If you know an adult who has struggled to make friends, what, honestly, do you think is the reason?

[Seasaltchips]

Really struggled to build a social life as an adult (I’m mid 40s)

I have a couple of friends who are people I have known since school. Should I ask them why I’ve struggled?

Do you know anyone who has struggled to make friends as an adult? And do you know/or suspect you know the reason?

I’m outwardly outgoing (without being OTT) and make an effort but I just never succeed.

Maybe you're just not as good in groups and that's ok. More one on one or small groups will probably help create closer friendships.

I know one woman who declares that she has no friends. Yet she never makes any effort to organise meet ups. She will meet up when someone else organises it, but she is never the one to suggest a date/time/place etc.
When we do get together she talks about herself. She also dismisses what others have to say, saying things like oh I don’t like that band you are going to see. Or I wouldn’t want to go there on holiday.
My own take is that it’s hard work in later life to make and maintain friendships. I’ve met 2 women through a hobby. I’ve been going years so the friendship has taken a long time to develop. Even then I’ve never met their ohs and we’ve only met outside of the hobby once.
Op- interesting that you say some of your friendship group meet up separately. I am good friends with a couple of my work colleagues. I know 2 of them do a hobby together and socialise as couples. It doesn’t bother me. I often socialise with one of them separately and there isn’t any jealousy. We are all very open about meeting up.
We discuss things openly. Sometimes we all go out together.
I think resenting the others for doing things isn’t helpful.
I also have a close relative with ADHD. She makes a very conscious effort of being a good friend. It is something she has to work on. She is also excellent at reading people.

I know someone like this. Lack of self confidence and not being proactive. Held back and guilt tripped to stay home with their mother.

It's a shame, she deserves more

Interesting thread! I am guessing that in your case it is a mixture of being very sensitive/prone to taking things personally and consequently finding it difficult to allow yourself to be vulnerable. The reason i say that is that you have given two examples of difficult group situations where you have felt excluded recently. But instead of starting a thread about how you are feeling a bit low or a bit hurt or rejected about the situation you ask a general question about making friends. You have turned pain into a problem to be solved. However we have all had situations where we felt hurt and left out of a group so we can all relate to these feelings. However you don't give us an opportunity to connect with you because you don't share much about how it makes you feel - emotion and vulnerability is how we connect with others. So if this is what you do in real life too it may be why people don't connect with you - they see you as self sufficient and don't really know who you are. They can't relate to you because they don't see any emotion or vulnerability. In the situations with the group it may be that you are framing things in an incorrect way. By showing your own feelings/vulnerability about the situation you might find that you misread it and they immediately include you or you might find out something less palatable. Either way you will have more info about what is going on.

This is it. My best friendships are when I’ve been brave

I have a different take

I have to make such an effort to be social, ask people stuff, say acceptable things, remember what they said the last time etc it's exhausting. My small talk is great, I can keep up that persona for a bit but not long enough to sustain a proper friendship. I know these things come in naturally to other people, they even enjoy them, but to me they're a skill I've had to learn by copying others and I don't particularly enjoy them.

I'm interested in other people but when you offset that with the enormous effort I have to put in it's too much.

I don't have any friends that I could call on the off chance they would be free to meet up. Unfortunately, I moved from City I'd grown up in during lockdown. I tried to research Women Focused Groups with like minded hobbies and had a couple of meet ups however, they were all distracted by their own Toddler or other Childcare expectations. I could feel our mutual frustration in the inability to form even the basis of a friendship but, they were torn. Warning - pronouns involved I'm Female - and looking to meet friends of same persuasion and interests!

On the bitchy point, I see it came up repeatedly here, I can think of several bitchy people who have lots of friends, some people bond over gossip.
I think struggling to make and keep friends is because of avoidant or disorganised attachment and autism. I agree that being nice isn't enough, you have to be interesting and interested and useful somehow. Some people are very private and guarded they come off as boring or like they don't want friends.

Wouldn't this be part of Autism?

I have a friend like this. She tells us absolutely nothing about her life.

Who knows @BeNoisyFish ?

I can't afford a diagnosis and how would it help?

I do have friends but ones I've had for years. I don't make new friends because I don't make enough effort with people, don't share anything about myself and probably come across as quite cold. As a massive introvert anyway I'm fine with it.

You almost sound angry there. I would say you're missing another category.
Myself, I'm just shy and socially awkward, always have been. I always struggled to text anyone first, because I've always had low self esteem and thought 'why would they want to hear from me?'. Then I'm guessing people take it as uninterest. It's a vicious circle. I've struggled with social anxiety since I was a child. I have one on one friendships, but could never be in a group.

Something I would say I've noticed in the people I know of who don't have friends is that they talk a fair bit about how they don't have friends, and how they've tried to make friends unsuccessfully - everything is centred around "collecting" friends, a bit like Pokémon, because they know that friends are something you're "supposed" to have, rather than friendships forming organically. It's a mindset thing and something I've definitely noticed more in acquaintances who are autistic.

I joined a hobby without the intention of making friends, because I wanted to do that hobby. Three years later I've made an amazing group of friends through it - it didn't happen overnight, we didn't all come together at the same time, but it happened organically and without any of us seeking each other out or specifically aiming to make friends.

I am friendly, engaging etc but it is genuinely hard to make friends as an adult! The only genuine friends I have made since high school were some darling ex-colleagues (that workplace was amazing, non toxic and peopled by the loveliest set of humans I have ever encountered) and a lady who was in a local gardening group, where we happened to discover we had a lot of other shared interests.

Keep plugging away. You never know when a friend will come along. They are rare ime.

I actually find the opposite -found it hard to make friends as a child but much easier as an adult. My parents told me they were worried about me as I had no friends, now they puzzled that I have so many friends and do lots of socializing and not enough time to spend on ‘family’.
I am interested in other people and laugh a lot. I have noticed that people without friends mostly seem very self absorbed and talk a lot about themselves and are needy and demanding, pessimistic and exhausting to be with.
I have a friend who should have a lot to complain about /was in an awful marriage, has a very low income, difficult kids and ac demanding elderly mother, but she doesn’t. She shares that stuff with me but is not miserable or obsessed and can see the funny side of issues that arise. She is joyful and genuinely delights in good things that happen to other people. So she attracts people who like being with her.
Another friend I see rarely has everything going for her but sees the negative side of everything -eg lovely autumn leaves - her take is that the council should be sweeping them up as they get wet and are a trip hazard..

Some people like me just don't need or want friends! I found my life improved a lot when I stopped seeing 'friends'.. let's be honest many people are self serving. Real friendships are very rare and I have no time for something superficial as I get older.

Do you think people like this would benefit from a bit of honesty? Not suggesting it's your job to do this with the chap you've referenced of course.

People I find are generally quite nice and don't want to hurt peoples feelings so they don't say bloody hell Dave please stop going on about x, but some people could do with a bit of training/a boot camp teaching how to socialise. There must be a business opportunity there. Irony being that with our close friends we probably would say give it a rest Jane.

I think that worrying about being included is the biggest barrier to making friends. Being relaxed about it helps. The people I have become closest to are ones who I wasn't that bothered about initially and who approached me.

I have found it difficult as I have got older. My family commitments come first. I don’t feel I have the headspace and effort required to maintain friendships. I find it hard to be myself. I think women are complicated. Certainly the groups of friends I hear about have had some almighty bust ups. There are queen bee type personalities. The bully who commands the groups etc. The person excluded. Grown women behaving like this. No thanks

The majority are clearly neurodivergent. They tend to be very fixated on tiny details, such as a random grudge that happened 10 years back which means they can never be friends with that person (or their friends) anymore. Over time, this greatly limits the pool of people you can socialise with. Or they engage in very intense behaviour such as sending videos or memes every single day that are cringey and not really funny but not getting the hint that's it's not your humour. Being ND myself I don't mind but it's clear why that gets too much for many people.

The few other adults without friends are raging narcissists. They tend to appear extremely sociable from the outside and love surrounding themselves with high status people. When they meet someone new they love-bomb that person into becoming part of their clique. However under the surface, most people don't see the narc as a true friend so they struggle maintaining friendships over many years or decades. All their friendships are circumstantial or mutually beneficial (business contacts, cool to tag in Instagram) and eventually other people just move on with their lives.

I was friends with a narcissist for quite a long time because she was genuinely fun in a social setting. But then I noticed her engaging in "discard" behaviour which involved cancelling plans at extremely short notice or turning up and leaving very soon with a silly excuse. So after that I decided to let the friendship fizzle out. I think that's what happens with all her connections after a while.

I think a lot of it is luck.

It’s also unfortunately the fact that sometimes life does move on. I have friends from school and university and we say ‘we don’t need to speak every day’ which is true but honestly we are struggling for things to talk about as we just aren’t in one another’s lives now.

I often feel on the periphery of things but I suspect that’s my own perception.

Then you need to sort out your low self esteem. Think of it this way. It’s not all about you. They probably think you’re not interested if you never text first. Text first to ask how they are, because you’re interested in how theyre doing.

Flaky, cancel plans regularly, just download about themselves and show no interest in me, terrible listeners are all a no for me.

I know someone who drops friends because they do something annoying or awkward and she just never speaks to them again! I ask “how is xxx?” And I get “no idea. She didnt reply once so I never messaged her again.”