What goes wrong when trying to make friends...

a) No-one can tell the difference between being shy and being deliberately solitary / withdrawn. They feel very different on the inside, but from the outside they look pretty much the same. Its not sensible to assume that people don't care, when they don't know.

b) It's not an admission of defeat to join societies or group activities of any sort. Plenty of people do this just to meet people, with the added advantage that you may have something in common to start with. Most groups have a kind of centripetal force to them which may mean it looks like there's a close-knit clique: but certainly with university societies, for example, the rapid turnover of students involved means you can will look like part of that clique (from the outside) just by staying around long enough.

c) Doing things -- anything -- is better than reflecting on things, if you're unhappy. Mark has often mentioned teaching himself to cook as a therapeutic activity, for example.

d) If you expect too much from people, you will often be disappointed.

e) Think about your diet -- most of my depression at university I now reckon was due to food. (I know you commented somewhere that all you eat at university is toast.) Because I had a wierd diet, I could only eat foods stuffed with sugar when I was in the university. This meant my energy levels and mood would go crashing every afternoon and leave me unable to work properly or assess my situation in a proper perspective. Avoiding fizzy drinks could be a part of dealing with things. (Getting fit this year has also been a blessing, but I think you refused to contemplate this on one thread...)

f) There are generally more people feeling the way you are than you think (this is a general 'you' as well as meaning you, Graham). But because everyone has evolved their own coping strategies and no-one likes to let other people see them feeling weak, it's often hard to realise this. But it means that it's worth becoming the person who arranges things, rather than someone who wishes other people were asking him to go out. Don't presume that everyone else is far too busy having fun to want to meet up. But also, don't be disheartened if some people are too busy. They're probably not having the wild social life you imagine, but working at c) or e) or working, or recovering from working.

I agree with this... when I was sitting in the pub with you at the ILX booze-up the other week (this is intended in the nicest possible way) I barely heard you say a word over the several hours we were all there. Obviously I've read your messages and so forth and knew that the very fact you were there in the first place was proof that you were making an effort, so I assumed you were naturally very shy as opposed to just plain anti-social. A lot of other people may not be able to make that judgement, especially people who don't know you from Adam. You've got a lot of interesting things to say... maybe you should try saying them more often. I know its can be very, very difficult, especially if you're shy, but you will find that it won't get any easier if you don't make those initial moves.

For the record, I'm pretty sure the majority of people here like you.

Of course, I don't know Graham especially well so if any of this is trite or insensitive or just plain wrong then I apologise in advance.

the reason things have been hard for me recently is not to do with this, although this hasn't helped (the last one has been a hammerblow). and i have been wondering about 'friendship' and what it means. to me, it is very very important, and i am very (too?) serious about it. not with everyone, and i let it happen gradually, and only a few people become very close friends. but for me the potential is there.

now to say this is all very well when you are in a good situation, as i was in leeds, and the first couple of years in london, because you're are a positive person and have enough to make you light and fun. But when you lose it, and it becomes more important, it becomes harder. IE - the more you need your existing friends, the more (some of them) will back away, And the more you need new friends, the harder it is to make them. i 'knew' this before, but now i'm discovering it 'for real'. after i lost my house, and ended up in a hostel, i needed *more* to keep me up, but the more you need it the more you push it away (people can think "mentalist"). its a very difficult situation! if you let people know how things are, you make things harder because it matters more. even if you don't, its apparent in your body language, in your mannerisms.

people have to 'want' to be around you, you have to make them want. but how? what is it about people you like that makes you like them? can you display those qualities?

i'm dealing with some of these things myself right now, i've other problems to sort out first, but the loss of the main people that made living in london fun has changed london for me, and, to a certain extent, i am going to have to start over.

i met 2 really cool girls recently at a gig, and we had a nice time and it was fun. they emailed me too, i replied, but that was it, no more. i would have liked to have met up again or at least emailed, but i can't force it. i'll probably meet some more people next time i go out as well, and the same thing may well happen again. but you can't force it

i'm not sure i wanted people on here to know some of this. oops!

I'm not sure what it was that made me begin to crawl out of my shell, though some voluntary work I did certainly helped my self-confidence. I tried to be more pro-active in making friends, and especially to learn to listen to them. There aren't many good listeners around, its an art well worth cultivating. I did some evening classes (I was unemployed for a long time) and realised many of the friends I made often felt just as awkward about themselves, were just as shambolic as I was/am. Many just hid it better.

There are no easy answers Graham, though I think Alex's points are well worth printing out, but please don't think that whatever your going through now is permament and inevitable. It isn't.

Pretending to be something you're not for the sake of impressing others is a rub strategy (though maybe a normal thing in moderation) but what I'd say to the above is that there's a BIG difference between being a naturally quiet person and being a self-consciously shy one who wants to say things but has a block about getting started/saying the right thing/hating the process of smalltalk etc. I know both kinds of people and the former are a lot easier to be around. I can sometimes still be the latter myself at times and it does my head in.

Just try to get to know a few people at uni. I'm glad I made a few good good friends at uni rather than knowing a whole crowd of people.

Errr, I can't really add anything else that hasn't already been said.

Cue mark s: "last time I actively went out of my way to make a friend I got plasticine all over my blanc-de-chine t-shirt"

sometimes I think about what I'd do if I moved to a strange town and had no friends there. I reckon I would so the kinds of things people have already said - join clubs and societies and stuff like that and hope to meet people with shared interests.

I'd also be tempted to move a popular interweb discussion board from a rub server to a grebt one, so that everyone on it would think I was G*R*A*T*E. Then I would post Fancy-A-Pint threads and people on the discussion board would come and have a pint with me and be my friend.

From the FAQ- Personal threads. If a thread is started discussing a registered user or their actions, that user has the right to ask for it to be deleted or locked. The thread does not have to be an attack on the user. This does not apply to threads users start themselves and later regret.

- part of the problem is that there's a massive disconnect between how you are online and how you are in real life. This isn't your fault but it means people (especially people who haven't themselves been shy or who dont get how you can be shy offline but not online) wont understand you when they meet you because they'll be expecting something different.

- part of this problem is your voice: it's very very quiet and high. Sorry if this seems like really stupid or intrusive advice but have you thought of speech therapy or voice training? The only time in my life I've ever been much teased was over a speech defect I used to have and it really helped to get it sorted out. What's happening now I suspect is that you're working yourself up to say stuff and participate and then people just aren't hearing you do it.

- finally, another problem is that when you do go out it's in large groups, at Fancy A Pints. These can be pretty disasterous for shy people - I've only been able to handle them recently and still totally clam up in some circumstances (big parties, work do's). Try doing things with smaller groups where there's less social pressure. For instance find a film you want to see, suggest going to see it - that way you have a bit of ice-breaking time beforehand, a long period where you don't have to be making a social effort and a readymade subject for drinks after. Or a gig.

ok graham, whatever.

I suspect also that you don't realise how shy or insecure other people can be. I think I can often come across as quite extroverted most of the time, but deep down I am someone whose mother said a thousand times was worthless and that no one would ever want me, all through my childhood, and my basic assumption is that nobody ever wants anything to do with me. This makes me unlikely to instigate any moves towards friendship, because I always expect to be rebuffed. I think that there are quite a few people who feel something like this way.

I love having people to have fun with or talk to when I need to, and I try to be there for them as much as I can, but when I feel they're dependent on me to keep them happy constantly (because they have no hobbies/other friends/close family/whatever), it's way too much pressure. When you screw up and make yourself unhappy you deal, but when you make OTHERS unhappy it's guilt, guilt, and more guilt. (I am also a more hermitish person than most teenagers, so maybe I just don't give what I'm supposed to as a friend.)

It is sad and no fun when other people never call you. I hope someone does. Good luck.

Then ILM came along and now I have met 'strangers' (even though we 'talk' throught he board) and it's been good. It's quite difficult to start conversation sometimes and so on but it's nice to talk. I met Martin and mark s from london and several ppl from toronto and it was really nice.

So if you're in a situation (like an FAP for example) when you're likely to be meeting people who you'd like to become your friends, try and go in there in a positive frame of mind - don't dwell on it beforehand, don't worry about it, put on Atomic Kitten or whatever CD and jump around the room or whatever to psyche yourself up. Make sure you're on a high when you arrive and you'll find talking to people a lot easier.

I think I'm talking abstractly here now and not necessarily about Graham, but I hope it helps.

I'd also repeat some points others have made: it's worth making an effort to do things with people even if that's a bit scary and in groups and stuff it's worth making conversation even if that feels fake because the other person will be so grateful.

And: don't worry too much, occupy yourself with other things like drawing or computers or study or whatever else because it makes you feel better when you are getting things done, and you won't regret that it in the future, but you might regret sitting around worrying.

Also you are drifting oblique again, and going passive aggressive resentful because we aren't following you: if you think people are not addressing the actual problem, state it more exactly. Tell us what we're missing. You were lecturing people on missing the concept of hyperbole yesterday: if "ever" isn't hyperbole then let us know how and why.

I think the application of that FAQ point should involve asking a moderator whatever the situation, i.e. if somebody posts a thread about me then I should ask another mod to delete it rather than do it myself. That way the suggestion of a posting hierarchy is avoided.

END ADMIN POINT.]

I have no idea what you mean when you say "more" or "acquaintances".

"Acquaintances" = people I just kind of see around. "More" = Seeing them deliberately. Sara last year pretty much amounted to an acquaintance I was around a lot.

By "ever" I do mean ever, and there is a big difference between this and moving to a new place where you don't know anyone, or whatever (I'm 19 if you don't know). This summer I got a couple of text messages asking how I was from Rebecca (non-Low-fi), and that is the only example of "more" I can think of ever (She's very friendly and I hadn't actually spoken to her much before, so she isn't really a friend yet).

[OTHER ADMIN POINT - I am not a moderator, I am someone grumpy with an SQL command line, so please don't make me think I am one by asking me to edit stuff. Thank you]

Mod-er-a-tor(n): Someone grumpy with an SQL command line.

Something else that occurred to me - which may be helpful or useless or stating the obvious but what the hell. One thing I think friends hardly ever do is talk about whether or not they are friends - if they do start doing this then it probably means they're about not to be. So I think one pitfall you might fall into, especially if you've never had friends, is worrying about whether you're a friend of someone or not and then talking about it to them rather than talking about whatever 'friends' do talk about.

I have spent sooooooo much time by myself this year, which is a huge change from last year when I lived with lots of good friends. What it's made me realise is that sometimes even though it sucks really bad at times because it feels like I am all alone, I actually really needed to be by myself and that "everything was happening for a reason" blah blah.

I guess I believe that you can grow and learn stuff about yourself more when you're alone. Sometimes you need to get comfortable with yourself before you can really give anything to other people.

I think my way of getting comfortable with myself is to hit rock bottom, and this year has provided some great rock bottom moments. I got into a lot of sticky situations, created all sorts of scandal, drank myself into many a stupor, and all the time I was doing it, I was secretly pleased that nobody was around to stop me. I felt like a lone adventurer and even when I was in my bedroom crying my stupid eyes out, I was secretly thrilled at all my romantic aloneness. haha actually why am I speaking in the past tense, I am still doing all that stuff.

But I think maybe because I am older I can handle being alone more. If I was your age doing all this stuff surely I would be in the nuthouse by now.

Speaking of being a nut case from the nuthouse, my shrink always says that if you are going to have a nervous breakdown you should at least have an impressive one, the best nervous breakdown anyone's ever seen!

Sometimes you can't control how many people are around you, just use that time to be selfish, create your own philosophies, learn about yourself, learn to luuurve yourself, learn to have arrogance, learn to not care what anyone thinks, whatever. I think isolation can be liberating, but you do have to keep remembering that it's not going to last forever. A good way to remember that is to think to yourself: Nothing lasts forever.

a) It puts the responsibility for being friends with them on other people: this means one can avoid responsibility. It is easier, and far less scary, to feel neglected than it is to actively go out and get in touch with people yourself. Yes, ringing someone to invite them for a drink IS terrifying, because you risk rejection. Or you risk *feeling* rejected if they happen to be busy, or tired, or not communicative and say no. But there is no chance of friendship without risk. Trying to will people to coming to you just does not work.

b) A related issue: it's just not fair to other people to expect them to do the running. Yes, it can be exhausting, mentally and emotionally to take the risks the whole time, but people generally in my experience fall into their own personal coping strategies for avoiding loneliness and are only too happy to respond to someone taking the risk to ask to meet them. But by having issues with people that they don't even know about, there's a danger of putting a whole lot of weight onto what may be casual / trivial encounters.

c) Which brings me to a third point: it is far too easy to assume that everyone is really good friends with each other because they interact in certain ways, but the chances are they don't think in such formal terms. The danger of unhappiness is that it is easy to polarise your view of the world into a) people who have normal lives and don't understand and b) me, with my problems. This is unhelpful, as people have been pointing out, because it means putting up barriers to communication rather than opening them. Part of learning to live in the world, with other people, IMHO, is learning to live with the contingency and casualness of the world. No-one really sits down and says 'Now we're going to be friends': you spend time with as many people as you can, in whatever capacity that is, and after a point, you realise that you have a lot in common, or are beginning to rely on each other. But you can't MAKE this happen. High expectations will put people off.

Here's the personal stuff: I was unhappy at university, and am still sometimes unhappy, because I assume(d) that everyone else was away somewhere having fun, whenever I was not. I figured everyone had these great friendships that I wasn't part of, and there were lots of things going on without me. I tried joining societies, but they were unwelcoming and (apparently) hostile. Things picked up when I changed my attitude: rather than expecting to make friends, I learnt that by hanging around -- in my case, at the student newspaper -- you bump into other people hanging around, end up hanging around together, or whatever. An ever-evolving network of apparently casual contacts builds up to be a social life.

I've started off all over again in a new town once since then. It was absolutely terrifying. But I did the same thing, and it worked. I met people and had learnt to be pro-active in asking people to do things with me: sometimes folk said no, sometimes yes. But funnily, it was only after a year, as I left town, that I realised which ones of my acquaintances were really my friends -- which ones I would want to stay in contact with. It wasn't the ones I had spent the most time with either. I'm starting again in a new town in a few weeks. I'm scared again, but I know I'll run into people the whole time -- working in a university you can't avoid it -- and I'm not expecting to suddenly make a new network of friends. Perhaps when I leave, I'll realise that I *have* made new friends, but I know it's not possible to make people your friends: acquaintances become friends, but it's a long process.

Graham, I hope you're feeling slightly better about things today. There are people on ILX -- and elsewhere -- who know to some extent what you're going through, even if no-one can understand it totally (and that too, is just a fact of life). But no-one can make unhappiness just go away, even one's friends, and it's unfair on folk to expect them to be able to do so. (Not that you want us to wave a magic wand and help you out). Everyone I know who has faced any form of depression or unhappiness has just had to learn their own ways of coping, and that's a slow process, but it has to be an active process. Just waiting for things to improve, or people to come to you, will never work, I'm afraid. Hope this is helping, tell me to shut up if it's wide of the mark...

God this is all so horribly reminiscent. I remember almost sending a letter to a schoolfriend (well, I hardly ever saw them outside of school) once saying almost exactly this. Looking at them from the outside, it's easy to assume everyone else is some kind of super efficient social machine but people can become expert at hiding their insecurities and fears you know..

People used to assume I was just aloof or superior, when really I was just desperately trying to think of a way to make contact and in the meantime didn't want to look awkward. Other people I know are insanely chatty as a nervous reaction when they're uncomfortable with a situation.

Let it be clear that this is an observation of life's irony, rather than any kind of judgment on anyone at all.

Well yeah, but as I'm sure you know this isn't really a paradox, as there's a difference between being friendly and being someone's friend.

The other paradox of this thread is that when you're feeling pissy and hopeless, getting sensible even-handed advice from others is an awfully bitter pill. Maybe with repetition it takes hold and reassures, but it's no fun being tutored on something when the complaint is that you're finding it pointlessly impossible in the first place. I'm not going to try and convince you that I know how you feel, Graham -- I may or I may not -- but from your contributions I'm guessing that that's just how this thread reads to you.

But I'm sure you know, Graham, what a good teacher would do if you felt this way about mastering a good backhand or a difficult piano piece: he'd say DO IT AGAIN -DO IT AGAIN - DO IT AGAIN -DO IT AGAIN, and he'd say it over and over until you starting hearing it echoing at night while you dreamed of tearing out his eyeballs and cramming them down his throat. And he'd keep saying it until you finally gave up -- gave up everything you thought you knew or expected and just fucking did it again and did it again until you'd re-learned it right. It's a shitty, demeaning process, but it works. And it becomes more evident to me with every passing year that adult life is all about the shitty, demeaning process of chopping out the portions of your personality that aren't getting you what you want and patching them back up with something that will. I could say "everyone has to do this," but does it even matter? The point is that you will, about something, and if it's making you feel shitty then maybe this is that thing.

And so the best possible advice I can pretend to offer is just to say FUCK IT. Say it in the mirror every morning and say it while you're falling asleep at night. Tell yourself that maybe you've just learned something the wrong way round, and now it's time to unlearn it and start over. Another thing the DO IT AGAIN coach would tell you is that it doesn't matter how spectacularly you're fucking up -- it doesn't matter how much the unlearning process reduces you to complete baffled helplessness -- so long as you're doing the re-learning. So fuck up. Fuck up constantly and laughably until you cease to even care about it. Don't even worry about actually making the friends any more than you'd worry about actually nailing the backhand: the point is for you to learn. Scare people, annoy people, bore people, whatever -- and when they run away just say FUCK IT and then DO IT AGAIN.

And this means wading through shit, because it means admitting that something in your present personality -- the personality that you (and a lot of us) cherish and find comfortable -- is doing it wrong. It means dropping whatever tricks you've constructed to help yourself out here: it means renouncing whatever training-wheel methods of rationalization, learned helplessness, expectations, exploitation, or guilt-induction you've devised to substitute for what you really want. It means not feeling like you deserve or have earned anything from anyone, and just going in and showing people that you're worth being close to, not out of obligation but just because. They're trying to convince you of the same thing.

So do I sound like the bastard tennis pro? Do you want to rip my eyeballs out etc.? Because if so, good: I try and stay away from threads like these, but I'm saying this because I believe you're a good guy and it's the only wisdom I have to offer. And it's shit-pessimist wisdom, but only up until you actually try it -- at which point you fuck up in terrifying ways and the world doesn't end and you realize how great it is that you can upgrade and remodel your very self if you try hard enough.

More specifically there's two questions being asked. One is "I have never had friends. Why and will I ever and how?" Whatever you think of it right now this thread will be useful in answering that. The second question is "Why aren't you specific people reading this my friend?" and that's much harder.

Probably I'm not sane or fair when it comes to [xXx]: I'll try and explain what the friendship meant, what I wanted out of it, but the wonky intensity of my want, in this territory, is more to the point than anything I can shape as a motivation anyone else will accept. It was like the portal to my salvation: I once put that in an xmas card, "not the lion and not the witch either" meaning haha the wardrobe, yes, though I left that unsaid cz it looked mentalist on the first card I wrote. Without this friendship, I had become convinced, as an enabler to a Charmed Circle of New Friends and New Better Kinds of Friendship — I associated this with my mysterious-even-to-myself sexuality and the kinds of ppl [xXx] liked to hang with — I would always be trapped where I was. For years I had been completely comfortable with my essentially solitary life, with (what Graham calls) "acquaintances" rather than friends, with little or no investment in companionship — maybe to guard against pain and rejection, though I didn't think about that till long after — where *all* my encounters with ppl were easy-come easy-go... and suddenly aged 36 I was deadly bored with myself, I felt like a ghost in my own life and I detested it and I so wanted out. I elected [xXx] the guide into freedom and launched myself at same.

The assault was tolerated for over a year, a sign I guess of how fond [xXx] actually was of me, the degree of forgiveness I was accorded. I careered past several warnings, often turning them — now I think about it — into validations of my own behaviour. Every wobble of uncertainty was a come-on to me: I built a complicated palace of likeness between us in my head, which I think [xXx] would have found humiliating and appalling, and not really because it was unrealistic, even. Sometimes incompatibility springs from similarity you don't want to have to acknowledge, from shared characteristics you're trying to escape not affirm. In the case of [xXx], for example: manipulative, malicious, charming, shrewd, drop-dead cute, fucked-up, unhappy, frightened, intuitively creative but only at second-hand, enormously gifted at latching onto interesting, strange people... etc etc etc.

Like I say, neither sane nor fair, maybe. I can't help projecting. Even today, years later, I can work myself into a rage about it, or else dissovle into nostalgic fondness. The person I wanted did not I think exist: certainly the only person with the key to a new Type of Friendship (as regards my own life) was me. Boring truism = stone fact. The person I wanted possibly did/does exist: the problewm was I had elected someone to this office, then projected my needs onto them, broadcasting fury and disappointment when they failed to be the person I wanted them to be. Not a fair thing to want anyway: and fury and disappointment are major turn-offs, as far as broadcasts go. "It is your fault you are not who I thought you would be..." Well, no. The person I wanted possibly did/does exist: I have met and befriended not one but several people since who far more exactly fit the bill I was demanding that [xXx] pay, way back then. I was kind of right when it came to knowing what I wanted/needed: kind of totally wrong when it came to insisting on identifying this with [xXx].

The crime I was eventually accused of was odd, but exact: "pretexts, it's always pretexts", said in a furiously dismissive and angry undertone, so that i had to get it repeated. It meant: I always found a way of leaving an ansafone message which excused my ringing and played on the guilt centres of the person playing back the message. It was hopelessly, dangerously passive aggressive: it meant any generosity, any present i gave, any kindness, any flattery — from remembering birthdays to asking advice — was immediately poisoned. there was always an agenda. Which is true: there was. The friendship came to pieces completely: I had to spend the next few weeks attending suddenly to the rage of, well, work colleagues whose fellowship I desperately did not want to lose. I shifted from panic at never gaining a world I wanted to jump off into, to panic at smashing the world I kind of actually liked after all. Three months before I would have sacrificed all that "mere acquaintanceship" for a week in intimate conclave with [xXx] => but that was over forever, and suddenly the point of the "mere acquaintanceship" was very real and urgent and worth working at.

I needed the delusion to smash through something I'd built round myself. I think I kind of knew that throughout the whole period. Before [xXx] arrived in my life, I'd simultaneously idealised a notion of reciprocal companionship and denied it to myself, for fear of what couple-type thing I found myself in not living up to the ideal. In the years since, I've found ways through all the doors I thought only [xXx] could open for me. On the other side are more people, of course, some nice, some awful, no Magical Inner Circle, no Charmed Ring of Utopian Social Perfection.

At some point during the worst of the summer in question, G was in my kitchen, who I hadn't seen for ages, since she moved to France with the German husband she met in Mexico and her two adopted Vietnamese kids. G who is startlingly beautiful, dated rockstars, threw wild parties, had half them men in London in the palm of her hand. I'm telling her about [xXx], miserably; she's laughing, and telling me about me, ten years before. "You'd come to one of my parties, Mark, and after ten minutes you were SO BORED. So you'd sit down and read a book. It was SO COOL. It was brilliant, I loved it, you were just my favourite person when you did that. It was like you didn't care about what anyone thought." I tell her I assumed no one had even noticed me. "Are you kidding? It was SUCH A STATEMENT!!" So why didn't you tell me? I could have done with knowing someone thought I was cool, if nothing else. "I was scared of you. We were all scared of you. You DIDN'T NEED ANYONE. I assumed you thought I was a complete idiot anyway." Um, no. I thought you were making this amazing success of everything, and I didn't know how to be a part of it, so, OK, read a book now....

Pinefox is right: if everyone knew what was in everyone else's head, threads like this would be unnecessary. So would books and talking and, y'know, pretty much everything. 1996-97 was the most awful year of my life, but it was also the year I felt most alive. It was the year I started understanding stuff: I needed totally and stupidly to misunderstand the most important thing ever — as I somewhat bafflingly (exceptly totally not bafflingly) then saw it — before that began to happen.

Fortunately, I have been making some other good things happen in my life (or they've just been happening). Absolutely essential for someone like me to get out and get involved with something which includes other people (rather than sitting at home reading, screwing around online, etc.). Happily I have found that something and it has opened doors for me, and continus to do so.

I had a VERY rough 1997 and got into a place where I wasn't sure I could trust anyone and it was at a time when I was bereaved and really needed my mates. Bearing in mind I'm 5000 miles away from family, my friends were a family substitute in lots of ways. And still are.

There are times at work where I've been scared and uncool and later people would tell me they were terrified of speaking to me (intimidating) when I haven't meant to be. And I know I have a reputation for being obscenely social but I do have to psych myself up to do it most times.

I've been meaning to post to this thread for the longest time but I was afraid what I had to say would come out all Dear Abby-ish and trite and also lots of people have expressed very good thoughts and advice. Also, I do not consider myself an expert in making friends but I do have some theories about what goes wrong when trying to make friends, based on extensive scientific field experiments run by yours truly. Since I have not met Grrrrraham I will just focus on answering the question in the abstract and emphasize that none of this is based on any interactions I have had with any ILX people, online or in real life.

I think the angst over having friends is very, very common at college age and in the early twenties, among other things because you are growing and learning who you are and what you like and so is everybody else. So it's very complicated because not only are you insecure but everybody around you is insecure (unfortunately, this problem doesn't go away) and tries to cope with it in a variety of experimental ways, whether by being solitary (the "everyone sucks" option), being SUPER-social (overcompensating), manipulating others (the "conservation of popularity" approach), throwing themselves into extra-curriculars or academics or getting into intensely codependent relationships (the "everybody else sucks" option). It's tempting but not productive to get caught up in measuring yourself against others, what others are doing, whether everyone else seems to have friends or whatever. It's not a competition. College and the early twenties is a good time to get to know yourself, what you like, what you look for in a friend, what kinds of behaviors you feel comfortable with, what behaviors really turn you off and to realize that you don't have to like or to be like everybody around you. You can learn an incredible amount about yourself and about people just from observing them, even if you don't say a word or interact.

As a continuation of what rainy said, one of the kindest things you can do for yourself is to give yourself a break and spend some quality time alone. It's okay to go through a "rebuilding" period. People change over time, for better or worse, and as they mature they will learn to give others more of the benefit of the doubt. So don't beat yourself up over things you might regret having done or said or feel that anything has been irretrievably screwed up. Just relax and be patient with yourself. Be very patient. And be patient with others.

It really helps in so many ways in life if you like yourself. And I know, that can be the hardest, hardest thing in the world. But getting to know yourself and liking who that is can be really enjoyable and makes it much easier to be able to share yourself with other people (wny do I feel like Richard E. Grant in Withnail and I: "offer him yourself"?). Be good to yourself and do things that make you happy or make you feel competent. Someone mentioned cooking, Stevo mentioned volunteer work -- these are all good confidence-builders. There is nothing wrong with going to a movie, show, or (heh) baseball game by yourself, eating in a restaurant you've always wanted to try, going to a museum, writing your name on the chalkboard to play pool at the local bar, or traveling by yourself and sending postcards to your mom. I love doing all these things and can get testy if deprived of my alone-time. Try not to worry about what other people think of you (again, I know this can be hard) -- chances are most people are too wrapped up in their own lives and thoughts to think anything. It is part of the social compact where I come from for adults to sit in bars, watch TV, drink by themselves or chat randomly to the bartender. In fact, picking a place, any kind of place -- a study carrol, a park, a bookstore, a cafe or bar -- that you like and frequenting it is one of the loveliest things to do. Over time, the other regulars sense your familiarity and will send you a friendlyish vibe, even if you don't actually interact. It's human nature. And you'd be surprised at the number of people who will come over and try your cooking experiments who might not otherwise come around. Also human nature.

I have a few very subjective thoughts on what to do when you do interact with other people, particularly new people. Here are some of my trite-sounding guidelines:

1. If you do a hundred nice things to someone else, and do even just one bad thing to someone, the person will often forget all the nice things you did and just remember you for the bad thing. So it's really important to try not to lose your temper, or to betray a person's secrets, or ask too many favors, or to assume too much familiarity with a new acquaintace. Lots of people have a lot going on in their lives and don't need more of that.

2. Don't try to do too much. Be on time. Be where you're supposed to be. Bring a bottle of wine or some cookies. Buy your round. Be reliable. Be decisive. If you can't commit to do something with someone, rather than screwing up their plans, just take a pass and ask if they could think of you next time. Don't feel embarassed if the thing proposed is out of your budget, propose a different event at another time that you're comfortable with. If you don't care to do a particular thing or to spend time with a particular person, don't feel the need to explain, just say "sorry, I can't," and (difficult as it may be) try to be gracious if someone says it to you.

3. People seem to like people who like them, so try to be the kind of friend that you'd want to have. Especially if you're at a loss for small talk, just ask questions, lots of questions. People really are so interesting and unique. Be a good listener and follow up next time you talk to them with questions about what they told you. Not only will you get to know people better but you'll learn about lots of bizarre things that you never knew existed.

4. Don't even think about trying to change people. People are who they are -- if they're going to change it's going to come from within themselves and you have to make your own choices accordingly. Although in time you'll have foul-weather friends as well as the fair-weather variety, keep it light and casual at first. When a new acquaintance asks you how you are, you may have to exercise a little judgment in refraining from spilling your guts or wearing your heart on your sleeve. Sometimes people just want to hear that you're "fine" and go into the movie or whatever. Some people work so hard and so precariously at maintaining a brittle layer of positivity that they deliberately avoid people who complain or gossip gratuitiously, even if they genuinely like the person, just because they are afraid the negativity may be contagious. Just making a lot of positive observations in general or refraining from joining in during a bitchfest can bring you an impalpable aura of good will that people like to be around, even if they don't realize it. You don't have to lie or be pretentious, either -- people appreciate the candor of sharing the bad with the good, as long as you don't act like you're the only one with problems. It can be healthy to make fun of yourself and your problems. Sensitive people will know what's ok for you to joke about but wouldn't be nice for them to make fun of. Over time, you'll learn who your closer friends are and who is good for discussing more serious kinds of things. It takes a long period of friendship before you can discuss friendship "issues" with someone -- most times you have to cut your losses and just realize which category of acquaintance they fit into. Some people can be ok friends for just hanging out but just aren't interested in or are not capable of really bonding emotionally. If you look to these kinds of people for approval or for emotional validation you're almost certain to be disappointed.

5. Observe the ritual. Try to get a feel for what people are like and act reciprocally. Some people will return a call within the hour; others will take two weeks to call you back and think nothing of it. Some people only will invite you to group events -- if you don't have a similiar group you can invite them to join, sometimes these people are made more comfortable if you propose to them something you were planning to do anyway and make it clear that, much as you'd enjoy their company, your happiness in life doesn't rest solely with their decision to join you. If someone asks you a lot of questions about a particular topic, ask them about the same topic -- maybe they're dying to talk about something but don't want to seem too eager or something. Sometimes you may have to accept an invitation to go out when you don't feel like it or take time out be a listener when you'd really prefer to be doing something else, but these are the things that build trust. Later on, that person might be there when you feel like company or you have something you want to discuss. By taking everything in turns, and dealing with others on a pace they feel comfortable with, you build trust, and send the signal that you accept the kind of friendship that they're willing to offer.

6. People get better the longer you know them. Try to keep in touch with people and your friends will sort themselves out in time. Just try to trust yourself and remember that you are a (cue Stuart Smalley daily affirmation) fine person. If someone does something really nasty to you, try to externalize it as much as possible and realize that it's not your fault. People can be jerks occasionally. If you are rejected by a person you don't know well, remember their rejection has little meaning because it isn't based on anything deep about yourself. And if someone you know better hurts you, try not to frame it as losing the friendship of some great person, just be sad that the person didn't turn out to be the person you thought they were. If your friends are your friends, they'll stick around.

Sorry for all the "tries" -- I think that was the most didactic thing I've ever written but it came from the heart. Just being able to recognize what you want shows a lot of maturity. I know that Grrrraham, and everyone here, will be fine.

(Did you get my email nick?)

If you have a lot of people who like to chat with you on an internet board, then you're doing pretty good.

Echoing a bit of felicity says above, it is most important to be friends with yourself. Maybe not best friends, but enough so that you'd like running into yourself at a pub.

Is there too much stigma associated w/ going to see a psychologist? No matter what age or where you are in life, no one ever has it all figured out. It could be helpful to meet up with someone who is disconnected from the rest of your life/world to talk about these things, who perhaps might have some insights or who may be able to help and support you to do what you need to do - be it learning to speak up, gaining confidence, accepting yourself, or going to social clubs, etc.

Sudden thought re: what you say above. Perhaps (I'm talking about outside ILx meet ups here) what you don't get is that it's normal to make their friends *in groups*. Like at university, most people became friends with the people they liked in their corridor/flat (I know - you hate them all - so did I and changed flats after the first term and was) plus the people on their course (which I did, eventually) or failing both of those, people in a society/newspaper etc. It diffuses the pressure that way I guess and allows for people being in your gang who you don't esp. like but still hang around with cause as a whole you have fun. You're mabe looking at the friendship thing like it's some kind of one to one compatablity matchmaking-first date second date thing.
Of course it's harder for you cause you're introverted, v.brainy and aesthetically much more particular than the braying hordes around you. The only bit of this you should want to maybe change is the first bit. Maybe it comes back to the 'is happiness overrated' thing. That might sound glib now and of course it's good to be happy but don't judge your life by an envious look at others seeming ultra-sortedness. Would you *really* want to be them, and give up being yourself? Think of all the (seemingly) happy people you see wankering around university. Do you want to be one of them? Like rainy and felicity have said - try (I know, I know) to relax and enjoy doing your own things sometimes rather than resenting it. Be proud of who you are.

I'm not insisting that my solutions are your solutions, but I wonder if a change in the types of activities you are involved in would help. (I don't know enough about you to know much about what sort of things you do.)

I definitely don't have it all figured out in my life, anyway.

This sounds interesting but I'm very confused by it.

Societies could give you a shared interest, a safe thing to talk about instead of silences. It will never be the case that your elite conversational skills will be able to convert anyone you meet to liking you: I occasionally feel like that, then I meet one of the normal people, who have no tolerance for anything better than Nickelback or smarter than Big Brother. Pick your battles, to pick exactly the wrong metaphor.

Nick sed:
>Perhaps (I'm talking about outside ILx meet ups here) what you don't >get is that it's normal to make their friends *in groups*.

I don't know about that. I tend to freeze up in groups, hence me turning up at Glasto, having some awkward conversations with random people, and only really talking to one of yez with any confidence for the rest of the weekend. Again, taking groups by storm is not a realistic objective.

But then, I'm not sure I know anything about this: I'm amazed that the DV considers it hard to make friends, as he's one of my favourite conversationalists.

The example you give is not what I mean at all - that's like an ILE meet. 'Taking groups by storm' is not what I was saying - I'm talking about these things evolving with people you are in contact with for some reason (living with you, working with you, studying with you, being in the same club as you). In time, you get closer to certain people and those friendships evolve and other people drop away. Of course people make *can* make friends with individuals outside of a wider social setting, but it's rarer, and perhaps applies more to oddballs than the masses.

There's two different strands here - trying to explain how most people make friends and giving advice specific to Graham. Sorry if it led to confusion.
The dating analogy? Well I thought it was clear enough. People are used to stressing about the process of dating (does he like me?, should I call her?, why hasn't he called me? where is this going? etc.) but the way I see it, this shouldn't be the model for making friends. It just seemed like Graham might be looking at it that way.

I recently had someone remind me that it shouldn't be the model for dating either (at least in the early stages).

What I was trying to give you -- in my crustiest authoritarian voice -- was basically the Alcoholics Anonymous philosophy. I think it's appropriate. I think whenever we have problems of this sort it boils down to the same thing: something about the way we're behaving isn't accomplishing what we want it to. This doesn't mean we're not perfectly lovely people, just that we have habits and patterns of behavior that aren't serving their purpose properly. And it also doesn't mean that anything is anyone's "fault" -- just that it's better to correct those habits than to develop all sorts of crutches, manipulations, or rationalizations to throw up our hands and say it can't be helped.

So the AA philosophy I was adapting would say something like this: (a) accept that it's your responsibility, and that you have to change your own behavior to change your own life, (b) admit that you *don't* have everything under control, and that you need to re-learn that behavior so that it accomplishes what you want it to, (c) accept that that's going to be difficult, that it'll make you helpless and that you'll make mistakes along the way, and (d) work at it, one day at a time, until you've put yourself where you want to be.

I've never run through this program on an addiction level, obviously, but I don't think it's a bad tool for thinking about our own behavior. Because our habits are a lot like addictions, things we go back to because they're easy or comfortable even as it becomes clearer and clearer that they're not working properly for us. In any case, I hope the crusty AA-sponsor tone I was going for up there didn't make me look like a cruel person, as I was honestly trying to help you with the train of thought that worked for me. (And it's advice I'd only give to someone I was sure wouldn't entirely take it: you wouldn't want to actually act that way, but keeping it in mind can help sometimes.)

can i just say that i'm fortunate enough to have discovered a really, really brilliant psychotherapist and she's made the last six weeks a lot easier than they could have been?

if you are one of those people who feel like there's a stigma, do whatever you can to lose that feeling. it can be one of the best things you'll ever do.

The hard part is that people meet nice people (ie. people who they could become very good friends with) all day, every day, so the "hey you're nice" recognition-factor often *does* get forgotten in the rush. The magic ingredient to my mind is not getting people to notice you and realise you're a great person, but to give them an extra reason to come talk to you. This is the real value of shared contexts (societies, classes, jobs etc.): they tend to create a subject matter that the people involved want to talk about, so the nice person nearby who shares that context becomes someone they want to talk to.

Often the people I've become very good friends with at uni can be hard to distinguish in a qualitative sense from those I've only become slightly friends with. Usually the sticking point is that the those in the first group have more reasons to talk to me regularly (and I them) than those in the second.

I learnt this lesson at university and in every job I've ever had. Most people on ILE who know me and like me (mostly fellow Sinister list types) might find it hard to believe that I'm essentially shy, deeply insecure and have lost count of the number of times I've said to myself a pretty exact copy of Graham's original paragraph. But that's how I am, and my social life up to my current age of 28 has been more often than not a deeply unhealthy cocktail of dumb shyness and creepy over-compensation.

Another problem is that, by and large, settled people have a circle of friends which they subconsciously keep at manageable levels. Also by and large, this circle tends to get smaller with age rather than bigger. Therefore, penetrating this circle is immediately a challenge - simply retaining the status quo will leave you on the outside. Trying too hard will freak people out and pretty much guarantee you never penetrate. Which is why advice about hanging around, and gradually assimilating yourself into groups is really the most realistic way of making friends. I am always guilty of seizing on the smallest of positive results and over-pursuing them - I may as well be getting on my knees and crying "like me, accept me!" to the object of my affections, and, as you've found out, this is the worst thing you can do.

Unlike most others here, I'm not going in a specific direction, so I should stop really.

Tim said:
The hard part is that people meet nice people (ie. people who they could become very good friends with) all day, every day, so the "hey you're nice" recognition-factor often *does* get forgotten in the rush. The magic ingredient to my mind is not getting people to notice you and realise you're a great person, but to give them an extra reason to come talk to you. This is the real value of shared contexts (societies, classes, jobs etc.): they tend to create a subject matter that the people involved want to talk about, so the nice person nearby who shares that context becomes someone they want to talk to.

Wandering around university there seem to be hundreds or even thousands of potentially nice people about. Problem is there's few of them in my class and I'm certainly not living with any of them (something that has GOT to change, and soon), and I really really don't want to join any societies, so I don't have an excuse to say hi to any of them.

this is something i would do if i knew what group to join.

(Can I change my plea to "Never had a social life"? I think that identifies the problem better. I've often had friends in theory but never done anything with them)

I can't put my finger on exactly when it happened but I don't have problem making friends anymore. I kinda think if you don't like me for me then I don’t wanna be friends with you, there are millions of other people in this world and some of them might like me, so I'll just move on to the next person.

There will be people out there you become friends with, if it's not working with the acquaintances you have then make some more, law of averages innit? There has to be somebody that you click with somewhere, just meet as many people as possible!

Good luck with it, I think I'd take some solace from the fact that people care enough to write all this advice.

And Plinky's right, obsessing over this doesn't help.

And big apologies to poor Anna.

Come to think of it, where is Dave Q's contribution to this thread?

NORY'S TWO CENTS ABOUT SMALL TALK:

Unfortunately, most friendships do have to begin with some version of small talk. The good news is that you'll get better at it as you get older (not to say you'll like it any more than you do now--it never ceases to be inane and uncomfortable--but at least it gets easier). The odd thing is that most people, even those who seem ultra-confident or chatty, still profess to be bad at small talk. So, when you're standing around w/ someone and not saying anything, chances are they have no idea what to say either, which is why they walk away.

The trick is--ask questions. Ask an intitial question, and then ask a follow-up, and so on. This makes you seem like the best listener in the world, which people almost always appreciate, it lets them talk about themselves, and it allows you to get to know the person better, which can lead to more complete conversation later on. If you don't know them at all, keep the tone very casual. If they're really rude and don't reply, then you really don't want to know them, anyway.

God, it sounds awful, doesn't it? But I swear, it will get easier if you practice. Just be very, very patient.

Good luck. And hang in there.

Surely Graham if you can find a way to meet with others who are likely to share your interests then it'll help as you can shortcut difficult'out-of-the-blue' smalltalk. Or offer your skills to a group who might need it. What about offering to help with Ents?

Could you try this - try an experiment for an evening. Force yourself to go to some event and just *be someone else* for the evening - force yourself to go up and talk to as many people as possible. If you're worried about what to say - learn a few openers off by heart. Have a few drinks first. Keep in mind - no-one will think you're crap!!

Then stop trying so hard - people have built in defence mechanisms that make them think someone is after something if they are being too nice.

I like people best when they are being themselves - be it grumpy or agressive or whatever. If there's one thing that will put me off a person, it's thinking that they are altering their opinion (or paying lip service) in an attempt to ingratiate themselves with you. (I'm not saying this is what you you do, obviously)

As for small talk - yes it's really hard for loads of people. My cowardly tactic is to smile and say hello to lots of people in passing. It put's the onus on them to kick off the conversations when you next meet.

It's not great advice, but it's mine.

why don't you become a machine instead?

More serious answers please.

As for chopped liver, our family cat really liked that when I was little. She was the only one.

Radical Socialists may often be the height of tedium but the tend to drink a fair bit.

I get overly excited and too into things, and if I really like someone, I don't know how to hold back, so I bombard them with text messages and emails and go completely over the top and scare the shit out of them so they stop returning said texts and emails. :-(

Or else maybe I just need to calm down and stop taking things so personaly. When I don't return emails, it doesn't mean I don't like the person. It just means that I'm busy, or don't have anything to say, or else I have a lot that I want to say to them, but need time to think about what I want to say and how to say it. Or else I just forget. It doesn't mean I don't think that they're a worthy person. But if someone, say, *Hilton* doesn't return an email, I think that he must be completely scared of me and doesn't want to talk to me ever again. :-(

Either that, or I'm way too chilled because I'm sober and shy, and then people think I'm a snob. Sigh.

Quite. < MST3K >No emotion, not allowed...< /MST3K >

Taking the piss out of the lecturer at that point is usually a good idea. Use your ignorance of Oxford to your advantage. Find relatively quiet person and ask them where to get x/y/or z consumer goods in the town. Say you are new and how fucking terrible the course was in Salford. (Salford and how rubbish it is can be you No.1 talking point).

the thing with the library girl failed because it was stilted, and because instead of going up and saying "hey, xyz!" you went up and...pregant pause...wait...xyz. this will have appeared forced. dont do this again. if you're going to say something to someone, make sure you go up and just say it!

"hey, i just transferred from manchester, so i dont know whats up here, where the decent bars at?"

maybe have like books/cds youve just brought with you, people sometimes notice...and come up to you! my stereolab tshirt did this for a while (hey, i wonder where my slab tshirt is actually)

and, most importantly. any initial conversations dont have to be very long. like, for example, you could say the "where the bars at?" thing, get the answer, and then say "cool, i'll have to check it out...see ya round". that way, the awkwardness never arrives, youve established some initial contact, with no pressure or anything. then next time you see them, you can be like "hey, that bars alright!"

you know, making friends is often incremental. little steps at a time. the minute you feel, ok theres a weirdness, and awkwardness, pull out, like, "anyways, i gots to get going, ive got to get these books to a friend, i'll see ya round". keep it light, speak to lots of people, but only a little. ask them questions? smile. laugh. BREEZY!

so along with i. hanging around and watching, and ii. pre-emptive questions earlier on abt where ppl go and what ppl do (don't be woirried abt asking questions you already knowe the answer to, as long as you haven't asked who yr asking three times already), start developing iii. which is where you will say "i'm going to [xx], if anyone else wants to join me"

(where [xx] is an activity or a place, where fun is laid on by others, or carefully constructed by you)

Since confident projection is still something you have to work at, I was wondering about Dan's suggestion also (as a good one, that is). Plays etc always need technicians and extras and smart organised people, so you needn't jump straight in at the deep end performance-wise. Plus Green Rooms are kind of fun and sexy bohemian spaces, and roleplaying and practice at roleplaying are unexceptionably part of the deal.

NO: make sure it seems and feels natural. Everyone now and then goes through "but I am a fraud and a poseur i will be found out" on the inside: it's the default setting for anxiety, and letting yrself off the hook.

The thing abt feeling weird and scared doing something new is that this is only emotional millimeters away from the rush of doing something exciting and difficult and scary, and GETTING AWAY WITH IT. And ALL of these are superior to feeling pissed off w.yrself for NOT doing stuff (and still also feeling lonely and angry). (I mean, there's nothing useful more you can learn abt being lonely and angry, probbly, so why not learn abt more exposed stuff. It can't be worse, and whern it pays off, that's what you;re trying to crack...)

In short,learn how to be a pseud.

Dan may be comfortable with being naked, I am less comfortable with his nakedness. (How does he hit the space bar?)

(The time after THAT it'll be an all-out freeballing extravaganza, though.)

don't let yrself be walked all over, but having a skill you can cheerfully have on offer is no bad thing

Oh. 'OR'.

I must say Graham, I TOTALLY appreciate my techie friends/friendly techies, and not because I can take advantage of them but because I do genuinely admire their skills and think they're wise and stuff. It's a perfectly good place to start a friendship.

I know I've not met you and can't speak authoritatively, but I think that holds true for everyone -- when you've just moved is one of few times in life when you can honestly tell people you don't know anyone and would they maybe like to talk or whatever else, and this seems natural and maybe even admirable.

Well, like I said I don't really see people on my course much, but I haven't tried with the ones I do yet. I was really looking forward for doing that this morning but forgot to turn my alarm on.

"hey, i just transferred from manchester, so i dont know whats up here, where the decent bars at?"

maybe have like books/cds youve just brought with you, people sometimes notice...and come up to you! my stereolab tshirt did this for a while (hey, i wonder where my slab tshirt is actually)

and, most importantly. any initial conversations dont have to be very long. like, for example, you could say the "where the bars at?" thing, get the answer, and then say "cool, i'll have to check it out...see ya round". that way, the awkwardness never arrives, youve established some initial contact, with no pressure or anything. then next time you see them, you can be like "hey, that bars alright!"

if you go up and simply say ""Hi, I'm Graham, I'm kinda new here"" it is like a statement. where is the space for a response? look at what i suggested. it has room for them to reply, its a question, it could go in different ways, and it has room to be broken off without weirdness. i dont get what was wrong with other peoples advice, you have to give room for the other people to respond, ASK DONT TELL!

How about asking about good places to eat or buy groceries or what people like to do for fun?

and ok, you dont have to say "where the bars at?" say, "yo, you bitchez got the 192 on the beer'n'hos joints?", er...ok, maybe not. but! how about "hey, i've just transferred from manchester down to oxford, do you know where the best places to go out are?"

Got anywhere with scoieties stuff. I'm sure they will be running a coach down to the STW march on Saturday.

surely you can see the problem?

you've just written off like 90% of the people of oxford! and what is it exactly that these cool people are going to be into? what is it you're going to talk about?

WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?

and, n, yes, i would say "where the bars at?", sadly. as ronan, chris, blueski, vicky and jonnie will testify i was heard to say "yo ronan, what up dude?" on friday night.

you said elsewhere that you have a twin brother. how is he at these things?

my suggestion would be to make use of any interaction in tutorials as a toehold. ask questions, answer questions, be helpful and look useful to know.

failing that just learn to live with the situation, enjoy your own company, try to use the time alone usefully.

this advice brought to you from someone who stayed at a FAP for almost 60 seconds once (blue posts, i think you may have been there, sat opposite alix) so it's probably not worth much.

i'm also curious about the 'door that open both ways' comment on that other thread 8)

andy

You could ask where students drink?

G: do you know where a good bar is?
RS#1: Yes, the BlueBlood Rugger Frenzy is Top Hole, old fellow!!
G: OK, well, maybe I'll see you there, I have this THING to do first *runs way*

G: do you know where a good bar is?
RS#2 (a bit vaguely): Erm, oh, hmm, maybe the college bar?
G: Actually I kind of hate student bars. Where's somewhere to go which is exactly the opposite to a student bar?
RS#2 (brightens): How about [suggests somewhere brilliant]?

and if it's any consolation the answer to that is www.ilxor.com

with you 100% on the bars thing, horrid places.

andy

But you also say that you're lonely. Everyone gets lonely when they are deprived of human companionship. I think the idea behind these suggestions is to find a pretext for getting together with other people. I think asking about bars was suggested because that's a place where people congregate. But there are others.

But you have to be willing to give something in exchange for what you yourself want, which you said are cool people willing to put up with you. So don't you think it's fair that you have to be cool and put up with people too?

Graham, I know you are a lovely and giving person because I have met you now and because you are very generous with your time in constantly improving ILX. Your work improves my life immensely, for one. But it's impossible to reciprocate in kind because I don't know computer programming and can only admire your work as a user and give you my words of thanks. And anyway, it sounds like you'd rather have companionship than for people to write computer programs for your use because you said you are lonely.

So do you think it's possible to think about what motivates you to spend your time improving ILE and maybe apply some of the principles to your dealings with the new people you meet? I imagine there are tedious and boring parts to programming. I really don't know. But what I am saying is that it can be work to get to know new people at the beginning. You have to be willing to get to know people and their needs, which may be someone who shares their interests, or maybe they need food and would enjoy company while they eat it. I don't know. But do you get satisfaction from things you do for ILE? Do you think you might get some satisfaction for filling any possible needs of other people, even helping someone move their boxes or playing videogames with them while they do their laundry? Would you get any satisfaction from working in a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or a used bookstore while yuo look for a job? Because I would reckon that those people sure would appreciate you.

Please email me if you want. I've tried to email you in the past and it bounced back.

Also be open to people trying to talk to you. Like me. I was looking forwards to meeting you as well at the FAP, but it didn't take long to figure out that you'd focussed your friends-making on one person at a time. This is not always a good idea. If the other person is having none of it, it is always a bad idea.

Also don't script stuff. I don't know if you do, but you seem to be the sort of person who would. You give the impression above that you're the computer from War Games, and you've gone through all possible conversations and they're all a loss. Not so: people are there to suprise you.

Also don't give up.

Felicity, I emailed you esrlier. I would lovee to help people move boxes but they never ask cos I'm not they're friend, and past experience shows that quite often when just trying to help people or do something nice they come away thinking you have a crush on them or something.

*You* think this is hard work Nick?

I quite enjoy these cz I am strange. But you knew that.

1. For people to discover that you're cool for just being *you* they have to get to know you first and this first stage will have to take place either on their territory (even if these topics of conversation / places aren't really *you*) or, more likely since this is where most human interaction takes place, in neutral territory (topics / places where people meet because they're spaces for engagement: I know someone who doesn't like football much, but keeps his eye on it so that he has something to say to visiting academics or whoever he finds himself around etc etc).

2. If you have too fixed an idea of who or what you are looking for, you will be more likely to not find it. My suggestion -- based on very limited knowledge of you or your interests -- would be to look at uni. media societies: newspaper / radio or similar. These groups will always need people to do technical things; they will tend to involve people doing technical things; and even if you don't desperately want to spend your whole life on the technical side there will be other people to talk to, even if it's about boring old technical stuff. But you can't go out and make friends, it is impossible. You can only go out and talk to people / be around people and see what happens.

Good luck

I like felicity's email as well.

do you have any interests other than pretending to like things?

aren't you in college somewhere? I know this has been said before, but don't they have student societies or clubs there?

Mark, I'm sure you know yourself pretty well, seeing as you're you and everything, but when Joei and I met you we both thought you were supermegaeasy to talk to.

How am I meant to develop interests that involve other people if I don't have other people to begin with?

I'm going to forgo teasing you about the typo and try to give some serious advice: in order to make friends, you have to put yourself out there. It is categorically impossible to make friends if you live your life like a hermit; you MUST go out and interact with people, whether it's through forming study groups, joining extracurriculars, or going to parties/pubs/bars, or some combination of the three. There is no way around this.

Though there is a difference between being supermegaeasy to talk to and being good at starting (and even driving) conversations.

also you are both musicians — in fact singers — and i already knew this: so we had a v obv common interest

once it is got going, i'm fine, esp.if who i'm with is super-talkative too

i can be very shy too, but initial awkwardness can be overcome with a bit of effort. most of my good friends would prob consider me pretty talkative, and are generally pretty puzzled when they meet casual acquaintances of mine who describe me as 'quiet.' once you get past the initial awkwardness, you'll be the same. but i think you should just throw yourself into it a bit. don't overthink or plan out what you're gouing to say, just yap away i sez.

(And if you want a job you should be asking people about jobs regardless of whether you want to befriend them or not!)

and incidentally, a good few of my friends have completely different interests to me. you can be great friends with people who don't share many of your likes/dislikes, so don't be fussy about who you talk to, and don't get frustrated if success is not immediate. bonds take time to form.

Also re being flexible, do try to find a club or society or two to join. They don't have to be the things you're most passionate about, just things you can work up enough interest in, somewhere to start building up a network of friends. It's slow work, but there is a snowball effect. You have seen how difficult it is to get started, but once you have a friend or two, the next one or two come significantly more easily, generally.

I've never heard of study groups before. Lectures are really places you can talk to people, they mostly happen in smaller rooms. Obviously there are breaks but I'd kind of feel like I was stalking people by going after them. There is one module that's based around a group project so I get to talk to people there, but not often and that's only 3 people. I don't really interact with other people anywhere else beyond holding doors and stuff.

Andy: My brother has always been much better than me but I haven't really spoken to him since we started going to separate secondary schools. My doors that go both ways thing is the joy of not having to worry whether to push or pull. Ingenious. (I'm very anti-door generally though). When did you come to a FAP?

Ally: The reason I do critique advice is because there isn't and I want people to understand what my situation is. Like people say, there isn't a set of rules that will solve my problems.

I think Helen Love and Anita And Me and Dawson's Creek have put dumb ideas in my head about having a gang, and I'm trying to headhunt people to be in that gang. And that's not how friendship works in the real world, is it?

Anxieties about making a move:
1. Any one I do talk to won't
2. Friendships are already formed and people are perfectly happy with the circle of friends they have, or I'll be interrupting their conversation.
3. If I do talk to people, and get a hostile reaction, I'll feel like a right divot walking up to the next table/group and trying the same thing.
4. It's very difficult to talk to people when you're depressed about all this.
5. I haven't had many people to talk to lately and find it very hard to very suddenly get back in to, even the purely physical act of making a sound can be hard.
6. This is the dumbest list ever.

Alternative, and probably much more constructive, question - What have/would YOU do in this kind of situation? It's hard for me to grasp that this a perfectly reasonable situation for anyone when I'm having such trouble with it.

I wrote something similar in my diary when I was your age about wanting to be part of a 'gang'. The best friendships I have had were when I *did* belatedly become part of a gang, I have to say. It's what I said miles upthread about friends usually being made en masse, in a group, however you want to put it. But I know that's not for everyone.

Your list is only dumb in that if we all worried about all these things all the time, we'd never do anything. But it's normal to have those anxieties. A warning: people might not respond in a friendly way, esp. if you say it oddly or they've already noticed you as a v.quiet, scared looking person. Please don't take this too hard, and conclude that's all hopeless and we're all tricking you.

Can I ask why you and your twin bruv went to different schools? That's interesting.

To go back to the subject, I really think less problems with the suggestions and more effort is the key, there are no answers to some of the points you make above but there never will be without actual physical effort to create them.

This is false 90% of the time. Lots and lots of people are lonely. (Which is why the "join some clubs" suggestion is a good one, b/c the people at those clubs are looking to make friends. ) Plus, most people would gladly have another friend.

3. If I do talk to people, and get a hostile reaction, I'll feel like a right divot walking up to the next table/group and trying the same thing.

Hostile reaction? Are you trying to make friends with prisoners?

4. It's very difficult to talk to people when you're depressed about all this.

See a therapist for social anxiety/shyness/depression. I'd bet the school provides them. (And fuck any stigma or embarassment attached to it.)

5. I haven't had many people to talk to lately and find it very hard to very suddenly get back in to, even the purely physical act of making a sound can be hard.

See above, and maybe add a speech therapist.

I have been where you are, lonely and miserable and so sure that everyone knew how to make friends but me. A couple things I've learned about keeping your shyness from ruining your social life. 1) It's an ongoing battle. There's no magic cure. (Also, since I know I was thinking this at my most miserable: a girlfriend won't save you.) 2) Force yourself to do thing you don't really like. Join clubs you think are kind of lame. (Odds are someone there will agree with you and you can make fun of everyone else together = instant bonding!) Basically, if there's any chance for social activity, be it a charity function, scuba diving in toxic sewage, whatever, do it! Activities where you are forced to work side by side somebody are perfect because they force you to talk to each other. 3) This is my top secret technique: find a social butterfly and glue yourself to them. Find someone who talks to everyone, knows everyone, and just fucking force them to be friends with you. (Ha, not really force, but put all your energy into befriending them. Sit by them, stalk them, pay them, etc.)

Lurking under all of this is the issue of self-confidence.

So I suggest going and getting some kind of job somewhere, or being more social with your classmates. By social I don't mean getting up and doing some kind of Jerry Seinfeld routine or anything but just lean over to someone and ask what they got on the last essay or whatever.

It's basically the same thing everyone else has said.

I know you think these people have their already-developed groups, of course they do. It doesn't mean they're all completely insular and closed to new faces... in my experience, most friendship groups that last do so because they need a stream of new people coming into them. I've had a couple of flatmates who came into the house as the 'outsider' to the group, in much the same way you are now, and once again I know from experience that its better to be seen as the shy one who makes an effort than the weird one that locks himself in his room and comes and goes as he pleases. People are obviously willing to make an effort with you, you have to take that chance, because it won't be around forever. If not, they'll stop thinking that you're shy and start thinking you're just plain anti-social.

I would develop an interest in boardgames and join the university boardgames club. Boardgames are a great way of interacting with people without having to make scary "so, do you want to be my friend?" noises. Casual interaction leads to friendly interaction.

I am by nature a rather retiring person, and I feel the pain of someone who has moved to a strange town and college where they don't know anyone. Casting myself back to when I started college - I remember being aware that if I didn't make a major effort in my first few weeks I would end up going through my four years with no friends whatsoever. So in the first lectures I went to I talked to everyone who sat near me. It kind of worked. Nodding hello to faces you recognise around the college works as well, as that eventually led to me making my best friend ever.

I'd recommend against these "do you want to form a study group?" gambits, as people will only form study groups with people they have some prior connection to. Start off with neutral questions like "How did you find that assignment?" or something like that.

you should look at getting involved in clubs and things like that. Campaigning groups are always looking for grunts to do legwork... you must have some belief that you would like to campaign about.

Graham, this is very perceptive -- about yourself and about the way the world works. People often like to give the impression that they're in a gang, but this is because pretending they're a gang compensates for the fact that relationships etc. are inherently unstable, and people do come and go from groups.

1. Any one I do talk to won't

Yeah, it's a risk. But if they don't talk back it may not be because they hate you or are rejecting you straight off but because they're shy too, or are having a really shitty day, or have just had bad news, or are worrying about a presentation they've got to give, or have low blood sugar from skipping breakfast or... So giving it time is important too.

2. Friendships are already formed and people are perfectly happy with the circle of friends they have, or I'll be interrupting their conversation.

In my experience no-one is ever perfectly happy with their circle of friends (and many people won't see themselves as having a circle of friends). These circles are formed by circumstance and chance rather than by pledges of undying allegiance. But aren't the most interesting people the ones who don't hang around in groups? Or who know people in a range of groups, even if they don't belong whole-heartedly to one or another.

3. If I do talk to people, and get a hostile reaction, I'll feel like a right divot walking up to the next table/group and trying the same thing.

Well, best to be realistic that if you *do* feel rejected you may not be able to pick yourself up straightaway and move on to next group: but the image here is wrong. You're imagining walking into a strange room where people are already gathered in circles. Better to think about yourself as walking into or out of a room alongside the people who are around you anyway (on your course, in your building) and speaking to whoever happens to be next to you, and then walking alongside them to wherever they're going and then perhaps wandering off -- or perhaps sitting down with them / their friends. (but that image has run away with itself)

4. It's very difficult to talk to people when you're depressed about all this.

Yes, but the anti-depression advice is all over the rest of ILE. (reiterate mine: sort out your diet, take exercise).

What have/would YOU do in this kind of situation? It's hard for me to grasp that this a perfectly reasonable situation for anyone when I'm having such trouble with it.

When I arrived at university I found it hard to meet people. The people I lived with were OK but we had very little in common. The most desperate thing I did to talk to someone was to stand by the jukebox in the student bar and when someone came up to put something on comment on the music that was playing (Christ haven't we had 'Go West' a million times already!) and what they were choosing. My situation was different from yours because I had a girlfriend in another city: but as some people have pointed out on this thread, loneliness can be a problem independently of how many friends and connections you actually have. One similarity was that I did have an idea that being at uni should be like being in a gang, based largely in fact on going to stay with Tom in Oxford during my year off, and being impressed by the group of friends he had to hang around with. (Although of course they looked more like a group from the outside than the inside I expect.) This just never worked out for me. After a few years I found out / realised that the most interesting people aren't necessarily in groups: but are the people who are most open to everyone else, and are able to get on with a wide range of people, even if they don't fit into any particular clique. But to achieve this means adjusting the way one thinks and interacts with people on a number of levels.

I just looked at the societies website and some of them sound cool. There's a backstage club that seems alright. Anyone have experience of clubs that exist purely arrange social events - "Established for all who enjoy having fun, for social events such as laser quest, theme parks and breweries" - I have no idea what this might be like.

The japanese film fest is a link on the front page. There looks like some good stuff on.

I think you should make it your mission go to one ever week! There looks like there's loads going on Graham, there has to be something you'd like.

no. there has to be a purpose, that is how you meet interesting people, things come from a shared interest, otherwise there is too much pressure, its not based around anything.

it seems to me graham that you aren't interested in anything. this is a problem, what are you going to speak to people about?

It does Ed. I wish I'd heard about it before.

http://www.thesu.com/

Ooooh, there's a presentation on DLP projectors tonight. I could go out for once.

Graham - if you do try and break into the drama club, when I was in college the best way is to volunteer to do absolutely anything (being a back stage flunkey, basically), and not just audition for acting parts. I found this out the hard way.

There's at least two clubbing societies.

Bunnies are grebt. *twitches nose*

Nitsuh you just made me LARFF OUT LOUD - I am in an odd mood tonight I must admit...

Example: I am a shy person with strangers because I never know what to say, so I mostly only talk to my own friends. I think that other people don't want to talk to me; they think that I don't want to talk to them. Someone comes up and starts talking to me, and I am very grateful and no longer feel like they don't want me to talk to them, so I talk to them next time.

What I'm saying is that the first conversation is the hardest one to start up but have some faith that other people want friends too. Even if they have friends already, who would mind getting to know someone else who is nice? I don't have good advice for starting that first conversation, unfortunately, but other people have better experience and advice.

*beats himself with the receiver of the phone*

As you were.

The other thing is that I am more and more convinced that your success in socialisation has to follow an improvement in you yourself. I know you well enough to realise that, though not well enough (esp. about your background - that twin brother going to a different school thing was a real shock, and the 'I'm not interested in anything' smacks of depression) to be able to offer anything but the advice to try to get professional help. As someone said upthread, try the counselling service.

I think that's it for me and this thread.

And

1. As far as I know, most groups of people greet the arrival of new people with eager cries of joy (though this could be Dunedin?)

2. It seems pretty silly saying you have nothing to talk about when you are patently a font of knowledge about computers and tv and comics and all sorts of things people are interested in.

My brother joined an university amnesty international group and claims that it is full of 18-20 year old, charming, softly spoken girls. He does not appreciate this, being old and cynical, but it sounds like the place to be, if you want to meet those people.

My twin brother is non-identical. We went to separate schools partly cos I wanted to try to get in to a private school and he didn't, and a lot because I was sick of being in his shadow at primary school.

That Amnesty group idea seems cool though.

The purpose of this thread Nick = Can someone explain *ahem* frineship to me?

I'd marry any girl that goes to a screening of Andrei Rublev on the spot.

it is far too easy to assume that everyone is really good friends with each other because they interact in certain ways: oh god yes. The idea that infiltrating groups = Intruding is very easy to subscribe to. Even at a relatively advanced age I am inclined to fall into the “wow! They’re so cool and influential and like what I like! I want to be their friend!” mindset whereby characteristics and common interests and likes/dislike are attributed to whole swathes of people who seem to associate with one another in some kind of Ideal way that is not conducive to Outsiders. Also, this sometimes has playground elements of social league-tabling and hierarchies – “I want to be their friend, but I am slightly in awe of my (totally unreliable) perception of what they are like, so they are out of my league; I don’t deserve them!” And then if/when do make an effort you berate yourself for having to try to manipulate and schmoooze yourself into their collective orbit, rather than it being an ‘honest’ and organic process.

my basic assumption is that nobody ever wants anything to do with me: despite evidence to the contrary I think this is still an instinctive belief of mine and is one of those thought-processes that I have to consciously wrench myself out of. It is very easy to assume that you have absolutely nothing to say that could possibly be of interest to anyone else. I have days when I feel absolutely equal to the task of other people, and other days when I think I am a total embarrassment and it would definitely be for the best if I didn’t leave the house. This is in no way the result of parental or family criticism, it might stem from school rubbishness of many years back but then loads of people go through far worse than I did and emerge hardier and more resilient at the end of it.

Lots and lots of what is here is helpful and brilliant, alext in particular is very right-on throughout.

I find it hard to make friends and maintain friendships, and harder the older I get. I have friends, but rarely have I had what one would call a best friend (besides my significant other). I feel I'm missing something.

I've had very social periods of my life, generally when someone else who was a friend magnet or scene maker took the initiative and recruited me as a friend and pulled me into their crowd.

In the past, I've relied on my boyfriends to make things happen socially and then tagged along. Scott and I are similarly anti-social, though, so neither of us is the one to usually invite people to do something or make phone calls.

I think a lot of people make friends through their work, but I work as a freelancer by myself.

I find that I am way too picky when it comes to friends. There are about 5 or 6 people here who I consider real friends, who have passed my stringent test. I am realising that I haven't been a very giving friend to many people in the past, so I've lost many by the wayside. I tend to be stingy with my time and to be freaked out by someone really needing me. Then when I need someone, I'm left with nobody to call.

Sometimes I get a "friendship crush" on someone new and think they might have friendship potential, but it doesn't take much for me to get frightened away or write them off. If they call me too much, I get afraid of having to make some kind of time/energy commitment to a new person. If they turn down an invitation, I assume they don't want to be my friend.

There are a lot of people here who I used to be "friends" with, in the sense that we would drink beer together, but many of them I never really got to know on much of a personal level (I couldn't tell you for instance if they have any siblings), and after years of sort of knowing them, I feel awkward to ask those questions when I run into them socially.

I'm finally learning, though, that people are almost always happy to talk about themselves. Asking questions is key. I have always been kind of mystified by small talk but I think I'm getting it. Another "technique" in awkward social situations I've just recently learned is something I call "catch and release". At a party where I felt shy, I used to just latch on to someone I felt the least uncomfortable with. That can make them feel uncomfortable. Now, instead, after a few moments, I force myself to move on and go talk to someone else.

I find myself dissatisfied with my number of friends now partly because some of my closest friends over the years have turned out to have problems that make maintaining a friendship with them nearly impossible (alcoholism).

Anyway, I'm in the market for one or more new friends, and found this thread helpful.

this is still true! i seem to always make friends by accident, more or less. you're thrown together with someone and you find yourselves not being bored with each other and wanting to see each other. i've never or very rarely made friends with someone i've "pursued" (or who has "pursued" me) because of some common interest.

this is both encouraging and somewhat depressing.

It was kind of his inevitable ironic fate since the very first post in this thread.

I was not there, but I have heard this story. It is rather depressing and not suitable for posting on the internet. If your life is really empty without it, mail me offlist and I will eventually mail you my recollection of it.

And at least he got off his arse and WENT to a FAP. Anyone who tries deserves some reward.

And EVERYONE is trying to meet new friends freshman year so you can be more obvious about it than you can later in life.

Curt1s, it gets better. My freshman year, I was a drunken emotional trainwreck with only a few friends that I could call 'friends.' Not until the second semester of my second year did I meet people that I liked (and grew to love) and loved me back. At this point, all these people are still in my life, and I'd say we are more 'dear' to each other than ever. *PAUSE* ^^SHOUT-OUT TO MY STAR-FRIENDS^^

My advice:
- do not listen to sad boy music like the Smiths all the time, only some of the time. otherwise, it is a turn-off. no one wants to be friends with a sad suzie. right?
- lfam & rosemary are right: if yr school has a radio station, become a station member. if i hadn't been digging through CDs and records for my first two years of school, i wouldn't know half as much as what i know now. also, i wouldn't have met many people. not to mention i would be unemployed. but seriously, some of the best times of my entire life have been spent with my close friends, on the air.
- do you like to bicycle? take bike rides with people.
- try to get out and go to events. even if they make you (and me) anxious, they are often worth it, and a good way to meet like-minded people who might be friends.
- finally, while life on the internet can sometimes be more fulfilling that 'real' life, it is best to stop comparing.

good luck. also, where do you go to school, if you don't mind my asking?

ack sorry for bringing it up. i thought enough time has passed. my bad.

This is really OTM.

The Georgia Institute of Technology. Mostly male, and most people are either geeks or Greeks, which is a bit off-putting. I am planning on working at the radio station here - the training session is in a couple of weeks.

people aren't turned off by shyness, they're turned off by manipulative bullshit and extreme neediness.

People notice this? Uh oh.... :)

This was me in my first week, except it was Xiu Xiu. I think you're better off.

Also: consulting the journal I started that week reveals that I got happy in about six days. You're going to be fine eventually, if not very soon.

I would have, although I can't remember if I did or not.

Isn't there a chance you would have been doing something else, and whatever that was would have introduced you to a bunch of people too?

Also I was friends with plenty of "sad suzies" as you put it, in college. I thought they were hottt.

This all depends on the location. In my town, if you go out on your own, you're frowned up as being a loser/freak or whatever. People will just look at you or pretend you're not there. I have done this, not to make friends but because I wanted to see the band and didn't care if I was alone or not.

i was exaggerating. some of them were not hott to me, but i did have a kind of fascination with teh gothy girls, who tended to be much less embarrassed about being gothy and "darkk" than the boys did at that age. which was kind of thrilling to me somehow.

It, err, helps if you only try to be friends with people you really DO like v much -- otherwise, yes, you have to pretend too hard at the charming part, and that's just slimy. And boring.

also, i would have made friends in other ways, but music is sort of what i do/ what i did. so it made sense for me. dig?