Making friends? People don't get me?

[Amphetafiendd]

Thought I would put a thread to see if any other people out there have difficulties making new friends? I recently moved back to Far North Queensland from Brisbane where I stayed for a year to distance myself from some of the stuff that was happening up here (people going to jail, friends stealing from friends, drugs turning people bad). I have since returned and decided that a lot of the people I use to spend time with simply aren't worth it in regards to hanging around. These people I use to hang out with provide zero substance when trying to initiate a reasonable intelligent conversation. Sure we use to sit around and get high for days on end but there was never anything they would want to talk about other then "other times they got high". NOTE: I still do see my old friends but only if I go well out of my way to visit them.

I'm a 24 year old male, educated, popular in high school and have no real problems with having people around me for company but since of late I have realised I have no friends. Everybody who I spent years and years with are merely just acquaintances now and don't offer me the kind of friendship I feel I require and deserve. I am still a frequent drug user but I have found myself getting high and spending all my time indoors on my own just surfing the web, doing housework, playing computer games. Has anyone out there ever encounter a hurdle like this?

Any recommendations to making friends and meeting new people at this stage in life? Social sports and what not are a starting point but I'm not really sure what else. Where I am located there isn't really places like gaming internet cafes where I could meet other people who share the same interests as me. Organised social groups revolve largely around churches and religion which isn't for me. I have thought about perhaps volunteering somewhere as a means to forge some new friendships.

I'm having a bit of difficulty wording this thread in a way that doesn't make me come across as if I think I am better then my old friends. These people wouldn't go out of their way for me and just constantly have a hand out or blame the world for their problems. Put it this way, When I left NQ for Brisbane nobody even noticed I was gone for 3 months besides the drop kicks who would only contact me for a "favour".

Just sitting a standstill in life. I am curious if anyone else has had similar experiences with their social standing.


EDIT: Please move this post if it isn't in the correct forum. Thanks!

 

[Klue]

I would say it's pretty normal to feel you have no friends comparing your life to how things were at high school.

School was great like that, hundreds of people to socialise with everyday for more than a decade.

 

[poledriver]

^ Yep. We'll be your friends, just not school friends, we're 'net friends.

Any recommendations to making friends and meeting new people at this stage in life?

Fuck them all (not literally) and go travelling when you can and build your experiences up.

 

[Amphetafiendd]

I have traveled but only for say 3 month stints. I traveled through parts of europe. It was enjoyable I find talking to people from different walks of life quite interesting, and honestly my goal was to "fuck them all" haha

 

[Nortika]

Sounds like you are just in a transitional phase of friendships atm. I ditched a large chunk of friends around that age too. Think its pretty normal. New friends will start to appear along the way as life goes on.

 

[Yeetbeat]

Went through similar shit last year in August. Housemates went to the states for a month, in which I was home alone.....made it disturbingly apparent just how alone I truly was in life. Kicked off the first time in my life I can truly say I was depressed. Dealt with it through different methods for a while, but then ultimately just pulled the finger out over NYE and started forcing myself "out there" by simply hitting nightclubs every weekend haha

All you've gotta do mate, is whatever makes you happy. Don't go chasing people you think are your friends - just continue day to day as you normally would, while trying to take any opportunity you can to meet new people.

True friends will always be there, and those who aren't worth your time and effort will simply be replaced by people who are

 

[Juvenile]

Educated people who enjoy both drugs and intelligent conversation certainly do exist. They are not always easy to come across sadly.

It seems to get harder to meet people like this the older you get too.

 

[Shadowsblaze]

Don't know if your near a college but when I left high school college opened up new resources and I met a girl there who didn't attend but came to the library to meet new friends. I guess the only draw back besides location is whether you are allowed on campus.

 

[PagingDrFeelgood]

Same here, I feel very alone, struggle to fill in my day and deal with my feelings (even though i'm in uni full time, and have a shift at my job every week practically and am due to start voulteering hopefully soon) My best friend from uni just ended our 2 year friendship over the most petty thing imaginable, and what I find with people at uni is that they are your friend when you go to parties etc, but then when it comes to the real world and/hoildays they drop off and you find yourself alone, it's very depressing. One thing I have found that has helped me a lot is joining meetup.com and joining groups that interest me, that way I meetup with people that have similar interests to me, do things I enjoy etc. It gives you less time to feel alone, and more stuff to do on the weekends, maybe you could give that a shot? (Admitedly I haven't made any real "friends" from there, but still has made me feel heaps better and a little less lonely)

 

[sam05]

I would say it's pretty normal to feel you have no friends comparing your life to how things were at high school.

School was great like that, hundreds of people to socialise with everyday for more than a decade.

school was absolute hell for me, i was bullied severely and had no friends. to this day i still have no friends, i spend all day alone. having a mental illness doesnt help either. cant relate to anyone and have no social skills to form relationships, fuck my life FOREVER ALONE.

 

[Alabasster]

Know how you feel. I'm 42 (!!) and I've just returned to Brisbane from the Gold Coast. It's kind of a fresh start for me after a six year valium addiction that nearly killed me and left me with pancreatitis. Loneliness and social anxiety are getting the better of me at the moment as I'm not working and am currently living with my sister and her family. I desperately need a social life but after my addiction I have lost contact with most of my friends (they have families now anyway) and just don't feel confident enough to get out to the clubs. It sucks but when you get to this age it is crazy difficult to find nice, intelligent, genuine people that don't mind the odd 'alternative' experience. It doesn't help that I can't drink anymore, due to the pancreatitis, as that's pretty much the only way I used to bond with people.
I need to get out there if I want to meet people but I really don't know where to start!

 

[brainless]

Feel the same. It's either talking bout family shit, negative and positive drug/police experiences, how hard life is, how hard I've been done by and stories Ive heard to a nauseating degree. I said can't we just talk about music or movies or something normal instead of rehashing the same shit?
I got told that I killed the "vibe" so I pissed off. Just one situation that comes to mind.
People so fucked in the head like they have dementia. Some dude was so scattered on meth he swore on his children Dave Grohl never played with Nirvana and it was Dave Lombardo that was their drummer FFS. I give up, thank god I have a good looking psychologist I can spend an hour shouting the shit with.....Ohhhh that's about negative shit. Life's great lol

 

[Yeetbeat]

school was absolute hell for me, i was bullied severely and had no friends. to this day i still have no friends, i spend all day alone. having a mental illness doesnt help either. cant relate to anyone and have no social skills to form relationships, fuck my life FOREVER ALONE.

Don't take this the wrong way as I don't mean to belittle you at all, but this is the exact attitude that will ENSURE you're foreveralone.jpg

Seriously, I don't give a fuck how bad things are. If you don't at least try to be positive, nothing will ever change.

Life is what you make it. You're given building blocks to work with. Nothing incredible started that way; even the grandest of palaces were created from nothing more than dirt and stone.

 

[spacejunk]

OP, I went through a similar "friend cull" in my early 20s - I found that a lot of my social contacts were friends of convenience, friends-of-friends or various other relationships that I had little faith in.
After one let-down too many, I cut most of these people loose, and was lucky to find a really good social outlet or two at the same time.
One was playing in bands. Even if you're not a musician, hanging around people that are into the same sorts of things as you (whether it is music or anything) can be really fruitful in terms of meeting new peeps.
Are you interested in taking classes in - say - painting? Creative writing? Dancing? Bush walking? Organised crime? (j/k)
Watching live music? Going to clubs, raves, doofs etc?
I find that all of there sorts of activities tend to have communities form around them. I've been lucky enough to move freely between these kinds of groups.

Along the same lines, was study. I had a shit time in high school because my classmates and I had nothing in common (except the suburb our parents decided to raise us in).
Now, it goes against a lot of conventional (career guidance) wisdom, but I went to uni and studied something I was genuinely interested in (literature, philosophy, history etc) - and therefore found myself surrounded by like-minded people for the first time in my life. Quite mindblowing at the time!
I got involved in activist stuff (occupying administration buildings, smoking lots of pot). Obviously this isn't for everyone - but i made a lot of life-long friends in the environmentalist/anti-war/anarchist community.

What did I draw from this?

Follow your passions, your heart - your interests - and with an open mind and an openness to getting to know people; you're much more likely to find kindred spirits.

Your interests may well be the polar opposite of mine - but if that's the case, maybe think about what you are into (besides drugs - practically everyone does them - and as you say, the conversations can get a bit same-ish in drug social circles) and try and find opportunities to get involved with whatever communities exist around those interests. The biggest thing in your favour, I came to find - is that virtually everyone likes meeting cool new friends.

I felt like a total outsider until such a point as I had these revelations - and a lot of the friends I made around that time (10 or more years ago now) have come and gone in my life - but remain friends, acquaintances, collaborators or whatever.

Obviously your passions are likely to be different from mine - but if you think about things you are interested in, and care about - and try to pursue them.
We all have periods of social ups-and-downs, I think - but I'm glad I didn't just stick with the people I knew from school through my 20s. I have met some amazing people by stepping outside of that circle - people 30 years older than me, 10 years younger - all sorts.

You're still young and at a good age to meet people. I don't know how much location/population influences this - but as others have said, if your social pool is too limited, it might be worth relocating to somewhere with more people or more diversity.

Following my dreams didnt really bring me great financial reward or anything like that; but I didn't expect it to.
I am very "well off" socially now though - a huge change from the loner I was as a teenager. And that's not to say I go out a lot or socialise frequently. Maybe I was lucky, but it did take a certain effort to find my social footing.
Never been part of a "group" as such (except bands; but that's not strictly about friendship) - more like I have friends and people that are familiar from many walks of life, which suits me fine.

 

[PagingDrFeelgood]

Feel the same. It's either talking bout family shit, negative and positive drug/police experiences, how hard life is, how hard I've been done by and stories Ive heard to a nauseating degree. I said can't we just talk about music or movies or something normal instead of rehashing the same shit?
I got told that I killed the "vibe" so I pissed off. Just one situation that comes to mind.
People so fucked in the head like they have dementia. Some dude was so scattered on meth he swore on his children Dave Grohl never played with Nirvana and it was Dave Lombardo that was their drummer FFS. I give up, thank god I have a good looking psychologist I can spend an hour shouting the shit with.....Ohhhh that's about negative shit. Life's great lol

I'm training to be a psychologist haha, but people should give meetup a try. Just my two cents worth.

 

[michael6120]

I agree with the people who have suggested you are going through a transitional stage of your live... Mine was right on 24/25 too... Travel will blow you away... do it!

 

[Stonerhenge]

High school sucks!

 

[Stonerhenge]

High school prom sucks too!

 

[Sheezak]

Have you considered or tried online dating?

Have you considered or tried online dating?

Today, in 2014, it's almost less common to find people who have never tried online dating than
it is to find people who have. While, I don't think finding love on the Internet has the negative
connotation it used to, there are still plenty of sceptics. %)

 

[lovepsychadelics]

I know where your coming from. Ok so do you have any interests besides those listed? Would you like to engage in some kind of social activity? Just for relaxation I'd advise Tai Chi, there are free classes I think held once or twice a week on the Goldie so I'd Imagine Brisbane would be the same.

So maybe you'd rather do something more fun? I recommend Krav Maga. There are two groups offering this kind of training in Bris PM for details. One is well cheap and fucking awesome!!! The other super expensive and TBH not worth the money. Krav will give you the opportunity to meet new people and basically beat the crap out of each other. Not really you have crash pads and shit but you can easily get injured or accidentally hit someone, them hit you etc. Great bonding though and seriously there are some cool people. Any martial art is great for social interaction.

Want to impress women and meet them as well? Try Latin dancing. Its fun and do it well, dance as it's appropriate, girls get into it . Even if it's just because you have no shame and do a perfect Jacko rip of when a remix of Billy Jean comes on lol. Raving is fun and although there is the drugs... well your still taking them so why not take them in the middle of a random field and listen to awesome tunes, Bust more Jako, Have a groove and make people happy even if it's cause your this random exhibit of slightly tweeked humanity. Just be you and you will be fine.



These activities will cost a little bit but it may just be a stick of green less a week you should smoke and sit around doing jack shit and meeting Mr Sony only. Instead use that money to engage in some kind of direct social interaction. Fuck even have a crack at speed dating. WTF not? If nothing else a good laugh as long as you go there with 0 expectations because that's probably the reality but you may get a few numbers...

Do you skate? Did you ever skate? Got that old board still in one piece stashed in the garage or some other place? Get it out, prepare for a few injuries, go for a roll. Into art? Life drawing classes could be of interest or something similar. Music? Sport? Maybe enroll in a TAFE course or a UNI degree. Uni is a great place as is Tafe to meet new people who have a shared interest in the field your studying

You just need to find a pass time that involves other people who share your interest in that activity. One that is not based on drugs. You have noticed when your not getting high with these "friends" you have 0 shared interests or goals. So you need to find or rediscover activities, goals etc that involve direct interaction with other individuals. Just don't be to "full on" and talk excessively, especially about yourself. Try to get others to talk about themselves and be interested, unless they are really boring and then I'd be questioning my choice of social activity.

Ok so that my friends is today's lecture for "Friends 101", class dismissed.

As good as Krav if you can find a trainer: Systema/Sambo the Russian military's unarmed combat. If you google it look for sambo martial art. There are some in SE QLD...