A self help thread for the basically nice (not two headed) but socially 'gawky' amongst us

[handlemecarefully]

I find it hard to make new friends - lacking a certain amount of social confidence. Once people get to know me they usually warm to me - but not that many people pursue it past those initial stages. Dh says that I am good company etc but seem aloof. God knows how I change that because it is unintentional.

Despite this I have a pretty good social life because my closest friend is really gregarious so I am invited to many things on her coat tails .....but it does seem to be entirely dependent upon her. Perish the thought she ever moves away or something!

However, starting to be really bothered by my lack of successful integration at the school gates. I compare myself to a friend who has a son who started Reception last September like me, and she is never short of people to chat to....it's hard to shrug off feelings of adequacy

So do you feel similarly? What's the secret do you think of easily getting to know people? Is it fear of rejection that holds you back? Of the people you know who are popular and widely well liked - what is it about them? Can this be emulated or do they have something innate?

Have you any concrete plans to change things?

Isn't that funny, twig - my recollection is that you were charmingly chatty and normal, and that I was my usual terse and unsociable self

and to make matters worse my sister is a complete social butterfly and I feel completely inferior to her

feckin' bizarre Jan

its all down to confidence and perception of self it seems

me I'm too dumb to stay insecure for long periods .. it helps having the memory span of a small gnat I find

are you listening all you insecure types .. you just need to fry some more brain cells and you'll be fine

So Twig, do you not have a fella in the cellar telling you you're crap?

But Twig, having the memory span of a gnat is my problem. I can never remember names. Or if I can, I can't remember what we spoke about last time so I can't carry on the conversation.

Sod's law. I knew that all my new best friends would live at all points of the compass: I'm in the Midlands.

i have a very loud and sociable family and it's only in my mid-thirties that i feel i belong
my dad is very socially inept and i guess very shy he doesn't discuss emotions ever my mum is very happy with her own company and will never go to parties

so i guess i have unsociablity built in !

i feel that i don't need other people but wonder whether i'll regret my lack of friends as i get older?

Reading this thread mentally saying 'yep, me too'!
I think I come across as confident, but am dying inside. I talk more when I'm nervous, but complete nonsense comes out.
I'm dreading dd starting school in September. At nursery lots of the mums seem suddenly to have clicked and I feel quite left out and don't know how to find the way in. I smile, ask how their days been etc but still just seem to do the 'hi' 'bye' thing.
I will try the playdtae with coffee thing and see how I get on...
I am so relieved to read all this. I am not alone!

good discussion and I think wendy/jan you really hit the nail on the head when you say 'hmc, do you really want to have a more vivacious social life, or do you just think that you should?'

I know I could be more sociable and make more friends at the school gates - but dont think in my heart of hearts that I really want to.

I do have friends, or acquaintances amongst the parents there, but not so many that my life is full of them. Most weekends I spend with my sons and dh, not with doing things with a group of school mums.

Sometimes I can feel a bit self pitying, but then I know this is my choice. I work mon - fri, and actually want to be alone with my family at the weekends. People can exhaust me - I am quite shy underneath and my job is a sociable one.

And I love my sons' company - in fact I like being with them more than being with a lot of adults I could name. Together, both sons can be exhausting as they get so demanding and wind each other up, but being with one of them away from the other can be an utter joy for me. Sorry it that sounds cheesy, but it is how I feel. I have just spent a perfectly harmonious day with my 7 year old, out and about in the middle of London. He was brilliant (and really restful) company. No adult friend could have been be better company today.

Not knocking friendships, and I think it's always good to look around for new friends as well as keeping up with old ones. But also, hmc, perhaps you don't really need as many friends as you think you do?

Interesting thread- thanks for starting it HMC.

Tigermoth/Wendy/Jan make an excellent point. I have recently been bemoaning my lack of social activity on another thread (I have no DCs yet) but think that half of it is because I'm worrying that everyone else is having more fun than me (and in prettier shoes!)

I'm not truly stuck in the house 24/7 (work from home) I do get out but still feel inferior

And octo, I too have very gregarious and popular sister who I love very much (and still hero worship a little bit) but she makes me feel about 5 years old again.

Shall be watching this thread with interest.

That's if I don't kill it first.

LOL PinkMartini. Thread killing doesn't do a lot for the self esteem, does it!?

my thoughts on taking the tell-an-embarrassing-story-or-ask-for-advice method on getting to know people: i found that i tended to attract people who enjoyed putting me down. which was painful. and then i realised that by putting myself down, i was starting the ball rolling. of course, asking advice isn't necessarily putting yourself down, however if you're trying to make conversation i didn't always come up with the best topics to ask advice on... so i don't tell embarrassing stories to aquaintances unless the conversation turns that way, and i tend to ask advice from people i think know better than me, and only things that i actually need advice on.

but, i'm probably not the best person to take advice from on this subject...

Tigermoth and wendyw - yep very pertinent point. Do I actually want more friends? I suppose I am a little ambivalent. Too many and it becomes high maintenance...

Suppose what I am looking for is a couple more really good friends (i.e. the type of friend that you can confide in and who you can really be yourself with, and mutually rely upon each other)

I think optimum number for this 'type' of friend is perhaps 3, and I only have 1 on this kind of elevated level living locally (have others further afield)....There are perhaps getting on for a dozen of more 'casual' (usually see in a group) friends

Today collared a mum by school gates who I quite like, and we've arranged a half term meet up with our dc's! See I've got balls really

Lol (just scanned down again) - you didn't manage to kill the thread then PinkMartini

HMC: originally read your post as 'collared a man by the school gates' and thought 'Respect!'

Can empathise with the putting yourself down thing - also tend to fall back on this but have realised that it rarely works (unless the other person is a control freak, in which case you shd steer well clear anyway). There is a fine line between self-confidence and brashness, but (personally) I'm more attracted to people who obviously like themselves, while realising they are fallible. And let's face it, there's a lot about us to like

lol at collared a man by the school gates - I might just try that!

How are fellow socially gawky peers getting on? Any head way made, anyone tried getting out there and taking the bull by the horns?

In my quest to be more sociable I emailed an ex colleague (I haven't worked with her for over a year) with whom I have kept in contact with by email - and invited her and her dh to dinner. They accepted. How easy was that!

The class night out that I have organised for day after tomorrow is now 11 confirmed people.

HMC: hope it goes well

I used to be really shy, not have a thing to say that I felt anyone would be interested in. I've only ever had a couple of close friends and definalty used to use alcohol to try and boost my confidence.

At any social gathering i would feel so out of place, not have a clue what to say to any one etc.
The best piece of advice that I was ever given was from a good friend of mine, a truely social butterfly. It is simple really but she said that when you meet somebody, the key is not to try and think of something interesting to say, but to first ask the person questions, find some common ground, and a conversation can often lead from there.
This may seem so obvious but it really helped me.
I'm much more comfortable when i find myself in these situations now, my job has helped give me more confidence.
i can definatly identify with thearmadillo about faking it and usually i meet people and, although i can small talk now, i would never let myself open up completely. i think the hardest thing for me is meeting like-minded people (rl ones anyway!).

Had a bit of a breakthrough yesterday and actually went to a P&T group (swore i never would! and have cancelled oplans to go for several weeks on the trot cos i was too scared). i half knew a couple of mums there from the post natal sessions i had. Strange thing was, i quite enjoyed it! The usual small talk rubbish but i think it did me good anyway. Best thing was that dd seemed to love it!

sorry! what a terribly written ramble! one handed intermittent typing due to bf and baby fidget!

i've just been directed to this thread - thanks pinktulips

i've always been quiet and tend to stare at people because i like drawing people, so probably come across as a bit of a wierdo. however that does not bother me as much anymore as it used to; i've got some wonderful close friends and i am optomistic that i'll make some more.

i think what helps me is that i don't get hurt when someone doesn't want to know me, tbh a lot of people bore me (and then i feel like slapping them, lol) so it prob. wouldn't work anyway. so i keep trying to chat to people, question them and take an interest. also i don't let it bother me when they cancel out of meetings. i know i'm very happy when i'm alone and have had aspirations to be a hermit (that would be difficult with 5 children, 'though)

i think some people are just happy alone a lot of the time, and the relationships i like best are very close ones, but i still need some space!

Is there room for another here?

I find it virtually impossible to make new friends. I am extremely distrustful of people having had a number of truly horrible experiences over the years (when I have rubbed people up the wrong way, unintentionally, and they have turned against me in a way I found deeply hurtful.

I sincerely believe I am not a nice person to know, and yet at the same time, I feel I have a lot to offer people in the way of support, but I never get to that stage.

I will hardly ever initiate a conversation with anyone in the playground or similar situation. When people speak to me, I am open and friendly back, but only so far as that conversation goes, ie I wouldn't then go and approach them another day.

My situation is not helped by the fact that I have moved a lot since having my children. But to give you an idea of what it is like to be me: we have been at our present location for 2 years now and there is only one person in the playground that I regularly speak to and maybe 2 or 3 other occasional people. Even the one I speak to regularly, the contact is limited to when we meet in the playground. My children have been attending school for 7 years now and I have never had anyone home for coffee in all that time.

OK I have written all that and am about to post. Will I find that I am amongst like-minded people here or am I a freak?

awww, DG. think you're among similar types here, we're all freaks

DG - "I sincerely believe I am not a nice person to know"?

Can you expect others to like you, if you don't like yourself? Come on - bet you can find loads of positive stuff about yourself - which surely should make you nice to know (eg the stuff about supporting others) I've seen you around on here, and you seem nice to me! And no, I'm sure you're not a freak (true freaks don't suspect they are!)

HMC - I feel I've turned a corner. Am more positive, since just reading this thread. And I have a LOT to be happy about in life; it's so easy to find people worse off than you. I've been dwelling on things which weren't that bad, in the grand scheme of things. Anyway, been naturally more smiley and managed a lovely chat at school yest with people I haven't really spoken to before.

Also been for lunch with an old friend today - bit the bullet and arranged that since the weekend.

Hi all - what a lovely thread, it has brough back some memories.
I am someone who probably on the surface of things seem like a really sociable, bubbly, popular, happy person, but I have only got here through a lot of mistakes with friendships and learned my lesson. Some of which from my early teens I am still getting over now and I am 30!
For most of my important formative years, I seemed to lack the self esteem to tell people where to get off when they were putting me down basically - in very implicit ways - I just carried on being nice and somehow "greateful" that they were even associating with me, which just ground me down to the point where I just had no confidence. I would never take a compliment, always put myself down and was quite inept when it came to relating to guys at teenage years.
My parents are somewhat lacking in social skills, they are v kind people and just never saw the bad in others. I have actually witnessed my Mum verbally torn to pieces by someone socially but that is another story....
I was also forever the one with "problems"; relationship, family, everything I used to be really open about and sometimes create problems that were not there because I thought I would get sympathy and respect somehow. All I was was the troubled person, or alternately the joker in the pack. People would also get really possesive and agressive with me and I would just let it happen.
After I got married I lost a lot of so-called friends as they couldn't handle seeing me truly happy. This brough home a lot of truths to me about who I would choose to be in my life.
Since then and having DD I have made friendships on my own terms and it really has worked. I never pretend to be someone I'm not, I always try to be honest to others and most importantly to myself. I do my best to meet up with other Mums but only those who I feel I can relate to and give off positive vibes - I will never be grateful again for friendship - if you like me great if you don't well thats fine too just don't expect me to beg you to be nice to me!
Making and keeping friends can be a minefield, but you all sound like lovely, genuine people. It seems like the sensitive amongst us find this kind of thing hard which is crazy - I still think that it's more cool to have a few genuine friends and I have always found the "quirky, gawky" far more interesting anyway x