Quote: (10-10-2018 11:43 AM)Duke Main Wrote:
This is an interesting question and I'm sure you'll get some great advise here. How old are you? What are you studying in school? If you're studying something that's a true passion I'm sure you'll connect with like minded students in time. I wish you well.
I'm 28, so I'm sure the age difference does play into it a bit. Although my closest friend right now is 35. I'm a molecular biology major working toward an accelerated masters in nursing. I have just noticed that people chat with me in class, but seems to shut off as soon as we're out the door. I honestly can't tell if it's me or them anymore.
Quote: (10-10-2018 06:59 PM)Delta Wrote:
From my experience, real friendships only result from situations where you're forced to see the same people over and over.
I've tried going out and making friends via meetup groups and what not. I find it very easy to make conversation with some guys there, exchange numbers, yada yada. But then what? Invite this dude you talked to for like 20 minutes out for a drink some time? No one does that. To be honest, nothing ever comes of it when you exchange numbers with some guy you met once. Compare that to going out and gaming girls: Girls are much less friendly, much harder to talk to, much more critical/judgmental, much more likely to eject from the conversation, etc. But when you do hold an engaging convo with a girl and get her number, you know exactly what to do; text her in the next couple days and just run your standard first date game. Totally straight-forward. So even though other men are far more friendly and open than women, that doesn't mean they're easier to become close with out of the blue.
I've thought about this a lot and realized true friends almost always come from the following categories:
1. Grew up together
2. Went to college together
3. Work(ed) together
4. Were in some close-knit club or organization
5. Hung out repeatedly via mutual friends
Again, notice the theme of places where you'd see the same people over and over.
I assume stages 1 and 2 are behind you, but 3-5 are likely accessible. Focus on those. You can try, as I have, meeting dudes for platonic friendship in the same way that you meet chicks, but I don't know of anyone who does that successfully.
I guess it has only been a few months. But my bigger problem is the people that I am friends with seem to forget I exist unless I'm right under their nose. They don't actively exclude me, but there's never an invite to go out and do something unless I'm around when they're getting their shit together. They always seem to enjoy themselves when I organize something and I'm reasonably sure they're not just putting up with me as a necessary evil.
It's this general idea that is making me question my normal dynamic of making friends. I am attempting to explore whether there is something about me that makes people reluctant to bring me into their groups. I always feel like I have to be the nucleus if I want to have social interaction.
As I have mentioned before, the majority of my friends (and dates) have come from people entering into my sphere. For example, in one of my lab sessions I was talking to my partner about my tabletop gaming hobbies, and that eventually ended up with 6 people giving me their numbers and I organized a few meetings for us to play board games together. I had them over to my place a few times, but over the course of about 2 months we basically all broke contact with each other. Things like this happen a lot to me and nothing ever seems to stick.