Intentionally Making Close Friends (2021)

> ...getting insecure or jealous of all the other social connections that your extrovert friends have. There’s an asymmetry there that can feed lots of insecurities.

I wouldn't sweat this too much. Mathematically, most people have fewer friends than their friends have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox

I used to feel insecure or jealous of the number of friends these people have, but years ago I realized that I would find their lives exhausting and terrible. And vice versa, they'd hate the amount of time I spend on my own doing stuff.

Find some nerdy social hobby, become part of a community. Board games, killer queen arcade, and indoor rock climbing have all been a bridge to some close friendships for me.

>I’m sure that there’s something equivalent from the other direction, but I dont know what it is

There's a risk of becoming a people pleaser or letting people down. People expect you to manage the party or the outing or whatever.

There's fear that the many relationships you have are shallow. Even in this post your suggestion is to simply use the extrovert to get to a real friend you actually want.

Direct insecurity of what people "actually" think of you is still there, I'm sure.

That said, people are usually thinking about their own problems and what people think of them a lot more than what they think of you so just relax a bit.

Int-to-int pairs are more likely to form in nature at specific watering holes.

For example, EA/rationalist is not quite my kind of community (altough I think highly of many of their writings), but an ACX meetup looks like a good place for introverts of a particular kind to come together.

I guess the trick is to find the right kind of place first.

There's nothing equivalent from the other direction.

- extrovert

(/s ;))

Ah, you b--tard stealing my hard-earned friends! ;))

But seriously, is this how some insecure introverts also bond around those charismatic sociopaths and then help'em ruin the world while quietly working for the XYZ agencies? /s

My first job out of college I was hired to follow around an MSP/IT consultant and learn what he did, specifically to cut the expense of having a MCSA/network engineer coming in weekly for basic desktop support.

I met him in the server closet and asked “hey, I’m new here - do you mind if I look over your shoulder?” He turned around and smiled, “if you are here to help, then you should sit down and I’ll walk you through setting up Exchange mailboxes for these doctors.” Before he left, he walked me through a RAM upgrade and gave me his lucky red screwdriver “ you got this, just call me if you have any issues.”

Later in my career, I continue to learn lessons from this interaction; lately the lesson has been one of “don’t be awesome in a vacuum” - a little bit of encouragement to the new guy can go a long way to adding another person to your on-call rotation that you trust.

20 years later, I still have his screwdriver - and I bring it every time we have lunch every once in a while.

Life is too short to not let the people who make life enjoyable for us know so.

Following your girlfriend's mom's advice, you wouldn't trust anyone.

Maybe that's why so few people have friends these days: they set some crazy/impossible conditions that you have to meet before they will trust you. As an autistic person it's impossible for me to guess what kind of crazy requirements I have failed to meet.

For me, as a non-introvert, I had to come to the realization that most people just won’t reciprocate at a level I want. That you just have to make the stuff happen that you want to happen. So, you really can’t wait for people to reach out to you. If you want to spend time with someone or if you want to have a group outing you just have to be the one to do it. It’s kinda like any club Ive been a part in. There’s usually a few people that drive things, organize, etc and most freeload off that. Your friendships will be like that too. You might find another driver and that’s great! But it won’t be the case most of the time. And it won’t be because people don’t want to do things, it’s just how people are. I wouldn’t take offense. Just think they aren’t gonna be the vice president of your friend club and they’ll just be a member and that’s okay too. Y’all still have a good time.

Growing up, it seemed the kids that moved a lot, aka military brats, were often good at finding new friends. More practice I assumed.

I'm in the same boat, friend. Being exposed to so much has its upsides but ability to make lasting relationships is not one of them.

Hi, what are your hobbies?

> One of them stopped talking to me for reasons I don't understand.

This is relatively common from what I've seen. People who just ghost a friend, or ghost an entire groups of friends. A lot of the times it's because they're unhappy with their life and trying to make a clean break from what they were connected to before.

I’m sorry for what happened to you.

I don’t know if it can comfort you but personally I’m trying to accept that it’s ok to be "vulnerable" with mostly everyone. Most of the time it creates interesting bonds with people. Sometimes you are being "vulnerable" to authentic jerks and so what ? Most of the time you can just ignore them.

I find that acting like this is actually an effective automatic filter for my social interactions.

The only place I’m more protecting myself (without being totally closed) is at work because, probably due to the environment, people aren’t acting normally at work.

Sort of the same. I’ve lost touch with or been sabotaged by the people I used to be close to. Now I have acquaintances, people I know and am fine hanging out with, but I don’t have anyone close that I’d really trust or open up to. And I’m fine with that, the effort it takes and the risks of being very open with someone are not worth it to me. And if someone tries to open up to me, I’m immediately suspicious and will start to distance myself. At this point in my life I’m not interested in taking on someone else’s emotional baggage.

It’s an awful feeling to have a trusted friend distance themselves with no explanation. It amplifies any insecurities we have.

I hope you find someone you can connect with. I’m rooting for you man.

Sorry about your losses, especially Meka. Showing up for therapy is courageous. That's not small.

It's not as hard as you think to get close to people, but you have to be intentional about it.

First step would be to widen your "funnel" of new people in your life before then filtering them down. Simply need to go to social events, meetups, etc.

I believe there are lots of people I'd open up to, but it's complicated because I would want to sleep with them