Why am I so damn unpopular?

[DeadFlowersInAVase]

Just that really.

I've always had problems with friendships. Not so much making them but keeping them.

I have a partner and 2 adult children but no friends. People just don't like me!

I'm not a people pleaser and I'm not an arsehole either. I'm reliable, not flakey, don't dominate conversations, remember things people have said and ask after them. I'm told I'm funny. I have good boundaries. Just a normal person really!

It really stands out to me because I also have a brother who I'm seeing over Christmas. All of his other days are booked up with seeing friends and doing stuff. And I don't understand it. He's grumpy and irascible (which has caused him to lose friends over the years) but he still has friends from school, university, work etc and has fallen out with a few (due to his behaviour) but they seem to have made up over the years and he still sees them. I don't understand it because he's selfish and self centred, dominates conversations and can be quite unpleasant at times. He's great company when he's not being like this but I don't think there's a single one of his friends who hasn't been on the end of one of his diatribes at some point.

My partner has friends he's known since school.

I know other people who have good strong friendships. People who have dubious political beliefs, who get too drunk and offend others.

People seem to like me well enough - colleagues, people I know socially, people through hobbies. But I don't actually have a single friend!

I mean, it can't just be that I have dead flowers in a vase. Can it..?

@Firefly2009 You sound very like me, even down to the interests and the walking in the rain thing!

I do have a lovely husband and two children (who are very popular and at ease in the world - a constant source of amazement to me). I get on well with my siblings and have one lovely friend (who is very deadpan and a bit unusual herself).

I'm not on the ASD spectrum and was not unpopular at school, but I believe this was down to a massive effort at flying under the radar and acting normal. I went to a mainstream school but had a very restricted home life (no TV, no modern music or access to popular culture at all, heavy religious practice). I felt very different to all my peers and went to incredible lengths to fake it and fit in. As I got older, I started to care about this less and let the act drop a bit.

I'm still conscious of being a bit different to other people and I think I can come across as rather guarded and aloof as a result. Occasionally I'll get talking to someone and at the end they'll express surprise that I'm actually a nice person!

I invited 3 couples. All of them cancelled within 24 hours beforehand.

This stuck out to me. You invited them and they said yes, so it wasn't that they didn't like you, because they could have just said "we're busy". But then they flaked out - this makes me wonder if you are choosing the wrong kind of person for solid friendships.

Maybe they have children and love the idea of a night out but can't manage it in reality. Maybe they are people who say yes to everything and then dump the options they like least. Maybe they just have so many friends that they can't keep up. But if you are consistently drawn to people who are not really "available" then that might explain what you are experiencing?

This is me completely.

I also have a sister who has a lot of friends and is very popular (which doesn't help!).

I suspect I am on the spectrum. I'm very independent and think I may come across as guarded and aloof. I dress and speak quite well and people always seem to assume I am posher than I really am. I don't think any of that helps. I've worked in various environments and found male dominated tech and engineering workplaces the best fit for me. I suspect because there are more souls with ASD in those environments.

At the moment, I literally have a very small handful of friends who I see occasionally but am not especially close to. I've had quite a few friends over the years and there are a few periods when I seem to have been fairly popular. During these periods, I made a concerted effort to make and keep up with everyone. I constantly had to remind myself ask people questions, not talk about myself too much, not be too deep and meaningful, keep the conversation lighthearted, laugh a lot, laugh at myself, etc. This was especially easy when I had a boss like this and mimicked his behaviour.

I am naturally a much more guarded and a deep thinker. I'm quite serious and when I do like to laugh my humour is rather childish. If I have any sort of problem I can get quite stressed and tend to make this the focus of my life to the detriment of everything else. This has driven people away previously so I have to make a concerted effort not to discuss issues in too much detail. DH loves me as I am so I am totally myself with him but this is not the popular version of me!

In my head I'm a kind and supportive friend but if you asked for people who know me to describe I think you'd get a varied range of answers. I try not to worry about it too much and just accept it for what it is. Next year I plan to get involved in a few more hobby based groups so hopefully that will help.

Out of interest, how do you get on with work and jobs? Do you have a good career or has that been a challenge as well?

OP, I am curious to know what your brother's good points are?
That said, I think some people invite others because they consider them to be an amusing addition to a group in some way.

People dropping out - for some reason, flakiness is considered acceptable and "normal" now.

@KnittedPond "I wouldn’t characterise my friends in general as ‘nice’, tbh."

How do you interpret nice and has that now become a bad thing?

I'm the same OP.

I moved to England in my 30s too so don't have earlier years networks many people still do. Any friend I make with the exception of DH always has closer friends and although I don't care about that at all, I never seem to be a priority for anyone apart from DH and my own family.

I've pulled back this year from the friendships I do have because they were so based on me getting in touch first. It's been crickets since.
2024 needs to be the year of new friendships with people who actually want me in their lives.

I have friends from:

• school - never lost touch
• work - women I had coffee / lunch with whilst we worked directly together, about 20% of whom I reckon we continued to speak after we stopped working together
• through my DH - his friends and their partners, some of whom I hit it off with and became proper friends others just acquaintances
• through my child - one proper friend from ante natal and a handful of proper friends from the school gate
• hobbies - I did a sport in my 20s and have some friends still I was close to then. I do a regular club now and have friends from that.

Can you identify any friends from the above groups? It does take effort from someone to follow up and say hey, do you fancy a meet up. Then it does take a looooong time to build any depth.

I always used to make the first move and reach out because I thought people might not want to make the first move themselves. I wonder if that just made me look desperate.

I agree about the neurodivergent comments that have been made. Maybe some of us just aren't made to understand the rules.

I like it when other people make the first move - it doesn't make you look desperate! Some people are "contacters" by nature and others love to be contacted but just don't do it themselves.

I'm also neurodivergent.

I like that bit about not being made to understand the rules… it really clicked with me. I’m not diagnosed autistic but I sure as hell tick plenty of boxes. I look at people and wonder how they find things so easy regarding friends. One couple
i know roll through life picking up friends like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t know or understand how. I’m introverted so that makes it harder too. And tbh, I feel like those friends forget me a bit nowadays. I tend to be the one making contact 🤷🏻‍♀️

Unfortunately I have a resting bitch face . I look miserable but I'm not but people assume I am . This has led to some people thinking because I'm unhappy I'm going to be an easy target to manipulate and control . I'm not and they don't like it when they get push back . I attract abusers . A lot of people have said they were surprised to find what a nice morally decent person I am, usually when they get to know me . It used to bother me and I thought it was me that there was something wrong with me , but I now think if they want to judge a book by its cover and not get to know me then they can do one . Oddly enough since I've stopped caring people have treated me more kindly .

When you’ve had lifelong difficulties with socialising, you don’t have any friends from those groups to follow up with. For example:

School - I was bullied and excluded, I had no friends. There’s nobody I could call and ask to hang out.

Work - I was bullied and excluded again. Never invited for lunch or coffee. Not even invited to the Xmas meal. I wouldn’t have a clue how to contact ex colleagues, I only ever saw them at work.

Hobbies - I once thought I had a few hobby friends, but then someone better came along and they started to exclude and bully me out so the new person could have my spot on the team.

DH - mostly has male friends and they do hobbies I can’t join in with.

Child - does anyone actually see any other parents at the school gates nowadays? It’s all childminders or grandparents (and I’m not even there all of the time myself because my own DC also get picked up by grandparents).

I've got a hobby that isn't stereotypically a female hobby so I meet mostly men through it. The women I do meet through it are generally hoping to catch the attention of one of the men so aren't really interested in me

This stands out to me. It’s a bit of a misogynistic statement to make.

@EmmaEmerald, I suppose I meant ‘nice’ in the ordinary sense in which its used on here when people post about feeling lonely and saying ‘I don’t understand why — I’m nice, I’ll go out of my way for anyone, I don’t dominate conversations, I’m not boastful, I’m a good listener, I’m friendly, I’m always there to support my friends etc etc’.

Certainly not a bad thing, just not top of my list (or anywhere near) in what attracts me to someone as a potential friend.

It's not. It's just a fact.

In my group, I'm the only woman. I meet people in other groups who do the same hobby and they are mostly all men. There will occasionally be a woman but it's always a (nice) surprise to meet them. Women are often involved more as spectators than participants and, if we get talking to them, many are more interested in the men than me. That's just my experience.

I'm friendly with the men but we're not friends.

Of the three couples I invited out, two couples already know each other well and are friends and my partner and I are friendly with both. The third couple have met them a couple of times and, besides, seeing a band is something that works quite well with more people and is an ideal way to get to know people better.

I don't have friends from school. I keep in touch with one person from university but we only meet up once a year because we're both busy. It's always me who instigates that and I'm not sure he would suggest it if I didn't.

As for work, I've tried keeping in touch woth people I've previously worked with - people I've been good friends with at work but we've never been able to make the transition from work friends to outside work friends. I get on well withy current colleagues but never see them putside work because they have young families and their 'real life' friends so its difficult.

I am fine with being vulnerable with people. But I often don't get close enough to people to be able to be genuinely vulnerable.

I'm not 'nice'. No. Like I said, I'm not a people pleaser.

What do I want in a friend?

Mutual support; someone to go out and have fun with; someone to belly laugh with at lunch time and discuss the meaning of life, the universe and everything with at 3am.

At the moment, I'd take someone messaging me now and again just to say hi tbh 🤷🏻‍♀️ (and yes, I do check in on other people).

I had, what I thought was a, close female friend but I found that, whilst we always had a good laugh when we went out, it only happened when I suggested it.

Then I realised that she would spend most of the evening trying to flirt with random men (which I'm not interested in doing) and would interrupt our conversations to strike up chit chat with (literally) passing men which u found intrusive and a bit boring.

Then she started hitting on my partner when we first started dating and I just realised she wasn't actually a friend after all.

People with plenty of friends tend to be slightly 'stand out' people. Memorable people. Rude/opinionated and annoying people who are life and soul of the party are always more popular than pleasant, reasonable people who are a little bit bland.

Do you cultivate friendships? I have an old uni friend who lives close by and we go back years. I love her and I know she's fond of me, but we never see each other as she has a close knit group of friends from school gates who she goes everywhere with. I know that she has worked like a dog to keep that group of friends going. I could never summon such effort.

I belong to a separate friendship group that goes back years and is solely driven by one member of the group. If she didn't activate us, we'd have drifted apart years ago.

I have been diagnosed with asc.

But I know plenty of autistic people with good friendship groups. Both ND and NT friends.

It's definitely something I really struggle with though and I can't see where I'm going wrong.

I have lots of friends but there are very few who actively make arrangements. I’ve invited at least one friend a fortnight for dinner in the last three months and had two parties too. Not one friend has invited me back! I think it’s quite rude, but that is what people are like. I want to spend time with people so I make a big effort and I can’t expect anything back.

I can see you’ve done some invitations and they’ve not come round. that would upset me. I’d love a friend to invite me round for dinner, keep trying!

the last thing is that I had a breakup and after covid I felt I’d lost a lot of friends. I went on meetup, the app, found something I feel very passionate about, and got involved with a group. I now have loads more friends to spend time with, it’s taken a year of going to the meet-ups regularly but it’s been worthwhile.

Do you cultivate friendships?

I think so!

There is a woman I have known for 4 or 5 years. We generally see each other at gigs. She or I will message to ask of the other is going to see a particular band that weekend probably every couple of months.

She said one time when we met that I should get in touch and we'd go for lunch. Except that she's never available when I extend an invitation. She's never extended an invitation and a couple of months later, we'll have the customary you going to see X on Saturday? See you there!" exchange.

I was about to just type it's pretty much luck - meeting people who are looking to make friends or meeting people who already have friends and are not bothered...

Then I read this from pp, and thought that's very perceptive and totally makes sense -

People who are good at making friends tend to be good at having fun, holding a good conversation and organising stuff with the people they meet.

I can see you’ve done some invitations and they’ve not come round. that would upset me. I’d love a friend to invite me round for dinner, keep trying!

I think the thing I find s hard is that it's always me doing the inviting. I was invited last November to an event in February and I went but that's the last time anyone invited me anywhere. I make the effort to issue an invitation every couple of weeks or so. One was accepted in August - I've not seen them since and that's the only one that was accepted.

People who are good at making friends tend to be good at having fun, holding a good conversation and organising stuff with the people they meet

I think I am good at these things. It would seem others think differently then!

I broke up from work for Christmas today. Everyone was talking about their plans for the holidays. It just really stood out to le that they were talking about going out for dinner, a couple of nights away with friends, catching up with fiends etc and I've got nothing planned with anyone. And no one to ask because no one is free because they're all seeing their friends.