Growing up with no friends (currently 30, still no social circle - IS THIS NORMAL?)

[Zal2008]

I Googled "lack of friends" to do see if I would find articles on this subject, and I came across a thread by "Walk" on this website. Walk, if you are reading this, you sound exactly like me.

 

I am 30, female, university educated, have a great job, have been successful in my work-life, come from two decent honest loving parents, look normal, dress normal, smell normal, etc. But I have no friends, and I've never had friends.

 

I am single too, with no prospects for a husband, so I am getting worried about this hermit lifestyle I'm living as it isn't helping me meet men for dating (I have tried meeting men through the Internet and I don't believe in it.)

 

I *really* need to find out if there is something fundamentally wrong with my personality that prevents people from liking me, or if I normal.

 

I look around my workplace, and at people I've gone to school with, and (it appears anyway) they all have friends.

 

I have had close friends in the past (when I was a kid, then junior high, then high school) but I don't talk to any of them anymore. Usually, we got into an argument and stopped talking. Then their lives moved on (most are married) but my (social) life has stayed stagnant, it seems.

 

I know so many people and KNOW that not all of them are nice people -- there are a lot of bad people out there - but even they have friends. I don't seem to have trouble being friendly with people in the beginning, but as you can see with my social history, I have not been able to keep any friends.

 

This is something that has had me crying into my pillow many nights for years and years.

 

My mother last night suggested I see a psychologist with expertise in making friendships to find out if there are certain skills I am lacking in this department (she was just trying to help console me). But the thing is, I am who I am. I am 30 and I am a fairly normal person. I would like to be liked and accepted the way I am. I can't imagine walking on egg shells around people trying to be someone I am not. Also, if there was something fundamentally lacking in me, how would I have been able to be so accomplished in my work life? In my job, I have to get up in front of people and host conferences etc.

 

There is one thing I should mention: in grade 6, all the girls in my class turned against me and stopped talking to me for years. My lack of friends started from that point on. It crushed my spirit at the age of 10 and I have never been able to trust friends after that. It was devastating and at that age, it must have been life changing for me.

[king_midas]

No it isn't normal.

 

I sense a lot of undertones we aren't really being told. I doubt there's just "one thing" you should mention... nobody's that simple. Perhaps you do have some personality or physical trait that irks people. I don't know, but that alone won't stop people from interacting with you.

 

Maybe you're avoidant? Avoiding people and rejecting them before they can reject you? Sure there are bad folks in the world, but there are also lots of good folks, and even more folks who are basically good but sometimes **** up, which y'know, is pretty human. You're 30, what happened to you 20 years ago may be traumatic, but shouldn't have so thoroughly crushed your spirit. I'd wager that you just haven't let your spirit spring back. Work on that, trust people, know that they may hurt you.

 

Work is different. You can force yourself to talk to people when money is involved and you know that they aren't "really" your friends... just people you have to get along with, at the very least.

 

As for making friends... join some sort of group, be receptive, be open-minded...

[tinktronik]

No it isn't normal.

 

I sense a lot of undertones we aren't really being told. I doubt there's just "one thing" you should mention... nobody's that simple. Perhaps you do have some personality or physical trait that irks people. I don't know, but that alone won't stop people from interacting with you.

 

Maybe you're avoidant? Avoiding people and rejecting them before they can reject you? Sure there are bad folks in the world, but there are also lots of good folks, and even more folks who are basically good but sometimes **** up, which y'know, is pretty human. You're 30, what happened to you 20 years ago may be traumatic, but shouldn't have so thoroughly crushed your spirit. I'd wager that you just haven't let your spirit spring back. Work on that, trust people, know that they may hurt you.

 

Work is different. You can force yourself to talk to people when money is involved and you know that they aren't "really" your friends... just people you have to get along with, at the very least.

 

As for making friends... join some sort of group, be receptive, be open-minded...

Ditto. I agree completely with this.

[justine4]

Find a local group doing something that interests you. You'd then have a common interest and then hopefully the social inclusion will be a little easier.

 

Getting up in front of people and being successful in a career hasn't anything to do with making friends, being approachable etc. Have you any collegues you can socialise with perhaps?

 

You just need to connect with people on a similar wavelength to you and see what happens.

 

Having difficulty making friends since aged 10 though, why did the other girls turn against you permanently? I know children fall out - its all part of growing up (and the stuff kids say to each other can be incredibly cruel) however, not speaking to any of them again - it must've been something major, either on your behalf or theirs?

[Touche]

You ask if it's normal. For me it is. I'm like you are. But the real question is whether it's a problem or not. For me it's not. I choose to be the way I am. I just don't have a real need for close friendships.

 

But obviously for you it's a problem since you're crying in your pillow.

 

You have two choices as I see it: Either accept that you're not a social animal, as I have, OR make changes. Start putting yourself out there. It's hard to make friends if you're very selective but it can be done with some effort.

 

Also, be prepared to be let down/disappointed. That's the risk you take. Most people will let you down. Only you can decide whether it's worth the risk.

[vintagecat]

Honestly it did. At least when I met my husband afterward and I wasn't so desperate or lonely to have scared him off. I have had cats in the past, cats are also isolated creatures and didn't do the same thing for me as a puppy or adult dog who loves and needs you from day one. Caring for such a trusting soul helps with the isolation.

 

I am a very internal person and in general pretty complicated and hard to get to know. I think people like this have a hard time making friends. My best advice is get out there and try or accept the situation as there really isn't anything else in between.

 

Best of luck to you. I can relate.

[Zal2008]

Yes, it is true that the grade 6 experience isn't the reason I have no friends at age 30. (The reason the girls turned against me is because they were sharing a secret which they refused to tell me and I demanded aggressively that they tell me and they decided to punish my behaviour but not speaking to me anymore. A few months later we graduated and i never saw or heard from them again.)

 

I think this experiences made me paranoid after that and I walked around feeling rejected probably.

 

I have had a number of "best friends" at different times, and got into arguments with each of them over different things and stopped talking. I am open to correction here (if done lovingly) so if anyone wants to provide me with some insight and wisdom I'd like to hear it.

 

In grade 8 I had a best friend. Then she met and started hanging out with one of the girls who rejected me in grade 6. This broke my heart, I felt paranoid and got upset with her.. then we stopped talking.

 

In grade 9 I had a best friend who lived in another city. She ended up lying to me about coming to town (she came to town and threw a party and didn't tell me about it) and then ended up sleeping with the guy I was in love with. I found out, confronted her and we stopped talking.

 

In grade 9-10, I had a best friend for two years. She also had a lot of other friends. She and all her friends were my social life. Then she got a boyfriend, started acting like a different person, starting neglecting me, I got upset and we stopped talking.

 

In grade 11-13, I had another best friend. It lasted 3 years. She now became my social life wherw we'd go out to clubs and stuff together. Eventually she got herself a boyfriend. On New Year's Eve, a bunch of us went to a party and had planned to stay over in a hotel room that night. Some of us slept on the floor, and others on two uncomfortable beds. The plan was to check out at 12 noon. It was around 8 am and since niether of us were comfortable, none of us had slept and one of us was starting to develop a cold, I suggested we call it a day and maybe insisted on it a bit. My best friend got upset with me for shortening her time with her new boyfriend and she stopped talking to me. I never called her again and she never called me again. That was it.

 

In four years of university I had no close friends (defined as people you can call up to chat or make plans with to go to the movies or something.)

 

In 2 years of grad school, I again had no close friends. But I did get a boyfriend who became my social life and when that relationship died, I went back to being a hermit.

 

I recently developed a very close friendship with a new girl who I met last year. She has become my social life. We share many things in common and when it's good between us it's great. But we fight a lot. Currently we are not speaking. Usually when I argue with her it's because I get offended by something she has said or done. Sometimes I feel she is being condescending. Other times I feel she is being disrespectful. I dunno...

 

It sounds like I'm difficult to get along with doesn't it? I get offended too easily.

 

Has anyone else had a similar history? Do you (the people who said it was abnormal) still think it's abnormal?

 

This is the thing: if I let things slide with friends (their condenscension or unfriendly behaviour) I feel like I am letting people walk all over me and that I am in a relationship with someone who isn't my real friend. This fear overwhelms me and I guess I choose to be friendless over having untrue friends.

 

OK, I can see my own personality disorders becoming apparent. But how do I reconcile these feelings/thoughts in my mind in that moment of a fight or argument?

 

Thanks,

J

[justine4]

J,

A lot of what you've described is a normal pattern of behaviour between friends growing up.

 

From reading your breakdown of things, I noticed two things:

 

i) Each time you get a friend you seem to build your social life around them.

 

ii) There seems to be a trend of you getting annoyed with someone and then it ends in a arguement and going on to ignoring the other/s instead of talking things through. Some points you made are valid reasons to be annoyed at someone eg the party your friend threw without telling you, however, the other friend wanting to spend time with her boyfriend - thats natural.

 

 

In life generally would you say you're agressive or argumentative?

 

Maybe looking into the underlying reasons and trying to understand why you react to situations and get upset would be a good start and perhaps help prevent the same happening in the future.

 

Theres no such thing as normal in life. Everyones different. We all deal with things in different ways.

 

Try joining a group (if you feel comfortable in doing so) and then you're mixing with a variety of personalilities and not pinning your social life on one particular person.

[GPFan]

You don't do compromise well, do you?

 

It appears that you do well at looking after your own interests and you do so aggressively. You don't let things go when your interests have been transgressed resulting in held grudges.

 

Friends have disagreements, they have times when one feels the other has not been considerate of them and times when a friend's behaviour is downright obnoxious. The difference is the element of forgiveness after a period of time.

 

Forgiveness comes when one feels that they would like to have the person in their lives, warts and all. This could also be perceived as love between friends.

 

You will find it easier keeping friends once you decide that it is OK to compromise once in a while.

[Zal2008]

Thank you for your honest opinions. I appreciate your time.

 

Joowels

[Cricket96]

I'm turning 30 soon too and I feel like my circle of friends are disappearing. My social life is currently at work. I do happy hour went them and plan little things with them.

 

I get annoyed easily when my friends lately too. I feel like if I accept their rude behavior towards me that they were walking all over me because my little sister has friends that are completely nice to her and she's nice back. I want caring friends like that. Perhaps we are overly sensitive people. I'm trying to work on that.

[Zal2008]

I'm not in a position really to give friend advice, but I can tell you that in the last 20 years of my life (since age 10) it has become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to form real bonds. If I could do it over again I would just accept the inconsiderate and unloving behaviour I recieved from friends just so I could hang on to them -- because the pain of being isolated and alone for so long is far worse than the short-term pain of being transgressed against (in little stupid ways) by a friend.

 

Not sure if "normal" people( i.e. people who actually have maintained their relationships) agree with this or not. Would welcome your thoughts.

 

P.S. Please not I have changed to username.

[NotKelly]

Zal, I'm 38 and don't have a social circle either, really.

 

I believe this is a problem in trusting people. I have had a lifelong trust deficit. I do not know why - nothing bad ever happened to me (no abuse, no excessive teasing, etc). Nobody treats me mean. I just don't feel comfortable around others. I need much longer to get to know people than most people are willing to wait. I just can't imagine how people find friends so quickly, or love relationships so quickly, much less casual sex. When I was in college, I was bewildered how quickly everyone else on our dorm floor started hanging out together. Instant friends! I just didn't get it. How did that happen? I still don't know. It was like they all had some secret code word that I wasn't given.

 

It sounds like you feel most comfortable in one-on-one relationships. I have kind of a similar tendency (and it led to to a long, bad "love" relationship that was no good for me). Now I am back at square one when making friends. It just doesn't come as easily for me. I keep my own counsel. When you're alone, you're free to pursue whatever interest you like, whatever music you like, etc, and then you find there's nobody who matches up with you. There are few people who know the freedom (and pain) of aloneness; they've always got a reference to a boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, kids, etc...

 

I'm just not a "group" person, but that is how you develop a social circle. I trust individuals, but not group dynamics - I feel like I am at the mercy of a pack of wolves, and I wasn't even teased much as a kid.

 

Unfortunately your 30's are a bad time to find a group anyway. People in their 30's are super conservative... they're either settling down with spouse 'n'kids, or they're bitter that their dating in their 20's went bad. Actually, I'll go so far as to say that people in their 30's are among the most awful friend material on the planet. People tend to get less self-absorbed as they get older.

 

There may be a little "all or nothing thinking" going on too. Today I brooded all day over a casual remark a friend of mine made to me. I thought, "There's no future for our friendship if that's his attitude." Later I realized I may have misinterpreted his remark (he though it was a compliment). Instead of shutting him down, I just let it roll off as best as I could. There may be time to clear things up later.

 

Another thing: You may take friendship seriously than others do. A lot of "friends" that other people appear to have are really fair-weather friends. The relationships may be breezy, but they are also mostly shallow, and impermanent. And that's OK. You may need to learn how to make fair-weather friends, just as a skill. I have a lot of trouble with that. I want high and meaningful friendships all the time. Well, there are not a whole lot of people who even know what that is (yet - they learn about it as they get older) and they aren't looking for it. So, dare to be shallow sometimes. Easier said than done...

[Ronni_W]

It sounds like I'm difficult to get along with doesn't it? I get offended too easily.

J, let's assume that your instinct about the problem is correct.

A therapist will help you learn how to assess your 'external world' from a broader perspective so that your only reactions won't be "I'm being attacked; I need to take defensive action here" or "I am offended by that!"

 

With a therapist's help, you'll gain a clearer picture of how your current style of communicating is making you come across to others so that you can decide if you want to change that.

You'll also learn more effective ways of responding to people in all kinds of situations, especially the challenging, "negative" ones; and you'll learn ways to respond from a place of conscious awareness (it sounds as if currently you may just go on 'automatic pilot' whenever your defense mechanisms are triggered.)

 

If you choose to get proper help and support, you will have a broader range of options to choose from, and the self-management skills to choose something that fits more closely with who you are, how you want to relate to others, and how you want others to see you.

 

In the end, it makes no difference if your behaviour leans more towards "avoidant" or "rejecting" or "blaming" or whatever...those are all just words that point to the various maladaptive coping methods that we've developed in response to an emotionally traumatizing experience, for lack of having been taught a better way to deal with that event.

There's no need to get caught up in the labels that other people want to put on you, and it also isn't necessary to put labels on yourself.

 

You TOTALLY can learn new ways of coping with challenges, and a new style of communicating that will promote positive, mutually supportive, encouraging and rewarding friendships. You DO have the power, within yourself, to do that.

 

It sounds as if your mom is as insightful as you are, too -- likely it will be easier and faster for you, if you enlist the help of a professional psychotherapist. But mostly it is up to you, of course...YOUR decision and determination to take control of your part of all your relationships; YOUR effort to learn and practice the new techniques; and YOUR self-awareness and self-discipline that will ensure your success.

 

YOU totally can do it!

[Kristine]

There is one thing I should mention: in grade 6, all the girls in my class turned against me and stopped talking to me for years. My lack of friends started from that point on. It crushed my spirit at the age of 10 and I have never been able to trust friends after that. It was devastating and at that age, it must have been life changing for me.

 

Something happened that triggered them to react that way towards you. I do agree with your mom and think you should see a therapist about this. And you don't have to walk on eggshells with good friends. Why would you think you'd have to? Maybe you not being yourself around people pushes them away.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[Zal2008]

Thanks everyone for your insights.

 

Ronnie, I noticed that you live in the same city as me. Would you be able to recommend someone who can help me do the things you outlined? I have coverage for a clinical psychologist through my employer, but I know you mentioned a psychotherapist.

 

Thank you,

Z

[Ronni_W]

Hi Z.

Send me a private message, if you don't mind, and I'd be happy to offer whatever info may be of assistance.

Isn't it shaping up to be a gorgeous evening here? ~ enjoy it to the max!

Ronni

[Zal2008]

Hi Ronni,

 

The site says you have to be an established member in order to send PMs. Would you be able to email me? email zalim_prenses at hotmail dot com

 

(I am writing it this way so I get no spammers mailing me).

[My_Other_I]

Hello :-)

 

The first question I would ask is if you feel like you need friends or you just feel social pressure for 'normality'.

Often times I feel like you do; I know so many people, my job is very social but when **** hits the fan I only have my mom and 2 GUY friends I can/want talk to. I have never really had female friends (I'm female) for the same reasons you mentioned - bad experience. I have never been able to completely trust women I meet and never have been able to maintain friendships.

Have you tried finding friends in the right circles? People who are interested in similar causes and things? Maybe you are a true hermit?

[Green]

sounds like you want to go see a counsler about this so you might as well. Don't worry about what is NORMAL but aim more for what is good for you. If being friendless is a lonely painful thing for you then whether its NORMAL or not you should try to change your situation.

[Ronni_W]

Hi Zal.

I'll email you. Not sure if you can still edit your post to delete your email - if you contact site admin, they can probably do it for you.

'Talk' soon,

Ronni

[Virgo1982]

I'm turning 30 soon too and I feel like my circle of friends are disappearing. My social life is currently at work. I do happy hour went them and plan little things with them.

 

I get annoyed easily when my friends lately too. I feel like if I accept their rude behavior towards me that they were walking all over me because my little sister has friends that are completely nice to her and she's nice back. I want caring friends like that. Perhaps we are overly sensitive people. I'm trying to work on that.

 

Maybe you don't command the proper respect initially or maybe your sister doesn't sweat the small stuff.