A fun girl to be around
A real conversation with Jesse:
Me: I wish I had more friends.
Jesse: You just need to find a group of people who have the same interests as you.
Me: ......... I wish I had more interests.
Poor Jesse. Whenever I'm feeling lonely he has to try and do his best to prop me up and make me feel better. It's not that I want to be a big sad sack, it's that I don't know what else to do.
How do you make friends when you're an adult? I know it's pathetic that I'm even asking that but I'm serious. I don't work. I didn't go to school here so I can't call up old school friends. I'm horribly shy. I have a hard time doing new things unless I'm with someone I already know and that kind works against the purpose of meeting new people. My previous attempts at meeting people with similar interests and similar lives have been less than successful.
It's not like I have no friends at all. I have a few and I value them very much but I guess I just wish I had more. I wish my evenings had more "I think I'll call up soandso and see if they want to blah blah blah whatever it is people do together" and less "I think I'll see if my brother's on Facebook tonight."
So come on interent people, sitting there in your bathrobe with the Cheetos stain on it, tell me how I make friends! Or else I will be forced to ask Jesse to spend yet another evening rubbing my feet and telling me how awesome I am.
Jen
13 comments:
Meetup.com if there's one in your area. Volunteer for a group (Habitat for Humanit is always looking for people or a local library.)
The idea is to go out and be friendly!
You're asking me and I'm sitting here on my computer?
I wish I had the answer.
I have one girlfriend I feel I can call up on the fly and see if she wants to have lunch or whatever. I met her thru my kid's school.
Oh, well, I guess I don't need to be on Facebook so much if that's what you want.
Dude I am always up for something! Especially when it involves buttery brie! Okay I officially have a problem.
It's hard. All of our friends from grad school are graduating and leaving, so my husband and I find ourselves home alone night after night a lot.
A couple of suggestions you can listen to or not. Volunteering as Courtney said is always a good way to meet people. But be selective about your volunteering. I volunteer for a super useful organization where I go off by myself and monitor court cases. I feel good but (duh!) I don't meet other volunteers. Stupid me.
Maybe a book club at your local bookstore. Our Barnes and Noble organizes book clubs for even trashy romance novels, so it should fit into any intellectual level.
Sorry I don't have more!! Not knowing people sucks.
You are my twin from MN!
I don't have friends either. I'm shy. And the ones I meet on Facebook are slowly boring me. I'm slowly beginning to feel like a brown pair of shoes in a tuxedo world. . . .
[sigh]
join a book club.
No ideas but lots of sympathy. I've lived in the town I live in for two years and can't believe that I haven't managed to make a single friend here. But single mom, telecommuter, I just don't ever see people.
Do you have local parks or playplaces that you could take the kids to? Back when my son was younger and I lived in more park-friendly places, I wound up with some really good friends just from striking up conversations with other moms at the park (and trying to be consistent in when and how often I went, so that I'd see the same people more than once.) I've tried to do that at the dog park here, but it's just not the same.
Ooo book clubs for sure! I have a Jewish book club I've started going to, you can come to that!
Also... call me. I'm bad at calling people and have a bit of a bad downtown habit, but I like to do other things, too!
Ditto what courtney said - all my friends here are from Meetup. Specifically my book group, because while I'm in a moms group through there I didn't really make friends that way. But it helped me practice talking to new people again.
You could get a job (different than the very important one you have), make some friends & then quit! It's genius. Frankly, I'm surprised no one else thought of it. Or you could go back to school, make some friends, and then........quit. My god, I should get a job giving advice.
I wish I could tell you. I have terrible social anxiety and spent a lot of time not being able to make friends. When I moved to where I am now, I joined my moms club and a playgroup and used my kids to make friends. Then I got involved in my kids' preschool. And I moved in three houses away from an extrovert who decided to make me a close friend and I just coasted with that. So I got lucky. Just keep your eyes open and know that it takes some time to become friends with someone. Also, I'm on anti-anxiety medication, which helps a lot.
Okay, this is sort of a late reply - but what about becoming in-person friends with some of your blog fans? Some of them must live near you, and we're talking about people that already know all about you and like you for better or worse. ;-) I imagine a lot of them have things in common with you too.
Otherwise I am totally loving the get a job-make friends-ditch job idea. You could work somewhere that you'd be likely to meet people with similar interests, and/or where you'd get a killer discount - like a kid's clothing store, or Target, or a bookstore.
I think this is something a lot of adults struggle with but few admit (myself included).
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