How can I objectively figure out what makes me unlikeable?
May 29, 2024 9:08 AM Subscribe
I feel like despite my efforts and intentions, I don’t get back what I put in in my relationships with others. I strongly feel like there is something about me that makes others not really like me that much or put me high in their list of “not very important people” but I cannot figure out what. Who/what could help me figure out that blind spot?
Although I am married and have an overall good relationship with my partner, I have a hard time maintaining friendships with others despite what I think are good efforts on my part to do so.
However, I always feel like I’m the one always reaching out and trying to keep a connection with people who sometimes respond, sometimes they don’t.
For example, I’m always reaching out first to female cousins with whom I grew up and consider very important to me despite us living in different countries as adults, but they definitely don’t feel the same because they only respond but never initiate any communication.
Similar with friendships, I always feel like I get 1 back for every 5 I put in. One particular friend, I feel like they’ve actually become toxic in how they’re treating me and I’d be better off slowing down communication significantly, but because I feel so lonely sometimes I can’t pull the plug on it.
I feel like there is something about me that irritates others for some reason or that makes them put me in a “ not very important” bucket. What can I do what it is that turns people off or makes them less inclined to value me equally or put in the same efforts? What vibes am I putting out there that makes others think “this person doesn’t deserve much attention”? I have no social media presence , could that play a part in it? Am I signaling low status because I don’t engage in socially acceptable behaviors of broadcasting things about my life?
I consider myself to be a person with empathy, integrity, varied interests, and a sense of humor so it upsets and frustrates me that either these are not coming through in friendships or I’m inadvertently doing something that is messing things up.
Does anyone have any advice or has been in a similar situation?
Although I am married and have an overall good relationship with my partner, I have a hard time maintaining friendships with others despite what I think are good efforts on my part to do so.
However, I always feel like I’m the one always reaching out and trying to keep a connection with people who sometimes respond, sometimes they don’t.
For example, I’m always reaching out first to female cousins with whom I grew up and consider very important to me despite us living in different countries as adults, but they definitely don’t feel the same because they only respond but never initiate any communication.
Similar with friendships, I always feel like I get 1 back for every 5 I put in. One particular friend, I feel like they’ve actually become toxic in how they’re treating me and I’d be better off slowing down communication significantly, but because I feel so lonely sometimes I can’t pull the plug on it.
I feel like there is something about me that irritates others for some reason or that makes them put me in a “ not very important” bucket. What can I do what it is that turns people off or makes them less inclined to value me equally or put in the same efforts? What vibes am I putting out there that makes others think “this person doesn’t deserve much attention”? I have no social media presence , could that play a part in it? Am I signaling low status because I don’t engage in socially acceptable behaviors of broadcasting things about my life?
I consider myself to be a person with empathy, integrity, varied interests, and a sense of humor so it upsets and frustrates me that either these are not coming through in friendships or I’m inadvertently doing something that is messing things up.
Does anyone have any advice or has been in a similar situation?
One more thought: I have been in this situation and I dealt with it by joining meet ups. I’m in two bookclub, a writing club, a knitting group. I serve on a board and volunteer. People talk about doing this as a way to meet people and presumably take the friendship to the next level, but honestly the socializing that happens in the meet up is good practice for me, as is: friendly, surface level socializing without score keeping. (I also have a gym buddy which I really recommend; again not a kindred spirit just someone else who wants to exercise the same time I do and who I can have friendly convos with).
posted by CMcG at 9:19 AM on May 29 [7 favorites]
posted by CMcG at 9:19 AM on May 29 [7 favorites]
Response by poster: CMcG asked an important question I should had included, I’m in my mid thirties and no kids yet though I’m pregnant with my first, which makes the lack of strong friendships feel even more poignant right now.
The people i mentioned some have kids (like my cousins) and some don’t (existing friends/acquaintances)
posted by Riverside at 9:20 AM on May 29 [3 favorites]
The people i mentioned some have kids (like my cousins) and some don’t (existing friends/acquaintances)
posted by Riverside at 9:20 AM on May 29 [3 favorites]
If you are pregnant now, it's a good time to meet other women in the same life stage. Instead of reaching out to old friends now, join some pregnancy groups, and after you have the baby, some baby/mommy classes.
posted by ojocaliente at 9:36 AM on May 29 [34 favorites]
posted by ojocaliente at 9:36 AM on May 29 [34 favorites]
I am in a similar situation. Speaking for myself (and decidedly NOT about you), I am a rather oblivious person and I also have ADHD so I am bad at following up on anything but the most direct invitations and even then. I'm sure it's tiresome for others. I frequently start off what feel like friendships and the other parties seem enthusiastic about hanging out then... never follow up to my invitations but I see them doing the same activity with other people. It's hard to write about this and not sound bitter! I do think, if you have a friend you trust to give kind but honest advice (constructive criticism) and who is more socially successful, that might be a place to start. It's also difficult to ask this kind of question without sounding whiny ("why does no one like meeeeee") or like you're fishing to be told you're just peaches and cream all the time.
One thing I've noticed, which is probably very obvious to most people, is that if I am the most geographically separate from others I'm nearly always left out. So if 3-4 of my friends live in a 2-3 mile radius of Neighbourhood A and I live 10 miles away in Neighbourhood B, they just don't think to invite me. I have no idea what your housing situation is but trying to make more connections in your immediate area or, if you rent, finding a place nearer your existing ones might help a ton.
I'm also very bad at noticing what some people call "bids" - someone says something that makes them feel vulnerable and they are hoping you will follow up in turn. So I think I tend to form surface level relationships that never deepen because I miss those cues, thus putting me on the "nice to see them, not super important list". Again, I don't know you, but if that sounds relatable it might be worth practicing this skill, either with your partner or a therapist.
I have seen deliberately placing yourself in the "hub" role work for people, by e.g. regularly hosting a dinner and film night once a month. You run the risk of people saying yes and then consistently not turning up but it's a strategy to try if you feel up to it. I'm too disorganized for this one myself, unfortunately.
Best of luck, I really hope someone manages to figure this out.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 9:46 AM on May 29 [17 favorites]
One thing I've noticed, which is probably very obvious to most people, is that if I am the most geographically separate from others I'm nearly always left out. So if 3-4 of my friends live in a 2-3 mile radius of Neighbourhood A and I live 10 miles away in Neighbourhood B, they just don't think to invite me. I have no idea what your housing situation is but trying to make more connections in your immediate area or, if you rent, finding a place nearer your existing ones might help a ton.
I'm also very bad at noticing what some people call "bids" - someone says something that makes them feel vulnerable and they are hoping you will follow up in turn. So I think I tend to form surface level relationships that never deepen because I miss those cues, thus putting me on the "nice to see them, not super important list". Again, I don't know you, but if that sounds relatable it might be worth practicing this skill, either with your partner or a therapist.
I have seen deliberately placing yourself in the "hub" role work for people, by e.g. regularly hosting a dinner and film night once a month. You run the risk of people saying yes and then consistently not turning up but it's a strategy to try if you feel up to it. I'm too disorganized for this one myself, unfortunately.
Best of luck, I really hope someone manages to figure this out.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 9:46 AM on May 29 [17 favorites]
I consider myself to be a person with empathy, integrity, varied interests, and a sense of humor so it upsets and frustrates me that either these are not coming through in friendships or I’m inadvertently doing something that is messing things up.
I have no idea what you might inadvertently be doing that's messing things up for you, but what I used to do that messed things up for me was expecting other people to act as I would if I were in their circumstances; that expectation inevitably leads to disappointment when their behaviour seems worse to me than mine would or shame when it seems better.
My life improved a great deal after I started paying attention to what people do not in order to compare it to what I assumed I'd have done in their place, but rather to understand them better.
Letting go of the idea that there exists some objectively correct way to live was very liberating, as was realizing that patience, kindness, generosity, curiosity and appreciating absurdity are attitudes worth cultivating not because they will be reciprocated but just because practising them feels good.
I always feel like I get 1 back for every 5 I put in.
To my way of thinking, caring about or even thinking about what I get back compared to what I put in is an attitude appropriate only to work for hire; I think it's corrosive to friendship, as is ever putting more into a friendship than I genuinely want to.
The kinds of friendship I wish to participate in are defined by being longstanding and non-transactional; I do nice things for my friends not in order to obligate them but just because I like them and seeing them happy feels good. Trying to stay close with people who do seem to score-keep the relationship is something I find completely draining and choose not to participate in.
posted by flabdablet at 10:10 AM on May 29 [24 favorites]
I have no idea what you might inadvertently be doing that's messing things up for you, but what I used to do that messed things up for me was expecting other people to act as I would if I were in their circumstances; that expectation inevitably leads to disappointment when their behaviour seems worse to me than mine would or shame when it seems better.
My life improved a great deal after I started paying attention to what people do not in order to compare it to what I assumed I'd have done in their place, but rather to understand them better.
Letting go of the idea that there exists some objectively correct way to live was very liberating, as was realizing that patience, kindness, generosity, curiosity and appreciating absurdity are attitudes worth cultivating not because they will be reciprocated but just because practising them feels good.
I always feel like I get 1 back for every 5 I put in.
To my way of thinking, caring about or even thinking about what I get back compared to what I put in is an attitude appropriate only to work for hire; I think it's corrosive to friendship, as is ever putting more into a friendship than I genuinely want to.
The kinds of friendship I wish to participate in are defined by being longstanding and non-transactional; I do nice things for my friends not in order to obligate them but just because I like them and seeing them happy feels good. Trying to stay close with people who do seem to score-keep the relationship is something I find completely draining and choose not to participate in.
posted by flabdablet at 10:10 AM on May 29 [24 favorites]
definitely a lot of good thoughts here! just want to add: you are likeable. everyone has at least one thing interesting and fun about them. really, many many more. ojocaliente's thought makes a lot of sense. you are having a baby! congratulations! soon there's one person to whom you will mean almost everything in the world. good luck!
posted by HearHere at 10:24 AM on May 29
posted by HearHere at 10:24 AM on May 29
For people who are trying to build up a circle of connections and friends in adulthood, it's a very common experience to always be the one to reach out first. The fact that so many are responding to you when you reach out shows that you are not unlikable. If they were ignoring you that would be a different matter.
Rather than take their lack of initiation as a judgment on you, reset your expectations and metrics. Keep reaching out without expecting folks to reciprocate the initiation. And in fact, even if people say no to a particular hangout, invite them to the next one and the next one and the next one before you give up on them. Count it as a success when someone shows up, not when someone else initiates the hangout, and certainly not just when someone's effort feels equal to yours. Success at this stage of connection building is defined as "response" not "reciprocity". Not yet.
I can't underline that enough. You have to stop counting effort and keeping tabs on who did what for whom for at least the first few years of trying to build connections. Those folks you are trying to build these new connections with presumably have lives and friends and connections already. You are in the periphery of their lives, you are a low priority. They can't reciprocate yet, their energies are elsewhere. But if they like you enough they will be responsive to you and in a couple of years you will be in their inner circle. Until then, patience.
posted by MiraK at 10:30 AM on May 29 [8 favorites]
Rather than take their lack of initiation as a judgment on you, reset your expectations and metrics. Keep reaching out without expecting folks to reciprocate the initiation. And in fact, even if people say no to a particular hangout, invite them to the next one and the next one and the next one before you give up on them. Count it as a success when someone shows up, not when someone else initiates the hangout, and certainly not just when someone's effort feels equal to yours. Success at this stage of connection building is defined as "response" not "reciprocity". Not yet.
I can't underline that enough. You have to stop counting effort and keeping tabs on who did what for whom for at least the first few years of trying to build connections. Those folks you are trying to build these new connections with presumably have lives and friends and connections already. You are in the periphery of their lives, you are a low priority. They can't reciprocate yet, their energies are elsewhere. But if they like you enough they will be responsive to you and in a couple of years you will be in their inner circle. Until then, patience.
posted by MiraK at 10:30 AM on May 29 [8 favorites]
this is fine
and not in the everything-is-on-fire meme sense, either.
Great friends are found more than made.
posted by flabdablet at 10:33 AM on May 29 [3 favorites]
and not in the everything-is-on-fire meme sense, either.
Great friends are found more than made.
posted by flabdablet at 10:33 AM on May 29 [3 favorites]
Damnit I accidentally edited out my tl;dr which flabdablet quoted:
"this is fine. you are fine. carry on."
posted by MiraK at 10:37 AM on May 29 [1 favorite]
"this is fine. you are fine. carry on."
posted by MiraK at 10:37 AM on May 29 [1 favorite]
I think there are some unproductive assumptions in your question here -
Firstly, you're assuming that there is such a thing as being "objectively unlikeable." I mean, I guess that once in a great while I meet someone where I'm like, "this person is awful and no one could possibly like them." But that's rare! (And just thinking about the last time I met such a person, they were out with their partner and another friend, so clearly I was wrong, because that person did actually seem to have people who liked them!) This is not to say I like everyone I meet/spend time with (and I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't like me all that much). But it's basically always a sort of mismatch rather than some kind of "one person is clearly unpleasant to be around" kind of thing.
Secondly, you're assuming that if other people are not committing to your relationship at the same level as you it's because they don't like you. How much they like you might be in play here, but so are a million other things! Like maybe they like you a lot but someone else needs them more right now. Maybe they're exhausted for work/health/family reasons. Maybe they're struggling with social anxiety. Maybe they're afraid of driving at night and that's the only time both of you have free. Maybe they just have lower social needs than you do, or social anxiety, or who knows.
Making friends as an adult is hard. And relationships are basically never 100% reciprocal. So yeah sometimes you have to suck it up and maybe "technically" you get out less than you put in. And maybe it will even out over time, or maybe it won't, but that's OK. Sometimes you decide to stop putting in the effort (freeing up more time/energy for the Herculean task of meeting new people). I think overall the thing to ask yourself is, "does spending time with/spending energy on this person make my life better?"
posted by mskyle at 10:41 AM on May 29 [4 favorites]
Firstly, you're assuming that there is such a thing as being "objectively unlikeable." I mean, I guess that once in a great while I meet someone where I'm like, "this person is awful and no one could possibly like them." But that's rare! (And just thinking about the last time I met such a person, they were out with their partner and another friend, so clearly I was wrong, because that person did actually seem to have people who liked them!) This is not to say I like everyone I meet/spend time with (and I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't like me all that much). But it's basically always a sort of mismatch rather than some kind of "one person is clearly unpleasant to be around" kind of thing.
Secondly, you're assuming that if other people are not committing to your relationship at the same level as you it's because they don't like you. How much they like you might be in play here, but so are a million other things! Like maybe they like you a lot but someone else needs them more right now. Maybe they're exhausted for work/health/family reasons. Maybe they're struggling with social anxiety. Maybe they're afraid of driving at night and that's the only time both of you have free. Maybe they just have lower social needs than you do, or social anxiety, or who knows.
Making friends as an adult is hard. And relationships are basically never 100% reciprocal. So yeah sometimes you have to suck it up and maybe "technically" you get out less than you put in. And maybe it will even out over time, or maybe it won't, but that's OK. Sometimes you decide to stop putting in the effort (freeing up more time/energy for the Herculean task of meeting new people). I think overall the thing to ask yourself is, "does spending time with/spending energy on this person make my life better?"
posted by mskyle at 10:41 AM on May 29 [4 favorites]
Maybe you’re not unlikeable, you’re just sinking too much time into people who aren’t available for friendship right now, instead of trying a couple of times and moving on?
I’ve moved to new cities a bunch of times in my life, and so I’ve had to build myself up from no friends//a circle of acquaintances//close friends several times. Usually that involves consistently being the first person to reach out a bunch at the start, which is never fun, but I generally don’t send more than three invites in a row without getting an invitation; if that happens, I don’t take it personally, I just assume the person’s availability for a reciprocal friendship is limited. The reason I don’t take it personally is that I’ve also been on the other side, when my social calendar is pretty booked, and so it’s hard for me to add new friends to the mix, especially if there’s any logistical barriers—different schedules, a neighborhood that’s hard to get to, etc.
.I think continually reaching out without reciprocation isn’t a great idea because it will take its toll on you and lead to resentment + feeling aggrieved/annoyed/martyred—and it can make the other person feel vaguely guilty/in debt to you, which probably isn’t enough to make them *dislike* you but could help wither a relationship in its early stages, when instead it might flourish once circumstances start to change. And your circumstances are about to change! 99% of friendships, I swear to god, are compatibility of schedule and location. I bet your next best friend is pregnant with her first kid right now, you just haven’t met her yet.
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 11:10 AM on May 29 [8 favorites]
I’ve moved to new cities a bunch of times in my life, and so I’ve had to build myself up from no friends//a circle of acquaintances//close friends several times. Usually that involves consistently being the first person to reach out a bunch at the start, which is never fun, but I generally don’t send more than three invites in a row without getting an invitation; if that happens, I don’t take it personally, I just assume the person’s availability for a reciprocal friendship is limited. The reason I don’t take it personally is that I’ve also been on the other side, when my social calendar is pretty booked, and so it’s hard for me to add new friends to the mix, especially if there’s any logistical barriers—different schedules, a neighborhood that’s hard to get to, etc.
.I think continually reaching out without reciprocation isn’t a great idea because it will take its toll on you and lead to resentment + feeling aggrieved/annoyed/martyred—and it can make the other person feel vaguely guilty/in debt to you, which probably isn’t enough to make them *dislike* you but could help wither a relationship in its early stages, when instead it might flourish once circumstances start to change. And your circumstances are about to change! 99% of friendships, I swear to god, are compatibility of schedule and location. I bet your next best friend is pregnant with her first kid right now, you just haven’t met her yet.
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 11:10 AM on May 29 [8 favorites]
Childbirth classes…my cousin is still close friends with three women she met when she had her first child and maintains loose contact with the others in her class. They all had their babies within a few weeks of each other and had a group chat comparing notes and encouraging each other. Eventually, many had more children also close together, there have now been a couple of divorces and other life events. My godson will be 9 this year.
posted by koahiatamadl at 11:15 AM on May 29 [6 favorites]
posted by koahiatamadl at 11:15 AM on May 29 [6 favorites]
Be positive about stuff. If life is generally worrisome, find specific things that are not worrisome and be positive about those particular things. It's hard to like someone whose conversation always sucks all the happiness out of the room.
posted by pracowity at 11:24 AM on May 29
posted by pracowity at 11:24 AM on May 29
I have no social media presence , could that play a part in it? Am I signaling low status because I don’t engage in socially acceptable behaviors of broadcasting things about my life?
I don't think it is about "status" - despite my desire for it not to be so, a lot of the back-and-forth that maintain friendships and lead to hang-outs in my life in 2024 occur via social media or group chats. I resisted it for years but have now just accepted this is what it takes to maintain the social connectivity I crave in this day and age.
When I opted out, I often did not find out about a particular outing or that someone was in town. It wasn't malicious, I was just not operating within the workflow of where people make plans and so they had to make a specific, special effort to include me. And sometimes they did, and other times people were busy and they forgot. So that might be a big part of it.
posted by openhearted at 11:40 AM on May 29 [6 favorites]
I don't think it is about "status" - despite my desire for it not to be so, a lot of the back-and-forth that maintain friendships and lead to hang-outs in my life in 2024 occur via social media or group chats. I resisted it for years but have now just accepted this is what it takes to maintain the social connectivity I crave in this day and age.
When I opted out, I often did not find out about a particular outing or that someone was in town. It wasn't malicious, I was just not operating within the workflow of where people make plans and so they had to make a specific, special effort to include me. And sometimes they did, and other times people were busy and they forgot. So that might be a big part of it.
posted by openhearted at 11:40 AM on May 29 [6 favorites]
I have struggled with this all my life. One way I have described it is that it feels like people don't mind if I'm present but they don't miss me if I'm not there. The internet's been helpful in giving me social connection that I don't always feel I'm initiating, but occasionally the fear of being lonely forever has been overwhelming and reduced me to uncontrollable sobbing. So I worked on it with an EMDR therapist, and I am definitely one of the people who did not know if anything was happening while I was in the process, but that was a couple of years ago and I haven't had one of the hysterical breakdowns since, so I guess it helped?
(I wanted the EMDR to defuse the collapsing-nebula sensation of grief and distress, not completely unpack the history of struggling with maintaining relationships, I doubt it would have fixed the whole kit-and-caboodle even if I'd tried. To be clear.)
Something that helped me even before the EMDR was to do some reading on the importance of "weak ties", and prioritizing that in my life. I still yearn for the deep intimacy that I don't get a lot of, but paying attention to and appreciating the ways people are nice and friendly in tiny tiny doses, and the ways I can be a pleasant blip in someone's day (instead of only focusing on the bid for emotional connection I made in a relationship that's a big deal to me), has made me feel less isolated and offputting. Sometimes a weak tie can develop into a stronger tie, but I try not to expect or chase that.
posted by pollytropos at 11:55 AM on May 29 [11 favorites]
(I wanted the EMDR to defuse the collapsing-nebula sensation of grief and distress, not completely unpack the history of struggling with maintaining relationships, I doubt it would have fixed the whole kit-and-caboodle even if I'd tried. To be clear.)
Something that helped me even before the EMDR was to do some reading on the importance of "weak ties", and prioritizing that in my life. I still yearn for the deep intimacy that I don't get a lot of, but paying attention to and appreciating the ways people are nice and friendly in tiny tiny doses, and the ways I can be a pleasant blip in someone's day (instead of only focusing on the bid for emotional connection I made in a relationship that's a big deal to me), has made me feel less isolated and offputting. Sometimes a weak tie can develop into a stronger tie, but I try not to expect or chase that.
posted by pollytropos at 11:55 AM on May 29 [11 favorites]
In your post, you seem to do a lot of categorization, binary thinking, and you attribute a lot of transactionality to relationships. A lot of these examples have been pointed out already in other comments - for example, wondering about whether you’re low status, discussing how many friendships you get back vs what you put in, classifying a friend as toxic for not putting in the effort you want, etc.
Personally, I feel these are very off putting ways of thinking about friendships and relationships. If I had a friend who was counting the number of interactions we had, classified themself as low status or unlikable because I didn’t put in enough work for them, who felt like I put them in a “not very important” bucket or called me toxic because I don’t often initiate conversations, well I would find that friendship exhausting and off putting and quite honestly it would not be one I’d like to maintain. To directly answer your question and identify what’s “unlikable” about you, it’s possible your friends are sensing some bitterness or some really heavy expectations from your end and it’s causing them to pull away.
And for what it’s worth, I’m a similar age to you and in a similar life phase (3 kids under 3), and I consider myself someone with a great many friends and many robust friendships. Reading your post, I think there’s a good chance I have about the same frequency and depth of interaction with the people I consider friends as you do with the people you consider “toxic”. We’re in a stage of life where a couple of texts a month represents a VERY robust friendship in my opinion, and seeing someone once or twice a year is among the most in person interaction I’ll have with some of those I’m closest to. I don’t get offended or feel badly about myself about this, and I don’t feel the need to put more pressure or energy into these friendships right now. It might help you to turn your expectations down a few notches and lower the pressure on your friendships a bit - and my hunch is once your baby arrives this will happen naturally.
posted by rodneyaug at 12:11 PM on May 29 [12 favorites]
Personally, I feel these are very off putting ways of thinking about friendships and relationships. If I had a friend who was counting the number of interactions we had, classified themself as low status or unlikable because I didn’t put in enough work for them, who felt like I put them in a “not very important” bucket or called me toxic because I don’t often initiate conversations, well I would find that friendship exhausting and off putting and quite honestly it would not be one I’d like to maintain. To directly answer your question and identify what’s “unlikable” about you, it’s possible your friends are sensing some bitterness or some really heavy expectations from your end and it’s causing them to pull away.
And for what it’s worth, I’m a similar age to you and in a similar life phase (3 kids under 3), and I consider myself someone with a great many friends and many robust friendships. Reading your post, I think there’s a good chance I have about the same frequency and depth of interaction with the people I consider friends as you do with the people you consider “toxic”. We’re in a stage of life where a couple of texts a month represents a VERY robust friendship in my opinion, and seeing someone once or twice a year is among the most in person interaction I’ll have with some of those I’m closest to. I don’t get offended or feel badly about myself about this, and I don’t feel the need to put more pressure or energy into these friendships right now. It might help you to turn your expectations down a few notches and lower the pressure on your friendships a bit - and my hunch is once your baby arrives this will happen naturally.
posted by rodneyaug at 12:11 PM on May 29 [12 favorites]
Do you by any chance have leaky feelings? If you're not able to successfully regulate your feelings of e.g. disappointment with your friends, it gives off a weird energy which makes you look and feel incongruent to others, and they may trust you less as a result.
posted by danceswithlight at 12:18 PM on May 29 [7 favorites]
posted by danceswithlight at 12:18 PM on May 29 [7 favorites]
I have no social media presence , could that play a part in it? Am I signaling low status because I don’t engage in socially acceptable behaviors of broadcasting things about my life?
It's not that you're signaling low status, it's that you're making it harder for people to reach you. I stay on social media almost entirely because it lets me stay at least lightly in touch with many people from many parts of my life. It also lets me know a little bit about their lives: so, for example, with my cousins, I at least have a vague sense of what's happening in their lives, so that when we do talk or get together, we have something to talk about. If my cousins weren't on social media, I would almost certainly engage with them less often, not because I like them less, but just because it's harder. It's totally reasonable to want to avoid social media, but it may really be a barrier.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 12:55 PM on May 29 [12 favorites]
It's not that you're signaling low status, it's that you're making it harder for people to reach you. I stay on social media almost entirely because it lets me stay at least lightly in touch with many people from many parts of my life. It also lets me know a little bit about their lives: so, for example, with my cousins, I at least have a vague sense of what's happening in their lives, so that when we do talk or get together, we have something to talk about. If my cousins weren't on social media, I would almost certainly engage with them less often, not because I like them less, but just because it's harder. It's totally reasonable to want to avoid social media, but it may really be a barrier.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 12:55 PM on May 29 [12 favorites]
Please consider that perhaps you are not at fault. Maybe our culture is at fault. I read this fascinating newsletter just last night about how we have come to expect frictionless in our interactions, and how this is impacting our friendships. It felt very spot on to me.
posted by OrangeDisk at 1:01 PM on May 29 [12 favorites]
posted by OrangeDisk at 1:01 PM on May 29 [12 favorites]
I don't know if you can figure out objectively what makes people dislike you. I'm not sure if you're picking a problem to solve that can be solved or if solving it will get you the results you want.
It sounds like it might work better to pick the problem "How can I have more and better relationships, friendships, family connections?"
I am 54 now but the general feel of your post sums of most of my friendship life until the last 10ish years.
Basically I never stopped plugging away at the problem, feeling more discouraged sometimes, more successful other times. I think the last 10 years of feeling (mostly) better about the state of affairs is the payoff for putting so much thought and time and effort into relationships.
Here are some things I did in no particular order:
1) read a lot of books and advice columns on the topic. Nothing had a magic formula, but continually reviewing others' thoughts on the topic was helpful (and made me feel less alone for feeling bad at relationships)
2)paid a lot of attention to what other people were doing that made me like them. Mostly this was stuff like being generally enthusiastic merry people. Also never being gossipy or mean about other people. Also showing an interest in me, but also unprompted low stakes sharing of stuff about themselves.
3) made lots and lots of invitations. Putting out about 5 times the amounts of invitations as I got back sounds about right. FOR SURE sometimes this got discouraging and I would back off for a while to lick my wounded feelings.
4) joined recurring activity groups and prioritizing showing up whether I felt like it any given time or not. One of these was on purpose to make friends, a bookclub, and one of these was a lucky coincidence of a fitness activity that really appealed to me that turned out to be a really large group of regulars. That second one I really joined for the activity and the friendship aspect was an unexpected bonus.
I think that some people in this world really do the heavy lifting of friendships and other people benefit from that. If you can become one of those people ultimately you will benefit. Practice will make these skills come more easily. If you can think of initiating as a gift you have to offer, like some people are good at baking for potlucks and some people have great yards for parties, it may be easier to accept the imbalanced effort.
The person who is definitely my best friend now was someone I put a lot of effort into long ago. We met in our mid-twenties and she was a prickly person but somehow we vibed, we had a really similar sense of humor and whenever we hung out it was a great time. And she never never FOR YEARS asked me to hang out. It was always me, though she was always responsive when I invited. I think we were at least 10 years in to our friendship when she asked me to do something. I was shocked! And now she regularly casually reaches out and says "hey I need some Jenny's Cricket time!" and is always ready at the drop of hat to get together. Since I've now known her for so long I realize that she was actually pretty insecure when we were young and maybe just a little clueless and it didn't ever occur to her to invite. I wouldn't have put in so much effort if I hadn't genuinely enjoyed her company and been pretty confident that she enjoyed mine based on her willingness to get together and her vibe when we did hang out.
My point, I guess, is that this is the work of a lifetime and, like building a career, the relationships of your life are built one step at a time over a long time.
posted by Jenny'sCricket at 2:28 PM on May 29 [12 favorites]
It sounds like it might work better to pick the problem "How can I have more and better relationships, friendships, family connections?"
I am 54 now but the general feel of your post sums of most of my friendship life until the last 10ish years.
Basically I never stopped plugging away at the problem, feeling more discouraged sometimes, more successful other times. I think the last 10 years of feeling (mostly) better about the state of affairs is the payoff for putting so much thought and time and effort into relationships.
Here are some things I did in no particular order:
1) read a lot of books and advice columns on the topic. Nothing had a magic formula, but continually reviewing others' thoughts on the topic was helpful (and made me feel less alone for feeling bad at relationships)
2)paid a lot of attention to what other people were doing that made me like them. Mostly this was stuff like being generally enthusiastic merry people. Also never being gossipy or mean about other people. Also showing an interest in me, but also unprompted low stakes sharing of stuff about themselves.
3) made lots and lots of invitations. Putting out about 5 times the amounts of invitations as I got back sounds about right. FOR SURE sometimes this got discouraging and I would back off for a while to lick my wounded feelings.
4) joined recurring activity groups and prioritizing showing up whether I felt like it any given time or not. One of these was on purpose to make friends, a bookclub, and one of these was a lucky coincidence of a fitness activity that really appealed to me that turned out to be a really large group of regulars. That second one I really joined for the activity and the friendship aspect was an unexpected bonus.
I think that some people in this world really do the heavy lifting of friendships and other people benefit from that. If you can become one of those people ultimately you will benefit. Practice will make these skills come more easily. If you can think of initiating as a gift you have to offer, like some people are good at baking for potlucks and some people have great yards for parties, it may be easier to accept the imbalanced effort.
The person who is definitely my best friend now was someone I put a lot of effort into long ago. We met in our mid-twenties and she was a prickly person but somehow we vibed, we had a really similar sense of humor and whenever we hung out it was a great time. And she never never FOR YEARS asked me to hang out. It was always me, though she was always responsive when I invited. I think we were at least 10 years in to our friendship when she asked me to do something. I was shocked! And now she regularly casually reaches out and says "hey I need some Jenny's Cricket time!" and is always ready at the drop of hat to get together. Since I've now known her for so long I realize that she was actually pretty insecure when we were young and maybe just a little clueless and it didn't ever occur to her to invite. I wouldn't have put in so much effort if I hadn't genuinely enjoyed her company and been pretty confident that she enjoyed mine based on her willingness to get together and her vibe when we did hang out.
My point, I guess, is that this is the work of a lifetime and, like building a career, the relationships of your life are built one step at a time over a long time.
posted by Jenny'sCricket at 2:28 PM on May 29 [12 favorites]
There is nothing wrong with giving to get!
There is nothing wrong with noticing that people who have stopped hanging out with you do not like you enough, just aren’t that into you, etc. (For example, I’ve stopped hanging out with people who have weirdly competitive energy and/or who have expressed any type of a problem with me masking in May of 2024. YMMV)
There is nothing wrong with looking at your long standing pattern of a lack of reciprocal friendships relative to your many efforts, and wondering what strategies you can try to begin to shift things.
It’s not “transactional” to want to make friends with folks who actually match your energy.
You’ll have an infant soon and less time to waste on people who don’t want to visit with you.
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie is an imperfect classic for a reason. Read it with an open mind and give some thought to ideas you haven’t already tried. Above all else, stop chasing people who have acted like they cannot seem to get rid of you. Drop the “toxic” ex-friend entirely - you don’t need that negativity as you become a parent.
You haven’t met your best friend yet. Hang in there and try the new parent groups - they worked for me and I’m introverted, boring, have never had social media, and like to talk about Star Trek too much.
posted by edithkeeler at 3:07 PM on May 29 [4 favorites]
There is nothing wrong with noticing that people who have stopped hanging out with you do not like you enough, just aren’t that into you, etc. (For example, I’ve stopped hanging out with people who have weirdly competitive energy and/or who have expressed any type of a problem with me masking in May of 2024. YMMV)
There is nothing wrong with looking at your long standing pattern of a lack of reciprocal friendships relative to your many efforts, and wondering what strategies you can try to begin to shift things.
It’s not “transactional” to want to make friends with folks who actually match your energy.
You’ll have an infant soon and less time to waste on people who don’t want to visit with you.
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie is an imperfect classic for a reason. Read it with an open mind and give some thought to ideas you haven’t already tried. Above all else, stop chasing people who have acted like they cannot seem to get rid of you. Drop the “toxic” ex-friend entirely - you don’t need that negativity as you become a parent.
You haven’t met your best friend yet. Hang in there and try the new parent groups - they worked for me and I’m introverted, boring, have never had social media, and like to talk about Star Trek too much.
posted by edithkeeler at 3:07 PM on May 29 [4 favorites]
I think trying out new parent groups is a great idea. I think not doing this was one of my big errors on my parenting journey. It may pay off not just for you but in your parenting and your knowledge about how your child is and is not like other children.
The times in my life I’ve felt most socially connected were the times I made an effort, repeatedly, because I wanted to see a person and had not yet gotten a bad vibe. Keep inviting a person you like until you get two “no” (or no-answer) responses in a row, or until you start feeling like the payoff is just not worth it. I think even when you are doing this well and right it feels like you are putting a lot more effort in than they are.
posted by eirias at 3:41 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
The times in my life I’ve felt most socially connected were the times I made an effort, repeatedly, because I wanted to see a person and had not yet gotten a bad vibe. Keep inviting a person you like until you get two “no” (or no-answer) responses in a row, or until you start feeling like the payoff is just not worth it. I think even when you are doing this well and right it feels like you are putting a lot more effort in than they are.
posted by eirias at 3:41 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
Am I signaling low status because I don’t engage in socially acceptable behaviors of broadcasting things about my life?
This stuck out to me a bit, to be honest. Not to the point of being a friend-killer, but there is a tone of judgment on your part that I'm reading. Just as you are most certainly not low status for not being on social media, neither are your friends who are on social media.
That being said, I understand your desire to connect on a deeper level with people. A lot of folks are out of practice with that, especially these days. You've gotten some great advice here. You will find people who value you as much as you value them, but it really does seem to take a lot of work. Thank you for doing that work - you're going to find your people and they're going to appreciate that.
posted by queensissy at 3:58 PM on May 29 [5 favorites]
This stuck out to me a bit, to be honest. Not to the point of being a friend-killer, but there is a tone of judgment on your part that I'm reading. Just as you are most certainly not low status for not being on social media, neither are your friends who are on social media.
That being said, I understand your desire to connect on a deeper level with people. A lot of folks are out of practice with that, especially these days. You've gotten some great advice here. You will find people who value you as much as you value them, but it really does seem to take a lot of work. Thank you for doing that work - you're going to find your people and they're going to appreciate that.
posted by queensissy at 3:58 PM on May 29 [5 favorites]
Autism? That's a common feeling for non neurotypicals.
Shitty and or abusive childhood messing with your sense of good boundaries?
People just be like that too
posted by Jacen at 6:10 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
Shitty and or abusive childhood messing with your sense of good boundaries?
People just be like that too
posted by Jacen at 6:10 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
Absolutely get on social media. Facebook, immediately. Make it easy for people to remember you exist and interact with you!!
People literally see so many people online every day that they just forget the people who aren’t online. It’s so easy to “like” or comment and reach out lightly online … so at a certain point, writing a text or email to someone may even start to feel overly formal or intimate or weird. Even when I plan an event, I look at my “friends” list to know who to invite. It’s so easy to accidentally forget people who aren’t there. And frankly kind of annoying to have to make another invite for them.
For your avatar use a photo of yourself, daytime, outdoors, no sunglasses, bright coloured shirt, looking into the lens and smiling.
Make a post every second week - something simple and uncontroversial.
Share a little funny story or photo from your life, an interesting (not political) article, etc.
Your garden. A yummy salad you’re about to eat. Your pet. A pretty flower you passed on a walk. A craft you made.
One of my friends posts a photo of every chair he sees on the street during his daily walk.
One friend posts her month’s horoscope every week from the local artsy newspaper. Many people with the same birth month comment on it.
Wish people happy birthday.
Comment on their photos.
Ask for advice: “baby is due in 4 months, parents, what on earth should I be doing to prepare?”
Or, “Craving a good baked potato, where should I go?”
I think if you did this you would find it SO MUCH easier to connect with people! Avoiding social media is really living your social life on “hard” mode.
Also, join the mom groups in your area. You’ll make friends to spend mat leave with, find out about fun baby classes, and you can get a lot of baby stuff for free, which will save you a ton of money!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:50 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
People literally see so many people online every day that they just forget the people who aren’t online. It’s so easy to “like” or comment and reach out lightly online … so at a certain point, writing a text or email to someone may even start to feel overly formal or intimate or weird. Even when I plan an event, I look at my “friends” list to know who to invite. It’s so easy to accidentally forget people who aren’t there. And frankly kind of annoying to have to make another invite for them.
For your avatar use a photo of yourself, daytime, outdoors, no sunglasses, bright coloured shirt, looking into the lens and smiling.
Make a post every second week - something simple and uncontroversial.
Share a little funny story or photo from your life, an interesting (not political) article, etc.
Your garden. A yummy salad you’re about to eat. Your pet. A pretty flower you passed on a walk. A craft you made.
One of my friends posts a photo of every chair he sees on the street during his daily walk.
One friend posts her month’s horoscope every week from the local artsy newspaper. Many people with the same birth month comment on it.
Wish people happy birthday.
Comment on their photos.
Ask for advice: “baby is due in 4 months, parents, what on earth should I be doing to prepare?”
Or, “Craving a good baked potato, where should I go?”
I think if you did this you would find it SO MUCH easier to connect with people! Avoiding social media is really living your social life on “hard” mode.
Also, join the mom groups in your area. You’ll make friends to spend mat leave with, find out about fun baby classes, and you can get a lot of baby stuff for free, which will save you a ton of money!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:50 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
So, feelings are not facts. They are information but they aren’t psychic powers.
The fact is “my friends don’t contact me first.” (Although I would check the accuracy of this for all your friends.)
The feeling is “sad” or “lonely” or feeling put down.
The story you’re telling yourself is one where your friends are very status-oriented and give more attention to people they like more and less attention to people they like less. Therefore, you rank lower in likability.
But there are lots of alternative stories. Sometimes people put more time into relationships where they think they are more needed, or geographically closer, or closer on social media, or where people are at the same book club or church or…a zillion things.
Sometimes, they are busy or coping with young kids or kids with special needs or a partner who is stressed or a busy job or home renovations or a zillion things.
People may not know how you feel. I am one of the people who very much loves her friends but is not great at reaching out. (I am great at showing up to spend 3 days mucking out a flooded house…different skill set.) I never make a decision to text someone based on a hierarchy of friendship. I don’t actually think that way more than once in a blue moon and usually about some new person. But I know some are pl do and I try to be obviously reciprocal with them.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:26 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
The fact is “my friends don’t contact me first.” (Although I would check the accuracy of this for all your friends.)
The feeling is “sad” or “lonely” or feeling put down.
The story you’re telling yourself is one where your friends are very status-oriented and give more attention to people they like more and less attention to people they like less. Therefore, you rank lower in likability.
But there are lots of alternative stories. Sometimes people put more time into relationships where they think they are more needed, or geographically closer, or closer on social media, or where people are at the same book club or church or…a zillion things.
Sometimes, they are busy or coping with young kids or kids with special needs or a partner who is stressed or a busy job or home renovations or a zillion things.
People may not know how you feel. I am one of the people who very much loves her friends but is not great at reaching out. (I am great at showing up to spend 3 days mucking out a flooded house…different skill set.) I never make a decision to text someone based on a hierarchy of friendship. I don’t actually think that way more than once in a blue moon and usually about some new person. But I know some are pl do and I try to be obviously reciprocal with them.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:26 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
I echo the advice of giving more. I think the best thing is to focus on being generous to the people you want to be friends with: invite them to things (to your house and to outings that you plan), give them little gifts when you visit, enthusiastically celebrate the big events (e.g. birthdays, etc.) and successes (e.g. in their work) in life, compliment them on the things you like about them, and listen when they talk.
It might be more productive to focus on the future and how you can be a good friend going forward rather than trying to figure out what you've been doing wrong in the past. Who knows! You might be doing all the right things and you've just been unlucky for whatever reason in the past. But hopefully going forward you can just work on being excited about cultivating and deepening your current friendships and making new ones.
I think there will always be burns in social relationships. That is my experience anyway. I agree with what someone said above, you will inevitably get hurt by putting in so much effort and emotion into your friends since they will not reciprocate every single time, but hopefully in the long run they will appreciate all that you give and it will help serve as a foundation to good relationships.
posted by zxcvasdf at 8:01 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
It might be more productive to focus on the future and how you can be a good friend going forward rather than trying to figure out what you've been doing wrong in the past. Who knows! You might be doing all the right things and you've just been unlucky for whatever reason in the past. But hopefully going forward you can just work on being excited about cultivating and deepening your current friendships and making new ones.
I think there will always be burns in social relationships. That is my experience anyway. I agree with what someone said above, you will inevitably get hurt by putting in so much effort and emotion into your friends since they will not reciprocate every single time, but hopefully in the long run they will appreciate all that you give and it will help serve as a foundation to good relationships.
posted by zxcvasdf at 8:01 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
A lot of people are flaky these days, it may not be you.
I recommend reading the books/webpage of Shasta Nelson, who has great insights into friendship development.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:47 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
I recommend reading the books/webpage of Shasta Nelson, who has great insights into friendship development.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:47 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
I completely disagree with the advice that you need to be on social media. I found that when I stopped using social media I had fewer friends, and was invited to fewer things, but formed much deeper, more satisfying friendships with the few people I stayed in contact with. Social media was allowing me to spread my friendship energy across way too many people, which made all of the friendships shallow and unsatisfying.
posted by wheatlets at 1:37 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]
posted by wheatlets at 1:37 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]
As a sociologist by training, I have to emphasize the power of frequent encounters and similar life stage to form friendships. So a definite yes to the weak ties and pregnancy / mom group suggestions. Here’s a book about exactly that.
I do think you need some social media for kid stuff in the future to happen easily. I don’t really do Facebook anymore, and deleted most of my content, but I have notifications on for event invites, plus some good points above about mom groups. I definitely don’t think you need a deep effort, just see if it works for you. If not, no worries, the moment has sort of passed for fun FB in my view. My friends probably do more via WhatsApp anyway.
I also like reddit for general new parent info. Big ups to r/BabyBumpsAndBeyondAu and r/breastfeeding. r/ShitMomsGroupsSay is also an entertaining highlight of Facebook antivax/free birth / bad idea posts if you like schadenfreude.
You might not get the huge friendships of the past from childbirth classes, I’m afraid. My hospital put all that online and on Zoom during COVID and haven’t switched back, so very little sense of community. Maybe that’s just Australia or that particular hospital though. Or there is a paid one that’s in person? Here the post birth parent groups seem powerful sources of friendships and my husband is flexing his work specifically so he can keep going to the good play group.
Finally, and I want to say this gently, are you aware that being pregnant can be the source of big and amplified feelings? You’ll be having way more progesterone and other hormones in your system than other times of your life, and that’s just the physical side, you’re also facing a huge identity change. Pre and prenatal counseling is a pretty common thing, so you might want to start working through some of this with a professional. Fun fact: pregnancy also changes your brain, so maybe you will find it easier making friends later for this and the fact that it’s just the done thing to chat with other parents on the playground, at work, at the airport, everywhere.
posted by ec2y at 2:23 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]
I do think you need some social media for kid stuff in the future to happen easily. I don’t really do Facebook anymore, and deleted most of my content, but I have notifications on for event invites, plus some good points above about mom groups. I definitely don’t think you need a deep effort, just see if it works for you. If not, no worries, the moment has sort of passed for fun FB in my view. My friends probably do more via WhatsApp anyway.
I also like reddit for general new parent info. Big ups to r/BabyBumpsAndBeyondAu and r/breastfeeding. r/ShitMomsGroupsSay is also an entertaining highlight of Facebook antivax/free birth / bad idea posts if you like schadenfreude.
You might not get the huge friendships of the past from childbirth classes, I’m afraid. My hospital put all that online and on Zoom during COVID and haven’t switched back, so very little sense of community. Maybe that’s just Australia or that particular hospital though. Or there is a paid one that’s in person? Here the post birth parent groups seem powerful sources of friendships and my husband is flexing his work specifically so he can keep going to the good play group.
Finally, and I want to say this gently, are you aware that being pregnant can be the source of big and amplified feelings? You’ll be having way more progesterone and other hormones in your system than other times of your life, and that’s just the physical side, you’re also facing a huge identity change. Pre and prenatal counseling is a pretty common thing, so you might want to start working through some of this with a professional. Fun fact: pregnancy also changes your brain, so maybe you will find it easier making friends later for this and the fact that it’s just the done thing to chat with other parents on the playground, at work, at the airport, everywhere.
posted by ec2y at 2:23 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]
Here is a sincere offer - it reads as silly, but I mean it and think it could help! I'm happy to have a brief 15-30 minute zoom call, scheduled whenever, after which I'll offer unvarnished, "will never have reason to speak to you again" feedback on questions like "is this person annoying" and "if so, how".
Obviously I'm just one person, and I'd absolutely turn this offer down in your shoes. But if you'd be down, so am I!
posted by wattle at 5:29 AM on May 30 [4 favorites]
Obviously I'm just one person, and I'd absolutely turn this offer down in your shoes. But if you'd be down, so am I!
posted by wattle at 5:29 AM on May 30 [4 favorites]
I came here to make the identical offer to waffle's. So if you decide to go that way and want a second opinion, I'm available.
posted by bac at 5:58 AM on May 30 [4 favorites]
posted by bac at 5:58 AM on May 30 [4 favorites]
It's not you, it's the type of social interactions available.
It really will not make much of a difference to your cousin if you don't contact her and if she doesn't get to talk to you. The interaction is superficial, she has no stake in the information you share with her and she doesn't expect you to be useful to her in any way. You might be the nicest, most talented person she knows, and she might remember you fondly, but her social skills are much too good for her to try to deepen the relationship.
If her social skills were bad, she might do a core dump about all the woes in her life and see if she could turn you into a shoulder to cry on and the person to share her hopes and dreams with - but she knows that your most probable reaction to a core dump would be revolted horror and uncomfortably pity, because she'd be coming across as an emotional vampire. She'd feel like a needy repulsive person if she tried to stick you with that kind of emotional labour so she doesn't.
Or she might do a core dump about that special interest she is sooo into - 1950's music, BEST MUSIC EVER, amirite? Eddie Fisher! Al Martino! The Stargazers! <3, <3 - but again, she knows that not only do you have no clue who Eddie Fisher is, and won't understand how his upper register is so smooth, if she tries to convey this to you, you are going to change the subject as fast as you decently can, unless she is unlucky, in which case you will let her monologue on while feeling full of horrified pity.
So you got nothing to connect to her with. We connect to people where we have emotions in common - fear of a bad boss, desire to get the kitchen clean, nostalgia, fascination to figure out how something works, urgent need to find out what is on an exam, delight in a good meal, despair when the cupboard is bare... No emotion, no connection. You're just another person in the subway, surrounded by half a million other people, and with so many people out there, it's rude and potentially distressing to make eye contact.
Work friendships are notoriously short lived. As long as there is propinquity and some common goals you can get superficially close to the people you work with. The minute one of you leaves to take another job or to retire, the common goals and the propinquity are both gone and you stop thinking about each other and have nothing to talk about, if you do meet, that matters to both of you.
To make close relationships you need to reach a certain level of intimacy with people, and that's really hard. When you were in school, you could both agonize over the homework you had to get done, and it wasn't too much disclosure if you told your classmate you couldn't get your homework done because your stupid mother expected you to do these stupid extra-curriculars so you could get into a better college and you had to practice the violin for an hour and you didn't have time! You could even connect when you came from a different background, because she could complain that she couldn't get all her homework done because her stupid mother expected her to take on babysitting her rotten cousins to get enough money to cover rent and you would be in warm accord and sympathy and caring about each other's problems.
Chances are nobody much has any time to hang out with you other than your spouse, and your spouse only has the time because they live with you. So if you propose something to your long distance cousins, like going through the questions in the book of lists together, or doing a reading challenge from Library Thing, they will feel put on the spot and not at all willing. They are unlikely to be slouching around bored wishing they could think of something to fill their time. They are more likely to be feeling overwhelmed, or to be so addicted to their phone that they can't really say where their time goes or what they do, outside of their essential maintenance. Finding ways to have common goals and provide each other with mutual support is hard, and it's really scary to ask.
A lot of people now are living in a long slow moving anxiety attack, that started sometime well before the Covid pandemic, so if you were to get close to your cousin, you'd potentially find out that her strongest feelings now are centered around fear and anger about immigration, or climate change, or lay offs in her industry, or that her kid is not thriving in the abominable school situation, or that trans people are are being subjected to a huge, well organized wave of discrimination. And the sad thing is that you can't use a common terror and fear to build intimacy, even supposing that you aren't on the opposite side of the issue regarding immigration than she is, because spending any time reinforcing that fear and anger is going to be very, very bad for both of your mental health
Getting beyond pleasant and superficial is HARD. It's not your personality, or lack of social skills or lack of status. Technology has made it possible for us to no longer be trapped in dependency on other people. You don't need to work on your parents' farm to keep a roof over your head. You don't need to have kids to help you run the farm. You don't need to talk to your neighbour just so you can hear another person's voice, you can switch on a device and listen to a talk show. You don't need to have an in with your grocer so he'll let you have something from under the counter, you just wander through the store and use the self check out. Picky about partners? You don't have to talk to a hundred different guys dropping subtle keywords into every conversation to see if they will pick up your hints, you just go on Grindr. You don't need to marry a local girl so that you have someone to look after your parents when they are bedridden. You don't have to take your turn hosting the circuit minister, and you don't have to run and take in your neighbour's wash after she has stepped out and it comes on rain. We prefer this, we really, really prefer this because we are not trapped hoeing in 90* weather, doing without butter entirely, never finding a guy who also likes guys, or staying up all night to make sure the circuit minister doesn't molest your daughters like the last one did. Independence is great. And lonely.
I want you to think about the worst household in your neighbourhood. Screaming fights. Petty, pointless crime, stalking, enabling, self destructive behaviour, bad management of resources, hostile attitude. Everything. They do everything wrong. And yet, there is a household there, of people who have found someone to bond with and they often cling to each other for decades and some part of the drama is when they get involved in each other's needs and are trying to have each other's back. Some horrible people do end up as completely solitary outcasts, it's true. But there are a few million people who are objectively worse than you on all social measures who have managed to find friends. The broken stair that doesn't get booted out of the social group. The bully with a circle of truculent friends to back them up. The triangulator. The career screw up, who periodically leeches on everyone in their friend group. The horrible, cold, strict, punitive father whose kids gather around to care for him when he's old and sick. Lots of really horrible people have close relationships.
My point is, that you don't have to be a good person or to have good social skills or be valuable, or to have anything to offer, in order to have a social group. They are not related. It's not because there is anything wrong with you, or that you are lacking compared to others, it's the limited social interactions that are available to you. You have been able to avoid or walk away from dysfunctional relationships. You were able to be independent enough and competent enough that you didn't get forced to become a burden on other people. You're not needy, or entitled, or manipulative, or bossy, or over-protective, or predatory. If you were those things, you'd have some of the personality traits that can help people have closer social relationships. You're respecting other people's boundaries and not forcing your way into their lives.
You can tinker with your social skills or change some of what you do. Coming up with a couple of strategies to figure out ways to give your relationships more meaning will probably help. But there isn't something wrong with you. You're not deficient. We are not all out here with loving, close, friendly, fun social groups. One in four people in the US over the age of 15 report being very or fairly lonely. That doesn't even count the people who say they are somewhat lonely, or rarely. On top of that, because we associate being lonely with being excluded and having poor social status, a lot of us won't admit to being lonely even to ourselves. But we dive on our media and our distractions, and often they hold an inordinate importance because they distract us from loneliness and lack of meaningful connections. You're not alone in being lonely. You're supposed to be lonely - it's a biological drive to make us seek out other people, the way hunger is a biological drive to make us seek out food. It's not something that can ever be fully sated. One good conversation will not last us the rest of our lives.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:54 AM on May 30 [7 favorites]
It really will not make much of a difference to your cousin if you don't contact her and if she doesn't get to talk to you. The interaction is superficial, she has no stake in the information you share with her and she doesn't expect you to be useful to her in any way. You might be the nicest, most talented person she knows, and she might remember you fondly, but her social skills are much too good for her to try to deepen the relationship.
If her social skills were bad, she might do a core dump about all the woes in her life and see if she could turn you into a shoulder to cry on and the person to share her hopes and dreams with - but she knows that your most probable reaction to a core dump would be revolted horror and uncomfortably pity, because she'd be coming across as an emotional vampire. She'd feel like a needy repulsive person if she tried to stick you with that kind of emotional labour so she doesn't.
Or she might do a core dump about that special interest she is sooo into - 1950's music, BEST MUSIC EVER, amirite? Eddie Fisher! Al Martino! The Stargazers! <3, <3 - but again, she knows that not only do you have no clue who Eddie Fisher is, and won't understand how his upper register is so smooth, if she tries to convey this to you, you are going to change the subject as fast as you decently can, unless she is unlucky, in which case you will let her monologue on while feeling full of horrified pity.
So you got nothing to connect to her with. We connect to people where we have emotions in common - fear of a bad boss, desire to get the kitchen clean, nostalgia, fascination to figure out how something works, urgent need to find out what is on an exam, delight in a good meal, despair when the cupboard is bare... No emotion, no connection. You're just another person in the subway, surrounded by half a million other people, and with so many people out there, it's rude and potentially distressing to make eye contact.
Work friendships are notoriously short lived. As long as there is propinquity and some common goals you can get superficially close to the people you work with. The minute one of you leaves to take another job or to retire, the common goals and the propinquity are both gone and you stop thinking about each other and have nothing to talk about, if you do meet, that matters to both of you.
To make close relationships you need to reach a certain level of intimacy with people, and that's really hard. When you were in school, you could both agonize over the homework you had to get done, and it wasn't too much disclosure if you told your classmate you couldn't get your homework done because your stupid mother expected you to do these stupid extra-curriculars so you could get into a better college and you had to practice the violin for an hour and you didn't have time! You could even connect when you came from a different background, because she could complain that she couldn't get all her homework done because her stupid mother expected her to take on babysitting her rotten cousins to get enough money to cover rent and you would be in warm accord and sympathy and caring about each other's problems.
Chances are nobody much has any time to hang out with you other than your spouse, and your spouse only has the time because they live with you. So if you propose something to your long distance cousins, like going through the questions in the book of lists together, or doing a reading challenge from Library Thing, they will feel put on the spot and not at all willing. They are unlikely to be slouching around bored wishing they could think of something to fill their time. They are more likely to be feeling overwhelmed, or to be so addicted to their phone that they can't really say where their time goes or what they do, outside of their essential maintenance. Finding ways to have common goals and provide each other with mutual support is hard, and it's really scary to ask.
A lot of people now are living in a long slow moving anxiety attack, that started sometime well before the Covid pandemic, so if you were to get close to your cousin, you'd potentially find out that her strongest feelings now are centered around fear and anger about immigration, or climate change, or lay offs in her industry, or that her kid is not thriving in the abominable school situation, or that trans people are are being subjected to a huge, well organized wave of discrimination. And the sad thing is that you can't use a common terror and fear to build intimacy, even supposing that you aren't on the opposite side of the issue regarding immigration than she is, because spending any time reinforcing that fear and anger is going to be very, very bad for both of your mental health
Getting beyond pleasant and superficial is HARD. It's not your personality, or lack of social skills or lack of status. Technology has made it possible for us to no longer be trapped in dependency on other people. You don't need to work on your parents' farm to keep a roof over your head. You don't need to have kids to help you run the farm. You don't need to talk to your neighbour just so you can hear another person's voice, you can switch on a device and listen to a talk show. You don't need to have an in with your grocer so he'll let you have something from under the counter, you just wander through the store and use the self check out. Picky about partners? You don't have to talk to a hundred different guys dropping subtle keywords into every conversation to see if they will pick up your hints, you just go on Grindr. You don't need to marry a local girl so that you have someone to look after your parents when they are bedridden. You don't have to take your turn hosting the circuit minister, and you don't have to run and take in your neighbour's wash after she has stepped out and it comes on rain. We prefer this, we really, really prefer this because we are not trapped hoeing in 90* weather, doing without butter entirely, never finding a guy who also likes guys, or staying up all night to make sure the circuit minister doesn't molest your daughters like the last one did. Independence is great. And lonely.
I want you to think about the worst household in your neighbourhood. Screaming fights. Petty, pointless crime, stalking, enabling, self destructive behaviour, bad management of resources, hostile attitude. Everything. They do everything wrong. And yet, there is a household there, of people who have found someone to bond with and they often cling to each other for decades and some part of the drama is when they get involved in each other's needs and are trying to have each other's back. Some horrible people do end up as completely solitary outcasts, it's true. But there are a few million people who are objectively worse than you on all social measures who have managed to find friends. The broken stair that doesn't get booted out of the social group. The bully with a circle of truculent friends to back them up. The triangulator. The career screw up, who periodically leeches on everyone in their friend group. The horrible, cold, strict, punitive father whose kids gather around to care for him when he's old and sick. Lots of really horrible people have close relationships.
My point is, that you don't have to be a good person or to have good social skills or be valuable, or to have anything to offer, in order to have a social group. They are not related. It's not because there is anything wrong with you, or that you are lacking compared to others, it's the limited social interactions that are available to you. You have been able to avoid or walk away from dysfunctional relationships. You were able to be independent enough and competent enough that you didn't get forced to become a burden on other people. You're not needy, or entitled, or manipulative, or bossy, or over-protective, or predatory. If you were those things, you'd have some of the personality traits that can help people have closer social relationships. You're respecting other people's boundaries and not forcing your way into their lives.
You can tinker with your social skills or change some of what you do. Coming up with a couple of strategies to figure out ways to give your relationships more meaning will probably help. But there isn't something wrong with you. You're not deficient. We are not all out here with loving, close, friendly, fun social groups. One in four people in the US over the age of 15 report being very or fairly lonely. That doesn't even count the people who say they are somewhat lonely, or rarely. On top of that, because we associate being lonely with being excluded and having poor social status, a lot of us won't admit to being lonely even to ourselves. But we dive on our media and our distractions, and often they hold an inordinate importance because they distract us from loneliness and lack of meaningful connections. You're not alone in being lonely. You're supposed to be lonely - it's a biological drive to make us seek out other people, the way hunger is a biological drive to make us seek out food. It's not something that can ever be fully sated. One good conversation will not last us the rest of our lives.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:54 AM on May 30 [7 favorites]
One particular friend, I feel like they’ve actually become toxic in how they’re treating me and I’d be better off slowing down communication significantly, but because I feel so lonely sometimes I can’t pull the plug on it.
This is likely one reason why you're struggling. You're wasting your energy and time on people who don't return it. You can't convince people to like you - you have to find people who like you just as you are. That's not easy but at least you're on step 1, not stuck spinning your wheels trying to do the impossible. Plus, situations like the one with your toxic friend can make you seem like a doormat, and that's going to attract the wrong sorts of people.
posted by Stoof at 5:21 PM on May 30 [3 favorites]
This is likely one reason why you're struggling. You're wasting your energy and time on people who don't return it. You can't convince people to like you - you have to find people who like you just as you are. That's not easy but at least you're on step 1, not stuck spinning your wheels trying to do the impossible. Plus, situations like the one with your toxic friend can make you seem like a doormat, and that's going to attract the wrong sorts of people.
posted by Stoof at 5:21 PM on May 30 [3 favorites]
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Also, I have read multiple articles where social scientist identified a single “social connector” who was the hub of a bunch of friendships. In other words: a single person often is the one who initiates things over and over. It’s not fair and can feel impolite but I think it’s just reality.
Are in you in therapy? If not, I recommend bringing this problem to a therapist. Honestly any other person who takes you up on a proposal to “tell me what’s wrong with me” should not be trusted because answering that question shows a severe lack of judgment.
posted by CMcG at 9:15 AM on May 29 [15 favorites]