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

Thanks springydaffs. I'm currently n c with her. And by extension the rest of my family as everything has to go through her.

OK last post as I'm aware I'm hijacking. What it is, is a feeling my achievements - my beautiful children, my job, my degree - those achievements are less real than they would be if I had family and friends I could share them with. That sounds wrong - its not that my children are 'less real' its that they're growing up so fast and there's no one to turn to and say 'ah, remember when...'

But during my childhood I was surrounded by people and all of them judged me - and often were highly critical of me. So I grew up with lots of shared memories but a shattered self - image. it seemed to be made up of other people's opinions - like distorted reflections and I never knew where my true self lay. Maybe because of no-one reflecting back to me what I was really experiencing. My counsellor will have her work cut out...

That's their job! You wouldn't be the first - as agonising as it is for us, I imagine it's not an unfamiliar pattern for a therapist to hear.

I don't think you're hijacking, Cherry. Or, if you are then I am, too. Apologies, op, if you feel hijacked - all this stuff is close to the surface and it's hard to not let it spill out.

But I think we're more of a support group here? We all know what it's like. Lucky those who don't but it's good to stick together. It gives me comfort, anyway.

Re being reflected back: what to do when that didn't happen? And we're tucked away, confusing everybody?

Thanks all for sharing your thoughts and your own stories.

Cherry and springy, hijack away, please! Not a hijack at all, it's really helpful to get different perspectives.

CherryPicking, a few years ago I had a panic and made a resolution to "never turn down an invitation", and I pretty much always stick to that. But I go to all these things but nothing really changes. I go to parties or whatever and try to make chit chat with people and then I feel like I am getting in the way of them speaking to someone they are way more interested in, as they come across like they can't wait to get out of chatting to me. I try to take this on the chin, I hide my feelings really well but then I am really crushed and embarrassed when I look back at the encounter and realise I look like a weird spare wheel.

For example, a friend's girlfriend invited me to her birthday party, which was really kind of her and I was flattered. I went along, there were loads of people and I only knew 3 of them. So I tried really hard to go out of my comfort zone and talk to new people and thought I was doing ok, and I was having a good time, everyone I spoke to seemed nice enough. But I still felt on the sidelines, partly because most people there did stuff I don't do. Then, after the event, I realised loads of people had made new friends there, but I hadn't, so I just feel like an extra rather than a named character.

Also, my friend was telling me about his other friend, who I was trying to talk to at some points, saying he was spending the whole night trying to chase after this woman who he fancied. I didn't pick up on this dynamic at all and then felt really mortified that I was committing some massive social faux pas and cock-blocking someone, being the annoying hanger on that you just can't shake off and they ruin your chances with the people you really want to get to know. I get so embarrassed in these situations but I have no one to talk to about it, they just don't understand and they think I am mental.

Even reading that back I feel I sound mental, the whole episode and my reactions to it don't really make much sense! I am sure I am really good at masking it at the time, I don't yell at people "why don't you want to talk to me and be my friend?!" or anything, so I don't think I come across as irrational and needy. But when I leave the situation I just start cringing massively at myself and my inability to read social cues, and the fact that no one seems to pick me as the one they want to get to know, and sometimes I end up quietly crying on the train home about it. I just feel so isolated and irrelevant and insignificant.

ToBoldlyGo

Your party experience sounds very familiar :( I avoid them now because I just get really drunk in an attempt to... actually, I don't even know what I'm attempting to achieve when I get v. drunk at parties. They're a bit of a mystery tbh. It strikes me that the people who have most fun at parties are often exactly the type of people we want to NOT be - the attention hogs who dominate conversations and assume everyone is interested in them. They have fun because they don't care what others think of them. Thinking back to my Uni days, the 'popular' ones were also usually the most annoying and selfish ones. There were a few who weer popular because they had a social knack and were genuinely great, but most just bludgeoned people into thinking they were great.

Yes Intheprocess, I agree. I'm not a bug drinker at all, I might get a little tipsy at parties, but I still feel embarrassed about myself. The one I mentioned above, quite a few people were taking cocaine and god knows what else, and that's just not my bag. But oddly, even though I'm mot into that at all and in the past have found people high on coke to be extremely obnoxious, it wasn't the case this time, it was all still quite jovial and pleasant and they were nice people. And there were also a fair few people who, like me, were not indulging in class As. But I just couldn't connect with anyone, drugged up, drunk or not.

But I think you have a point. If it takes bejng a cocaine snorting cool kid to make friends, I'm not going to do that because it's just not me, and I don't want to be like that. If it takes being an extrovert bag of fun who is always centre of attentions, that's just not me either, and I don't want it to be. But the problem is that no one seems to be interested in what is me.

I'm not a big drinker, as well as being averse to drinking bugs...

newnamesamegame, I've felt like this my whole life. If I had been really popular at school I could understand lamenting a time when I had close friendships, and missing those days. If I had no partner but really close friends, or no close friends but a really good close partner (though I don't think the latter is all that healthy or ideal), I think it wouldn't hurt as much. But when I was younger I used to at least have some optimism that it would improve - when leaving school I thought university could be my time, when leaving uni I thought starting work would help, etc. But it's the same script with different actors.

It's the same with boyfriends. I'm 31 and have never had a true boyfriend like normal people do. When I was 15 I was upset about this but could say "oh well you're still young, concentrate on school, there is plenty of time". But I'm not 15 anymore and every person in my life has gone through these rites of passage of good and bad boyfriends and girlfriends, and many are now settling down with their chosen ones. In the meantime all I have managed is a few one night stands who had zero respect for me, a rapist and being an idiot mistress to a controlling, abusive and also rapist man the same age as my mother. I felt so low about myself when I was in my 20s that I was foolish enough to fall for the tricks of a predator. But it's not like if I hadn't been stupid enough to fall for these bad eggs, there would have been good men interested in me instead. I would have been totally alone. But for sure, I'd rather be alone than with an abuser...

So I try to sit tight and think maybe my time for happiness just hasn't come yet, but it never seems to happen, I just get more and more frozen out of the real world where people function normally and invite people they like to their inner circle. And then it looks like my life is going nowhere. I don't know what the point is. I don't know if I want children because I've never reached the stage of a relationship where it's even floated by as a possibility. It looks like I am going to live alone forver, pay the bills alone forever; I don't mind that because I am independent, but I just feel so pointless. I'm going to spend day in, day out going to work and doing my hobbies but not talking to anyone on a deep level, being invited to 2 or 3 weddings a year but never just being invited out for coffee and a chat about life... it just feels like my life is so bleak and superficial.

CherryPickimg, LesserOfTwoWeevils and FolkGirl you pinpoint exactly how I feel when you mention not having anyone to share important or exciting things with, and memes etc about "all that matters in the world is that people love you" and that kind of sentimental cliché. This is exactly the problem! I don't feel like anyone does. I'm sure my mum does in her own way, but she clearly didn't love me enough as a child. My grandparents did love me, I feel. My friends like me but not love me. Even if were getting married (if I ever get a boyfriend ) I really don't think many people would come to mine if they had a clash or just didn't feel like it. I'm not a priority for anyone.

My counsellor is pretty good. I have been seeing her since summer last year. A few months before, I ended the abusive relationship with the older man ( the only real relationship I've had) but was still trying to maintain a friendship with him, because I felt like he was my only friend, the only person who wanted to know me, who I could talk to and who loved me for who I was. But it turned out that was a load of shit, so a lot of my counselling time time has been spent on dealing with my feelings around that. We've also touched upon my eating disorder, my family relationships, my confidence etc. And it's 50 minutes a week, so even though I've been seeing her 15 months or so, that's only what, 60 hours? And 31 years of crap to work through.

She does keep trying to make me see the links with my childhood but I really struggle with this. I think it has little to do with how I do things now, but she (and some of you here) think it has everything to do with my current problems. I really can't see it. I try to look at it rationally. Yes it was all very terrible but I am a capable, competent, functioning adult woman, incapable of getting people to like me. But she says that is entirely the point, it's not rational.

So what some of you have said about intellect vs intuition is the same sort of thing, I guess.

I don't think (and also hope I don't) have aspergers, but I admit I know next to nothing about this. I winced when I read that suggestion as if I am just hardwired to be like this and there is no hope of it improving, I don't know what I will do. But I have to hold my hands up and admit complete ignorance on this subject. I will look at that though, as well as PTSD. It's odd, I've mever considered these angles. PTSD , in my mind, is when you have had to face horrors of war, or famine, or a devastating accident, and I haven't had to face anything nearly as tragic.

Gosh that's very long. Sorry. I'm laid up in bed with a cold, and the sudafed and caffeine is clearly making me babble...

Dear ToGoBoldly, minimising the abuse you've been through—"I haven't had to face anything nearly as tragic"— is a normal stage. One of the problems in dealing with it or even realising that you have a problem that needs to be dealt with is that you don't know what "normal" is.

So you don't know what you've missed out on that you should be able to take for granted, or what effect that has had on you.

And you don't recognise more abuse when it comes along. In fact it might even feel "right" and comfortable because it's familiar. Hence the abusive relationship with an older man.

Please please while you're in bed (hope you feel better soon) read Pete Walker and see if you recognise the emotionally abandoned child he writes about. And google "emotional abuse."

You sound incredibly strong and sensible and sorted in other ways (though some of that might be due to fear of showing vulnerability if you've never had a "safe" person to talk to). You've done really well and I'm sure now you've started having your eyes opened to the fact that yes, you were abused, you can make progress with this too.

What happened to you as a child has EVERYTHING to do with what's happening now. Everything.

You are a competent, resourceful and intelligent adult. This is, however, an entirely different muscle to emotions, or the devastating effects of emotional abuse; the one can't address or trump the other. They run on entirely different lines. We can't obliterate the effects of emotional abuse by the power of will or reasoning, it doesn't work like that.

The details of your current life and painful relationships fully illustrate the cause; they are a direct manifestation of what has happened to you. Rationalising what happened doesn't cut it - it's a case of going back (in a safe space - therapy) to be with that dear girl as those things happened to her, comforting and reassuring her. Loving her, having a deep compassion for her. Sadly, for those of us who were abused in childhood, there is a powerful barrier that prevents us doing that, it's practically impossible (or feels like it: actually possible!)

You have only been in therapy for 15 months. This is not long when dealing with stuff like this, it takes a long time to break down that barrier - to recognise, then accept, it is there, and why; to stop believing our abusive caregivers view of us as the truth about us. To accept we were abused by people who should have nourished us, to grieve what we should have had but didn't. It's a long road - worth its weight, priceless! but painful. The pain is worth it.

I hope this isn't a crap illustration but if you've read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, it's like we had our daemon cut away from us as children. The great news is we can get it back.

Boldly your most recent posts articulate my exact experiences of social etc situations so eloquently.

When I married my exh I kbew it was a mistake. I knew he didn't love me and that I didn't love him. But I did it anyway because a) I'd been brought up to believe both that it was imperative for a woman to be married in order to have any sort of acceptable life. Being single for any length of time wasn't an option and b) that no one else would ever want me because I was such an abject failure as a girl and a woman (my mother detailed my many physical, intellectual and character/personality failing that woud make it impossible for me to ever be loved, and c) I really thought that if she believed someone did love me enough to marryme, then she might start to see me differently and see that there was something worth loving about me.

She didn't. And, given that my husband didn't love me, it only convinced me further that I am unloveable.

There is a man that I find attractive at the moment. But that side of me is so clised off now and so distant, I would never act on it. Given how broken I feel, I can't imagine ever being in a relationship or even connecting with a man in that level ever again. And I've put on a lot of weight in a (subconscious) attempt to keep men away.

A lot of weight for me. I'm a size 14/16 rather than 10/12. So not impossible to lose it. It doesn't suit me. I don't carry it well. I look awful in photos!

Would you consider joining a spiritual group of some kind e.g. church - where people may be quite tolerant and friendly and open to others - that way slowly ingratiating yourself with others - and consider doing volunteer work e.g. flower arranging, helping run the Sunday school etc - whatever floats your boat.

I go to a Buddhist group but that isn't everybody's cup of tea. Just an idea.

Flowerpower, I was thinking recently that I'd possibly really like church funnily enough, the sense of community might help me even if I don't get close to anyone. But the trouble is...I'm Richard Dawkins level atheist . I'm not even remotely spiritual and would a) feel like a bit of a fraud and b) feel a bit disrepectful of people's beliefs if I just went along for company.

I've been looking at voluntary work, I've tried lots before but been unlucky for various reasons, they never get off the ground. I will keep trying had some new suggestions which I am going to try (one was an outdoors thing that I was going to pop along to today, but alas I'm too snotty. So next week hopefully!).

FolkGirl similar thing happened to me. I was scarred by my previous dealings with men but then met this lovely guy at work about a year ago and I totally fell in love with him. I totally embarrassed myself every time we spoke and just cringed at how badly I was hiding my crush on him. But he was really sweet to me and didn't make me feel like an idiot, and he'd come up to me to chat about rubbish, it made me feel liked (even if not romantically) and I loved him and wanted him to be my husband friend. He was the only reason I got out of bed and looked forward to going to work and gave me a bit of fun and a distraction from my normal misery.

Then he left and I cried . It's so pathetic. I spoke to my counsellor about him a fair bit because it was a completely new, pure person in my life, a live situation where I could observe how I get to know people, what makes me want to have friendships etc. But it was slightly confused because I also thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever met, so it was a different type of attraction. My counsellor would ask what I think would happen if I tried to take it further as a friend or more, and the worst case scenarios I could think of were just too risky for me to even entertain the idea. I wasn't prepared for how much it would hit me when he left, so I can only imagine how crushed I would have felt if I tried to ask him out or even ask him to do something on a friends only basis and he rejected me. But that's how I feel all the time, not just with people I am totally attracted to sexually, but with potential friends too. Some people would just think "what's the worst that can happen? You win some, you lose some". But I just play over the worst case scenarios and tie myself in knots and it's paralysing sometimes.

Weevil and springy I'm understanding what you say about minimising, not letting myself heal from the past etc. And it's a lot like what my counsellor (and the one I had before her) said. I will discuss it in my next session.

Oh I do know what you mean about not being able to risk a relationship, friendor romantically. I have been crushed beyond imagining when a friend has made it clear I'm not quite the ticket (for her it has to be said!), took me a good year few months to recover. I now realise she was a dickhead flake and I am much more circumspect about friendships now - I keep them light, all the while keeping a very close hawk eye on what is being offered.

Being part of a project is a good way to bond with people. Somehow social pickiness vanishes and everyone plunges in and gets on with one another. Team spirit and all that. I have also been plumbing my local WI-type contingent - gorgeous women, none of that competitive relating going on. You go to parties where people are doing coke? Bloody hell, you couldn't get more of a harsh social environment. Cut your cloth and all that - I couldn't hack that and I'm quite tough.

I'm a Christian but, guess what, I loathe the church. So I certainly wouldn't be saying go to church to get a community feel

Ha the cocaine party was kind of a one off, it was my friend's girlfriend and her friends really, I don't usually hang around with party animal types because I just know I will feel like the sorest of thumbs! I'm not hanging out at trendy nightclubs with designer clothes and designer drugs every weekend, for sure. That would be making a rod for my own back

I did look at the WI. Nothing that fits in at the moment but it's a potential option. But I feel like it would just be another situation where I have anothrr hobby but no relationships borne out of them. Gotta keep trying I guess.

Actually I think I remember you saying something about a sleazy vicar on my previous thread under aa previous name, springy. So even church isn't a safe space.

I find it impossible to invite people to things bcs I wouldn't be able to cope if I was turned down. This summer I was determined to bite the bullet and have a BBQ.. but the weather wasn't quite hot enough and I couldn't, anyway, cope with planning ahead; which set me up bcs a late invitation increases the chance of rejection. I'm a good cook and could easily host a dinner party... but I can't face it. The inviting and being turned down.

In currently not well and do really need people to stay with me for a few days when I have treatment. It has been torture bcs I can't ask (it's a big thing to ask, to be fair) which has caused a lot of personal agony. So far the right people have come along at the right time but it has been a close call. It makes me feel so vulnerable.

I know what you mean, Springy. One of my old friends gor engaged and I was really pleased for her. I said we should have a small get together with our old group of friends to celebrate, she was the first of us to get engaged. I offered to host and cook, she said great. They all accepted my invitation, but on the day it turned out all but one of them had committed to other plans since my invitation and didn't bother to tell me. I was so crushed by this, I cried my eyes out to myself. But I couldn't possibly say to them how shoddy their actions were because they'd tell me to fuck off.

So engagement woman gradually dropped off the radar (I wasn't invited to her wedding but was a dear enough friend to be invited to her baby shower . I declined).

The rest of them are just as unreliable. I used to arrange an annual dinner where we could catch up, I'd host and buy food and cook and what not. I love cooking so didn't mind this. But so many times, the same culprits would drop out at the last minute so I had wasted all that money and effort. I did feel uoset about it the first few times but eventually I just got pissed off about it and stopped inviting them and didn't bother organising it at all last year. Then one friend gave me a sad face and said "oh noooo why aren't you doing your dinner! You have to, it's tradition!". I said because I couldn't be bothered and was fed up of being let down. But she convinced me, and promised she would come with her boyfriend. So I gave in...and she let me down on the day. I'm such a mug.

Maybe I'm oversensitive, but when it happens over and over and over again, but you see the same people managing to make time for other people and keep commitments with other people, but drop you like a stone without a second thought if they get a better offer...it really hurts. If I try to discuss it perfectlh calmly and reasonably, I just get accused of being needy and demanding and bitter. These people are clearly not friends and I am better off without them. But then it's not like I have better people to replace them with, I'm just on my own.

They're not all dodgy, certainly - most aren't - but the whole Christian community thing is erm immensely challenging. For me, anyway. Group/family thing going on - the scene of the original crime! Plus I just don't go along with so much of what they believe and all the weirdness .I suppose I can spot a fake a mile off - tho, conversely, elephants can get through, too.. intheprocess referred to that upthread: big gaps in understanding/defence/protection.

I think any faith community is going to be challenging. But the WI thing has been all gingham tablecloths and wartime camaraderie - like going back it time. It has been so soothing for me.

As a dedicated non-joiner (I refused cubs as a kid because it creeped me out) I can't see any spiritual group as being of any use to me. I'm even quite spiritual, as die-hard atheists go. Maybe if I started my own... ;)

Springydaffs, that's a great way of putting it. Elephants do get through regularly.

ToGoBoldy, you are not being oversensitive.

For all my intellectualizing, it doesn't really make sense to me. But I guess that's the problem.

On the plus side, I'm living own at the moment and am getting heavily into Progressive Trance music. Strangely, it gives me a sense of existential contentment. I think I'm a compulsive pattern-seeker, and the way the music is constructed soothes my mind. Or maybe flips me out of intellect mode and into feeling mode. I'd be interested in seeing how my brain scans change when I'm listening to one of my favourite tracks. I do this odd thing, though, where I'll really get into one track and just put it on loop for a week so I'll listen to it maybe fifty times in a few days. My brain is f*cked, some kind of junkie for the over-stimulation of a particular (and peculiar) set of brain pathways. Something set up when I was a really, really miserable child.

I understand that completely. I get similar compulsions. I was really obsessive about certain things as a child, reading and music particularly. I still get feelings from particular songs or particular sections of songs and it's almost like I can see it or it's engulfing me. I can listen to something over and over, and it makes me feel something instead of feeling dead or self loathing. This is why I don't take drugs when I go clubbing, I don't need them, I get hugh on music, man. Haha. There was one late 90s indie band ballad and there is just one 15 second or so climax of the song that spoke to me like nothing else, ad I would put ir on repeat and fall asleep. It wasn't even the words, just the way it sounded. There was a point a couple of years ago when I just wished I could vanish, and my rationale was "well if I die I will never be able to hear this again, so I should put off dying for now". I have never told anyone my thoughts like that. I sound crazy.

High on music. Never had a hugh.

Are you a boy intheprocess?

Your friends sound revolting ToGo. I gave up all that 'people I ought to be socialising with' thing long ago - mainly bcs they were foul, like your 'friends'. Good to cast one's net wider - hence older women who've been around the block. And aren't horrible. Young people ime are also far more open intellectually and socially, more accepting, not set. I can't even care that it looks like I'm getting down with the kids - but I do look at them with incomprehension if my age comes up.

I'm reminded of the bridesmaid in the film, well, Bridesmaids who beats up on the sofa the main character who is wailing she has 'nobody' - she says 'you're complaining you have no friends when here I am offering perfectly good friendship'. Yy I get it, we feel ashamed of some people. I really would say I'd rather have a good friend than one that looks good.

I also think some of the shoddy treatment we get is down to being single in a couplecentric culture. I know full well that if I threw a dinner party/BBQ with a husband ppl wouldnt flake on us quite as easily.

"I also think some of the shoddy treatment we get is down to being single in a couplecentric culture. "

Right, that's it springy, own up. You are me, aren't you?!? it's impossible to voice this opinion to frenemies friends because they just end up accusing you of being bitter and jealous of their happiness. I'm not, i jist don't like being treated like shit, thanks all the same.

Another one owning up to the compulsions/obsessions. I've started walking recently for exercise about a year ago, but the only way I can bear to be so publicly visible for so long is to distract myself with music—but most days I have one song on repeat for the entire walk, for weeks at a time.

And this: I wouldn't be able to cope if I was turned down. I always assume other people have more interesting things to do and more interesting people to do them with.
Or I concoct terrifying fantasies of somehow finding myself going out with one other person and running out of things to say, or being too terrified to think of anything to say, or anything that won't out me as a complete loser.

ToGoBoldly, I've been a little more fortunate than you in that I've managed to host a few group get-togethers where the responsibility isn't all mine but it happens at my place. So people turn up, meet other fascinating people and get along like a house on fire, have a great time...and then they leave and the hospitality is never reciprocated, even in the most token way.

Likewise people I've met are just people I've met, they don't become friends.