The Place to Go for Emotional Support — Page 68

moviefreakedmind said:

The isolation actually does bother me, but every time I interact with anyone beyond a superficial conversation they make me want to be sick. I can’t explain it, but to me the isolation is more of a lesser of two evils thing.

Yeah, that sounds familiar too. Less than five minutes into a conversation with most people and I’m desperately looking for a way out. There are very few exceptions. It sucks.

I severed ties with all of my friends a little over a year ago because I thought they were up to something and I’m not capable of making new ones.

I’m 28 and I still don’t know how to make new friends. It’s fucking tough. It’s possible, but I couldn’t tell you how to do it. I have a grand total of four actual friends in my life and I’m only close with two of them and I couldn’t tell you how any of that happened. I wish I could help you there.

I do actually really appreciate this. It does mean a lot to me.

Well, I mean it. I might not be able to offer useful advice, but I’ve found that sometimes just being heard by somebody helps, even if there isn’t much of anything they can do.

I’m in a similar situation. Nobody’s friendly or if they are, they’re obnoxious, fake, and annoying. Not sure what to do. Thankfully I have some support structure with some very old friends, but we don’t do anything, have little in common, and it probably won’t last much longer. Anyway, good luck to both of you, I offer my support as well as a fellow isolated grump.

That can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. There are people out there that don’t have malicious purposes, but if you’re always watching and waiting for the moment they “turn,” you can start to see it happening in things they do, say, and don’t say, when whatever it actually is is completely innocent. I’ve been guilty of that many times.

This same thing applies to many similar assumptions, too. I’ve come to expect nothing of people at all, and that has improved things tremendously for me. I mean, it may have made me a little numb emotionally, but so far that hasn’t been as bad as the loneliness was.

(As far as trust goes, I only truly trust one of my friends, and even then, only so far. Trust is difficult for me.)

Handman said:

I’m in a similar situation. Nobody’s friendly or if they are, they’re obnoxious, fake, and annoying. Not sure what to do. Thankfully I have some support structure with some very old friends, but we don’t do anything, have little in common, and it probably won’t last much longer. Anyway, good luck to both of you, I offer my support as well as a fellow isolated grump.

Oh man, that video…

Good luck to you as well, my friend. I’ve got a feeling one of my older friendships is on the way out, too. And I dread what will happen when either myself or my neighbors move. I constantly fear that 90% of our closeness is solely due to proximity…

This might not be a practical solution by any means, but do you guys work in a field where you could look for a new job at a larger company? For years I worked at small companies (20-30 people) but when I took a new job with a larger company (~120 people) I found a lot more potential friends who I was around all day.

I personally prefer working at a smaller company, and moving to a larger one would require a few more years experience or some type of ASTM or ISO certifications in the equipment we use that I don’t know how to get (and my supervisors wouldn’t want to help me get said certs because that would mean they’d have to pay me more). Though honestly I intend to move to a higher-paying company once I have a year or so more experience anyway for higher pay than I’ll be able to get here.

But to be completely honest, I don’t know how to handle having more than 3-5 friends at a time. I’m bad at keeping in touch with people, and half the time when they try to get in touch with me I’m busy or not in a mood to spend time with anyone, and after a while they stop trying to contact me and the friendship dies off because I never contact them either. Keeping my friend circle smaller than 5 people means I can give all of them the attention they deserve - more than that and I feel like I’m sacrificing friend #4 to keep up with friend #6 and I don’t even know what’s going on with friend #5…

Another thing to consider, if it’s an option and you aren’t already doing so, is to try more dating. Finding a girlfriend is another way to keep from being isolated.

Yeah, that’s another whole can of worms…

TV’s Frink said:

Another thing to consider, if it’s an option and you aren’t already doing so, is to try more dating. Finding a girlfriend is another way to keep from being isolated.

Sounds easy.

It’s harder for some. I’d go into why that’s the case for me, but I’ve yet to explain it to someone who doesn’t know me personally without them going on about how it’s not a real thing and I’m just acting like some special snowflake looking for attention.

I’m not very personable.

Handman said:

TV’s Frink said:

Another thing to consider, if it’s an option and you aren’t already doing so, is to try more dating. Finding a girlfriend is another way to keep from being isolated.

Sounds easy.

Never said it was. But it’s worth trying. And who knows, even if you fail to find a girlfriend, maybe you find some friends instead.

moviefreakedmind said:

When I said it’s not hard I meant that it’s not hard to find a person to date, or even have a relationship with. It is hard, however, to find someone that isn’t malevolent.

That’s apparently your experience but it’s definitely not mine.

What do you mean when you say malevolent?

My girlfriend of several months , with whom things were getting serious and I felt very strongly for, called me a few days ago and said she thinks we should just be friends. Obviously I told her that was ludicrous and that if she wanted to dump me then we obviously weren’t going to be friends and that she would just have to deal with me not being very happy about it, and that we weren’t going to be friends. (To be honest though that’s a million times more friendly than the way I said it… Honestly after four fucking months of being pretty serious and being together every day how can you just say you want it to be friends and expect that to just be okay like no big deal)

Today I found it it was because she wanted to be with somebody else and couldn’t be honest with me about it.

So much for the good mood I’ve been in lately! Guess it’s a good thing the tock is clicking on my alcoholic liver lol.

Ugh, sorry man.

Shit, that really sucks. I’m sorry.

That’s kind of what I was talking about with self-fulfilling prophecies. If you start with the assumption that someone’s going to stab you in the back, you can easily see backstabbing and manipulation in many things that are actually benign.

Sure, a lot of people are like that, but most don’t care enough about anyone but themselves to bother with manipulating and backstabbing.

Possessed said:

Guess it’s a good thing the tock is clicking on my alcoholic liver lol.

Might I suggest bourbon and ginger ale? It’s a recent favorite of mine. Just poured my third of the night.