Can't seem to make any friends

**Posts:** 2 · by **lone-tiger** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 4:33 pm

Hi

I'm 18 years old and I pretty much lived with some form of Depression and Anxiety and lately even some Disassociation (from a panic attack) to some degree all my life. The Depression goes from a little moody to feeling like literally drugged with some sort of Opiate or something which just prevents me from doing anything. Really depends on the day though. Those depression "attacks" are usually triggered by my family, just by misunderstanding me in general and the anger problems of my parents or loneliness. Today the latter is bugging me the most.

I'm a f***ing loner and have been all my life. In Kindergarten, in preschool, middleschool, highschool was better, but even then I eventually lost all of my friends. From preschool-middleschool I also went through bullying, a hell lot of it for basically being myself, liking things'n stuff. The usual stuff, most loners will know this. Bet this wasn't good for my depression either. In Highschool everything seemed t o have settled down, the bullying at least, but I guess people weren't just so openabout whom they dislike anymore. So it was more of shittalk behind my back I guess.

Now, me being unable to make any friends comes from 2 Major points:

1 is a problem with me which I am working on; I usually wait until people come to me and talk to me without any input by myself, which is stupid I realized and I try to be more open, but sometimes if not always I have this strange fear of being rejected. Guess some sort of social anxiety. It's not too hard to overcome for me though.

2 might be the bigger problem: People just aren't interested in me. Usually at least. I mean, if I meet someone and make friends with them in, let's say a course, in around 99% of the times I won't have any contact with them after the course whatsoever. I met this pretty chill dude in driving school last year, made actually pretty good friends with him and I even tried to stay in contact after driving school using social media, but now after 1 year I haven'T seen or messaged him for at least 10 months or so.

This sh** bugs me the most. I mean, I have some friends and my neighbour is a pretty good friend and when I see them I usually feel better, but I can't handle those days, like today, when no one has time for me except my computer. I was out skating a bit because I got sick of looking in the monitor while feeling like on the wrong planet and even neglecting my studying. I don't have much motivation for studying anyways because of my above average IQ and, like I already mentioned 10000 times depression. Those two things prevent me to focus on a wall of text for a test or something for longer than 20 minutes or so at a time.It's just so annoying.

But anyways, I'd be glad to hear some tips about how I could make new friends. I am kind of in a hurry so I might edit this post later to add some points. THere's a lot going through my mind regarding this problem right now.

Cheers

**Posts:** 216 · by **^_^** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 6:13 pm

Hi

Kindergarten is were kids usually learn social skill (check out the documentaries 'secret of a 4year old'). So if you decided to be a loner and not participate in social experimenting, you're more than likely missing some finer details in your social skill-set. Luckily if you have the ambition for it, social skills can actually be learned easily. Just some simple techniques like finding a common interest, asking questions about the other person (most people love to talk about themselves as long as it's superficial), learning to pick up on body language, etc...

There's plenty of people out there looking for friendship, you just gotta push yourself out of your comfort-zone.

As for the depression, have you ever considered getting professional help for that?

**Posts:** 34 · by **mindtester** » Sun Jul 23, 2017 2:16 am

A good way to approach this would be to push past your comfort zone a little bit each day or every time there's a social opportunity. No need to go over the top with it. Small advances will help. It's best to identify with others that have the same interests and concerns as you. People like value in their lives which is why others that are like them grab their attention due to the added potential value they have

**Posts:** 53 · by **Infinite** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 5:32 pm

IMHO,

You said you are too smart to study then I will recommend you start "giving" rather than focusing on "receiving".

What I mean by that is start to tutor kids or adults, volunteer, become a dog walker (get paid but not for the money)...these will give you different feeling than self absorbent you have because of depression and deep loneliness.

There are a lot of volunteers available for young, smart people like you. When you help others, you get certain rewarding and pleasure that is antidote to depression.

What you give without anything back must be something you are good at and enjoy and you can offer to others for free.

Few things will happen then:
you will feel good being productive and helping others.
You will meet others and converse with adults
you will meet with people for potential friendship
you are out of the house and busy with life
you are not focused on yourself
and much more

**Posts:** 9885 · by **Candid** » Tue Jul 25, 2017 9:07 am

lone-tiger wrote:I usually wait until people come to me and talk to me without any input by myself

People just aren't interested in me.

Two sides of the same coin. You aren't interested in them. The way to make friends is to ask people questions about themselves. You can then pull out aspects you can identify with, and talk about that.

Can't seem to make any friends

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