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I cannot make friends not 10 years younger or older or the same age as myself. I'm a 58 year old woman with no husband and I'm nice to everyone I meet or new co-workers and I don't seem to interest anyone to want to be my friend? Why do people who treat people mean have alot of friends and I can't find one when I'm kind?
Try helping animals in need, they make great friends too. Humans generally make friends for selfish reasons(sex,position,power etc)
Aww I know it's hard to make new friends when you're an adult. And unfortunately, age discrimination is a thing. I think singleness might also be making it harder. People often hang out as couples or talk about their spouses, kids and grandkids, and so you're going a little wee bit against the grain. Only a bit though. You can find ways of not letting that be perceived as a downer or a threat.
It seems cruel but people often don't make friends with someone unless they can see how it will benefit their life. There are apparent benefits to being on the good side of nasty people: the idea is that you protect yourself from their nastiness (though you often end up becoming complicit in it, so it's not really a protection in the end). The problem with 'nice' is IMO that it's impersonal - everyone is supposed to be nice, especially people who are paid to be: waiters are nice, holiday camp entertainers are nice, doctors are nice, office employees are nice to each other (if they don't want to get in trouble with management)...
Maybe more people will want to be your friend if you get involved in the things they do and purposefully make a difference to their day-to-day existence. For this, you will have to be proactive, and you will have to choose someone you want to be friends with rather than casting your net wide and seeing who responds, because they might not notice you reaching out if you do that. Haven't you heard the disappointed rationalisation, 'Oh, she's like that with everybody'? People like being treated nicely and think well of those who are nice, but they form bonds with those who show interest in them as individuals. So try targeting rather than canvassing and see what happens.
When you find someone you're interested in being friends with, be proactive and persistent, and expect the friendship to build in the long term rather than the short term. Don't wait for the next company meeting to roll around in order to 'bump into' them: invite them for coffee or share lunch break with them, or support them by attending their presentation when you don't strictly have to, or whatever. Maybe stand up for them in a meeting or compliment their work in front of someone, then follow it up with the invite. Then they'll know that you're investing in them and that you're not just one of the many professionally 'nice' people who are nice for reasons other than wanting friendship, and who will pass through their lives.
Normal, all the friend that I have today started talk with me in the beginning, if no one had come to talk to me I would be alone until today.
Have you tried Paltalk? Its a chat program with many ways to communicate, text, mic, video chat. Its has many chat rooms, all kinds of different music rooms, adult rooms, G rooms. Has chat rooms dedicated for making new friends. I haven't used it in a while but there is people from all ages an nationalities on there. When I was using it I made some friends and had a good laugh.
Why make friends when you can make enemies? Being nice to people is too mainstream. Be a massive bitch to everyone you meet instead.
I'm a 24-year-old female kind of going through the same thing. I have one close friend and a couple of more distant friends, and that's about it. It's hard as an adult to put yourself out there and meet others, especially if your job doesn't involve you socializing with other people much.
I wish I knew why rude and fake people can be swarming with friends while genuinely nice people have a tougher time, but unfortunately I don't. It might have something to do with a lack of confidence (this has been my worst enemy and people pick up on it and aren't really drawn to under-confident people) or not having access to the right avenues to meet people more like yourself. I'm still trying to figure out a good avenue for myself, since I don't think the bar scene or clubbing would be my cup of tea.
Also, unfortunately, sometimes for whatever reason couples and single people don't tend to gravitate towards each other as much, and at your age, most people seem to be married. That isn't to say that you can't be friends with couples or married people/people in relationships, but it seems to be a common pattern. However, most of my friends are married or in relationships, with the exception of my best friend and maybe a couple of others.
There is an app called Meetup (an app where you can join groups of people with similar interests or just to meet others and attend events) that I've been trying, and in my area I've noticed there are a lot of groups for ages 40/50+. Maybe there might be groups like that in your area?
Thank you so much, that sounds like something I'll do. I appreciate your input and help. Have a great life. You're are so young and have so much of life to still live and people to meet. You do need to put yourself out there though. Love or friendships will not come knocking on your door. Did you go on Meetup? If you don't like going to bars have you tried church? You meet kind people there, some churches have single groups or probably other interest groups. I've tried, I go to a small church and haven't met anyone, well I have met someone I find attractive, but I want to take it slow. You know I don't want to flirt first or seem interested first because I've done that with men and it doesn't work out in my favor. So I wait to see if a man is interested in me first. As far as female friends at church, I make church acquaintances but nothing where we hang out, most are married like you stated. Thank you so much though. Have you ever tried to go to the bar lounge at Applebee's. I use to live in Peoria, AZ, and I was alone my daughter stayed in California, and I was alone and had no friends over there, I would go out to Applebee's on payday Friday and order some apps, a couple and order a Long Beach Iced Tea and sit there eat and drink. I'd meet people there. None that resulted in sincere friends but guys tried to pick up on me. I never really did that there their intentions were instantly recognized by me. I didn't go to strangers homes or take them to my home. But I had fun for the evening, just don't go past the restaurant
Thank you! :) I have the Meetup app on my phone, but unfortunately there aren't many groups very local to me at the moment. I am hoping that I'll find something though, and might try one of the groups that's a little out of the way just to see what it's about. I've seen groups specifically for making friends and socializing, clubs for hobbies, etc. and it's a neat app!
I have been thinking about trying church, and might give that a try!
I have not tried Applebee's, but it sounds fun! I might have to try that too, thank you for the idea!
Some people just plain SUCK and no matter how hard you try they will always be the same. Like a previous post, I will be your friend
You have to learn to stick up
for yourself instead of being
so nice.
You can't earn friends by
being nice.
You are probably nice enough
by this point in your life,
so enough of that. Move onto
something else.
I'm 58 also. Only 2 close friends, everyone else I consider associates. We can be friends, I have room for one more.
Erm, no, not enough said. I take exception to this comment. I am not autistic and it is not up to you to say what I am, when you don't know me and you don't have an adequate grasp of what autism is.
Also, it's called Asperger's Syndrome, not autism syndrome. Asperger's Syndrome is one of the conditions on the autistic spectrum, along with dyspraxia, dyslexia, ADHD and others. The noun is 'autism' by the way, not 'autistics'. Autism is another condition on the autistic spectrum, along with the others. Autism (a condition) and the autistic spectrum (the 'group' of conditions containing autism) are not the same thing.
Do you know anyone who's autistic??
Very often their reduced ability to pick up social skills, sensory hypersensitivity, extreme anxiety faced with apparently normal things such as being touched, repetitive movements and atypical ways of expressing themselves do not permit them to work ordinary jobs. They don't understand how offensive 'different' can be to people who demand 'ordinary', or know how not to be different. Their ideas can be amazing though. They perceive the world differently from most, and they concentrate on different aspects of it than most people would.
I may be on the autism spectrum, which is an umbrella term for many kinds of vaguely interconnected neurodiversity, from the most striking to the barely noticeable, and both high-functioning and low-functioning, but I am not autistic.
By the way I also have had problems making friends. I learned how to survive socially later in life, by watching people and consciously taking mental notes on experiences - I never picked this up 'naturally', which is probably why I sound like a calculating psychopath.
A calculating psychopath would reason in the same way. You can use insight to do either very good things or very bad things. The potential is there to do both.
Well, I am a very calculating person. Mathematics, game theory, probability, etc. Cold logic is comforting to me and anyone that scores high on the Myers-Briggs T/F scale. But, we are engineers, financial analysts, college professors, statisticians, lab workers,... We are not psychopaths. Your association is non-sequitur.
It's harder for make friends as an adult in general. Are you codependent with people? I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just curious.