06-14-2020, 10:56 AM
Sorry you're going through this. Loneliness sucks especially during this time.
I don't know your entire situation and I don't know if you're even looking for opinions - if not I suppose you can ignore this - so I'm just going off of what I've read here. I'm not saying any of this to invalidate how you feel or to tell you to get over it, I just think it may help since I've been in a similar place. In fact I was in a similar place most of my life until a few years ago.
It sounds like you just really need to put yourself out there with people. You say you have people at work who you talk to but don't feel comfortable with yet, but the only way to become comfortable with a person is to plunge into a period of discomfort. If you remain too afraid of that initial discomfort and you don't pursue the friendship it might never happen. Perhaps these people already have a comfortable amount of friends so they aren't actively pursuing more. That would mean it's up to you to initiate the friendship. People say friendship should be 50/50 and you should meet each other halfway and I do think that's mostly true once the relationship is stable, but in the beginning it might be more like you putting in 90% of the effort if the person is not pursuing new friendships to being with.
If you just don't like the people you interact with everyday (meaning you really dislike them. Especially if you're lonely there is value in pursuing people who you aren't too sure about because you never know, it might turn out that despite many differences you get along fantastically), you can join more online communities. Of course joining them isn't enough, you'd have to actively pursue friends and make that effort, which, like in real life, almost always starts off uncomfortable. I don't believe online friends can substitute real life interactions, but it's something.
And if you really are putting yourself out there but people just don't want to be friends with you then that could mean you aren't putting yourself out there in an effective way, and that's something you can learn about and practice. But it sounds more like the issue is a fear of that initial discomfort.
Also, who are you asking? You said you don't have real life friends, so are you asking family members to play games with you? Whatever the case, it's important to note that people are more likely to do things with you that you want to do if you do the same for them. And if you do do the same for them and they don't reciprocate, you should bring that up to them.
I don't know your entire situation and I don't know if you're even looking for opinions - if not I suppose you can ignore this - so I'm just going off of what I've read here. I'm not saying any of this to invalidate how you feel or to tell you to get over it, I just think it may help since I've been in a similar place. In fact I was in a similar place most of my life until a few years ago.
It sounds like you just really need to put yourself out there with people. You say you have people at work who you talk to but don't feel comfortable with yet, but the only way to become comfortable with a person is to plunge into a period of discomfort. If you remain too afraid of that initial discomfort and you don't pursue the friendship it might never happen. Perhaps these people already have a comfortable amount of friends so they aren't actively pursuing more. That would mean it's up to you to initiate the friendship. People say friendship should be 50/50 and you should meet each other halfway and I do think that's mostly true once the relationship is stable, but in the beginning it might be more like you putting in 90% of the effort if the person is not pursuing new friendships to being with.
If you just don't like the people you interact with everyday (meaning you really dislike them. Especially if you're lonely there is value in pursuing people who you aren't too sure about because you never know, it might turn out that despite many differences you get along fantastically), you can join more online communities. Of course joining them isn't enough, you'd have to actively pursue friends and make that effort, which, like in real life, almost always starts off uncomfortable. I don't believe online friends can substitute real life interactions, but it's something.
And if you really are putting yourself out there but people just don't want to be friends with you then that could mean you aren't putting yourself out there in an effective way, and that's something you can learn about and practice. But it sounds more like the issue is a fear of that initial discomfort.
Also, who are you asking? You said you don't have real life friends, so are you asking family members to play games with you? Whatever the case, it's important to note that people are more likely to do things with you that you want to do if you do the same for them. And if you do do the same for them and they don't reciprocate, you should bring that up to them.
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