Comment by Gigachad
8 hours ago
My advice is to go somewhere in person and to keep going there consistently. It could be a club, a meetup, volunteering, etc.
The internet is the fast food of socialising. While it might be quick and easy, the quality is terrible. You’ll make real life long friends just being in the same room as someone regularly and chatting face to face.
I'm the same as the parent. I've done this. I've been in groups for 2+ years and attend regularly and am not able to get any close friends out of it. I just don't form the connections that other people do. There's just something about the way I interact that doesn't cause me to get close to people. It might be something I'm doing subconsciously and I just don't know what it is. It's not like people can't stand me or anything. There's many people I can interact with normally at work or whatnot. I just don't seem to "click" with people. If anyone knows a coach or course that helps to address this, I would be interested.
I'm in a similar situation — 0 friends, 0 regular contacts, 0 significant others in general (though maybe I'm less worried about that than the original poster). So, I have no chats to analyze. What you offer doesn't work for me. I studied onsite at 2 universities and have 0 contacts/friends from there. I've now been studying for 3 years at an onsite school (I'm there every evening after work and on weekends) — 0 contacts/friends. I moderated a support group weekly for 3 years — 0 contacts/friends. I worked at 4 non-remote jobs, at least 2 years each — 0 contacts/friends.
> I studied onsite at 2 universities and have 0 contacts/friends from there.
IIRC, it's harder than high school to make friends at a university. It's bigger and more anonymous, and outside of student housing there's less free time where students are forced together.
My high school class wasn't too much larger than Dunbar's number (300), and you were getting mixed up with the same kids for 6 hours straight for 6 years.
My university wasn't even that large, and I think there were ~>3,000 kids in my year and plenty enough in my major that it wasn't uncommon (without deliberate effort) to have zero overlap from semester to semester.
You're not going to make friends by studying. Hard pill to swallow, but you have to make an effort to talk to people and get to know them. Go out to lunch with them.
If you're eating alone at your desk, you are signaling that you wish to be left alone.
That's a really strong signal you are either being too picky or focused on yourself. This isn't necessarily "bad", just an observation. Sometimes the environments you put yourself in lack the spark.
This largely depends on luck, though it can improve your chances. There are places where you can be a regular your entire life and never meet a meaningful person, while at other times, simply being in the right place at the right time can lead you to someone with whom you develop a lifelong relationship.
Yes, it does have a component of luck. But it also has a component that's not luck, namely the showing up part. Of course there's no "friend solution" and i wouldn't go looking for friends by sitting in the corner of a cafe on my laptop all day. But i bet going to a makerspace, or a hobby meet, is basically guaranteed to make friends within 1 to 3 months of attendance. So don't let the doubt prevent you from going. There's only one way out and it's to start showing up
Of course you have to be proactive, but even then, people for any reason, might not be open to connect - language, culture, clique, personality, etc. You just have to find the tribe you vibe with, and that is mostly luck.
The internet offers less means to bond (mostly a subset of what you get in real life), but the quality most definitely does not have to be terrible. The relationships you form over long distance have potential to be as strong as those you form in person, even if building them up is significantly more difficult.