetry anthology and my English classes, which I thrived in up to then. When you realise that even your teacher doesn't have your back, you're screwed.

I met a new person today, thought great, chance to meet a new person. Then during the conversation, among about 5 people, they used the delightful term "bounty" to describe a black person who was not conforming to what they thought a black person should be . Then they remembered I was standing right next to them, and they forgot it's uncouth to be a little racist when in the presence of a minority who might be affected, and they desperately flapped about and tried to explain their racism. I just 'd again. So that's another new person off to the dickhead pile.

Anyway, enough stories of the unenlightened for now... No, not heard of Chris Offili but I shall investigate.

The thing is, I don't feel like I have ended up with the cool gang, I feel like everyone is in a gang, cool or not, big or tiny, and I just can't penetrate them. I explain things as clearly as I can, I say all the things I have done to try to improve the situation, but when I try to say "I have done all this" I seem to be misunderstood completely.

I follow people's advice to the letter while being conscious that I must not make it forced, since human bonds are not made using a scientific formula, or inauthentic, since I can't just pretend I am someone I am not to get them to like me, I would be found out pretty sharpish. I follow social norms - I don't smell bad, I am naturally smiley and open and friendly, etc etc. So I do all the right things. But then I say that something still isn't quite right, I'm still not making bonds, and there are suggestions that I am too negative, I invite rejection, I'm going for the wrong so dooming myself to failure.

I'm not sure if I've said before the conversation I had with my counsellor about men (I'm not about to discuss internet dating as that's a whole different ballgame). I can't be bothered to go into the whole story, and I want to preface it with the disclaimer that I do not live my life in desperate search of a man, but I would like to have romantic relationships because I have never had a proper one, I'd like to go on dates. I know some people are happy being single, and I'm not unhappy, but a lot of people who say they don't want any more relationships mean it in an "I've had my fun" ways. I've never had my fun and I'm still young and I think it's a side of me that would be nice to develop and I would quite like some sex as well. I don't think being open to the idea that a romantic relationship might be nice needs justifying further . So this was just one thing I was discussing about being normal and being desirable and being accepted, not a tragic Bridget Jones style "I'm going to be a singleton forever" thing... It's just an example of hitting a wall.

There was one example I gave of how literally every other woman I have been out with gets approached by men in bars, and I do not, and however shallow this may be, it makes me feel pretty shit and unattractive. I'm not doing anything wrong - I am at a bar, sitting with friends, smiling and chatting and having a drink, like thousands of women do. I am not behaving differently, my body language is not different, I am not staring at the floor nor screaming and making a scene, my clothes are fine, my hair and make up are fine - I am behaving exactly how one would expect a young woman having fun to be. But I can be sat with one or more women, all of whom get attention, but I do not. Men literally never approach me. If this happened once or twice, I wouldn't even notice. But it's happened since I started going out when I was 18, so nearly 14 years. I try to be proactive and approach them sometimes, strike up conversation, dance with them,whatever, but it's never returned. So whether it's waiting for them to approach me, or me making a move, I never get anywhere.

I'm not giving off a negative vibe, because I am there to enjoy a drink with someone and am enjoying myself, I'm not out on the pull. But people rarely go out on the pull - they meet dates and potential partners and life partners by chance in all these everyday situations like bars, university, work, hobbies and courses... I never get any interest, ever. And it can feel horrible - it's entirely human to crave intimacy and sex and feeling desired and sharing your own desires.

So I explained this to my counsellor, and she said it simply cannot be true, when she looks at me she sees a glamorous attractive young woman with an inviting smile, there is no way men are not interested. So I explained, again, that no, in the last 14 years, I have had zero interest. She said maybe I am just not seeing it. I said no, I am not stupid - I see other women get approached and men make it plainly obvious they are approaching them, I would have to be blind and deaf if I were missing people doing the same to me. "that can't be true" is not a helpful response to my problem.

Then it was an analysis of how maybe I am giving off the wrong signs -nope, you just said yourself you think I look quite inviting and attractive, I don't look much different when I go out, and I don't look or act different from anyone else. The only difference normally is that I am often the only person of my ethnicity, but I am loathe to use that as an explanation and I don't think it is (though I'm sure it's a reason for a few people). I'm not wearing a fake wedding ring, or a sign saying I'm a lesbian, or a sign saying i'm not looking for a male approach, or an aura that says I was once abused and vulnerable so do not approach if you don't want the baggage. So I don't know what it is that makes me not be able to meet men in this way, when literally every other woman I know has had loads of attention and can have her pick of who she wants to chase her and who she wants to send away.

Then, clutching at straws, she suggested maybe the men who fancy me are really shy . Every last one, ever, who has fancied me, has been too shy to approach me? Yes sure, my 5'3 frame and inviting smile must be so damn intimidating to all these men.

So rather than try to get to the crux of why this is happening, she spent ages trying to say my experience could not possibly be true and I must be misreading the situation. If it were me missing out on something subtle, might be misreading the situation. But there is nothing subtle about hitting on someone in a bar - I know for sure it has never happened to me. Then it's suggesting another implausible solution, that I'm such a rare breed of creature that I only attract men who are just too timid to approach me. To me this is all desperately trying to prove the red herrings but avoiding the obvious that she just doesn't want to say. Unlucky, maybe you're just not what men want. If she said that, it would sting, for sure, but it's what I've felt all along so wouldn't be gutted or surprised, and I'd appreciate her honesty, and then we can move the fuck on and work out how I am going to cope with this bleak reality.

Like I said this was just one example I used, so the answer is not "what do you expect, bars a shallow, stop over analysing and being a crazy woman, join a more discerning pursuit like a rambling club and then you'll find a nice man who will appreciate you", because I can assure you I have stories about the rambling club too.