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>15 close friends, 50 regular contacts, 150 active acquaintances Seems like a lot. For me, it's 0 close friends, 0 regular contacts, and 0 active acquaintances

>15 close friends, 50 regular contacts, 150 active acquaintances Seems like a lot. For me, it's 0 close friends, 0 regular contacts, and 0 active acquaintances. I think I simply never developed any useful social skills which would help me make and keep friends or acquaintances. I wish I had (somehow) kept in touch with at least some people I have met throughout my life. It has never been easier to stay in contact than in all of human history, but no, I had to ghost and ignore everyone and everything. After 29 revolutions around the sun, I have only now started to realize that all that vacuous superiority has led me nowhere. There is only a faint aftertaste of missing out, which sticks to me like tar. I can’t wash it off.

DesaiAshu 4mo ago
You still can. Most people have more and less social periods of their lives. I have plenty of _very_ social friends in their 40s/50s who weren't as social in their 20s. Or the opposite. Life is long, and many of us need decades focused inwards with others focused outwards
- myst 4mo ago
  Doing it late(r) only adds to the pain of missing out before.
  - vladms 4mo ago
    Just because you enjoy a thing at a certain time in your life, doesn't mean necessarily that you would or could have enjoyed a similar thing earlier. Besides, social interactions are one of those things that don't depend exclusively on you but also on the environment and on luck. I had better and worse periods, I doubt I could have had only "great periods". Going through periods is how you also learn and get to put some effort to change (the environment and yourself).
  - sublinear 4mo ago
    In the grand scheme, it's very difficult to miss out on anything. Taking phrases like "when you're ready" as a condescending insult or ego challenge is a stronger guarantee of pain than simply doing nothing. Your own expectations and misguided impressions are most of the pain. There are plenty of bitter and unhappy people who got that way by being delusional. Misjudging one's own experiences and accomplishments is what it really means to "miss out".
- astura 4mo ago
  How, though, If you never developed social skills?
  - bonesss 4mo ago
    How to start riding a bicycle in your 40s, if you never developed bike skills? How to snowboard, if you never developed snowboard skills? … Do it; suck. Do it more; suck less. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a great & classic book about giving people social room, focus, support, and attention with genuineness and humour (“influence” isn’t meant in a manipulative sense). Effort and attention are required, and practice, but that’s the cost of change and improvement.
    - astura 4mo ago
      I mean.... Riding a bike is nothing like making friends. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a salesman's guide, Dale Carnegie was an traveling salesman and the book techniques he learned making sales. The techniques you need to be a salesperson is probably not the same techniques to build lasting relationships. These tips are great for brief interactions; they are not for building relationships. There's a couple of things that need serious caveats - The "using the person's name" is so well known it's now clocked as exclusively a sleezy sales behavior. Don't do this - you sound like a sleezy salesman. Asking people endless questions about themselves can really come off as a really weird integration and can be extremely off-putting if not done carefully/correctly and with grace. My mom does this, she asks hundreds of the dumbest most inane questions and she doesn't even listen to the answers to. It's so insufferable that people actively avoid her. I'm sure she read this book and thinks she's a social genius. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/17943742-how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people https://www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/17943742-how-to-... "And also, if you think about these tips of smile and try to avoid arguments and greet somebody enthusiastically a lot of these are tips for making somebody like you immediately... They're not tips for ongoing relationships. They're like, when you show up at somebody's door, how can you make a good impression in the first five minutes and establish trust very quickly?"
      - 4mo ago
Gigachad 4mo ago
My advice is to go somewhere in person and to keep going there consistently. It could be a club, a meetup, volunteering, etc. The internet is the fast food of socialising. While it might be quick and easy, the quality is terrible. You’ll make real life long friends just being in the same room as someone regularly and chatting face to face.
- mgh2 4mo ago
  This largely depends on luck, though it can improve your chances. There are places where you can be a regular your entire life and never meet a meaningful person, while at other times, simply being in the right place at the right time can lead you to someone with whom you develop a lifelong relationship.
  - wholinator2 4mo ago
    Yes, it does have a component of luck. But it also has a component that's not luck, namely the showing up part. Of course there's no "friend solution" and i wouldn't go looking for friends by sitting in the corner of a cafe on my laptop all day. But i bet going to a makerspace, or a hobby meet, is basically guaranteed to make friends within 1 to 3 months of attendance. So don't let the doubt prevent you from going. There's only one way out and it's to start showing up
    - mgh2 4mo ago
      Of course you have to be proactive, but even then, people for any reason, might not be open to connect - language, culture, clique, personality, etc. You just have to find the tribe you vibe with, and that is mostly luck.
- rabarbra 4mo ago
  I'm in a similar situation — 0 friends, 0 regular contacts, 0 significant others in general (though maybe I'm less worried about that than the original poster). So, I have no chats to analyze. What you offer doesn't work for me. I studied onsite at 2 universities and have 0 contacts/friends from there. I've now been studying for 3 years at an onsite school (I'm there every evening after work and on weekends) — 0 contacts/friends. I moderated a support group weekly for 3 years — 0 contacts/friends. I worked at 4 non-remote jobs, at least 2 years each — 0 contacts/friends.
arrowsmith 4mo ago
29 isn't remotely close to too late, dude.
latexr 4mo ago
> There is only a faint aftertaste of missing out, which sticks to me like tar. I can’t wash it off. Sure you can. There are various paths to it, some outlined in sibling comments, and here’s another one: Pick up the phone and call or text some of those people you wish you had kept in contact with. Don’t have their contacts anymore? Ask someone who might or find them on social media. What do you say to them? “Hey, I was recently thinking of <that time you did something together> and felt like reaching out. How have you been doing?”. Maybe beforehand “collect” some relevant events which have happened to your life since you last met, so you have something at the ready to keep the conversation going if you need. I’m not saying rehearse it, just have them in mind. If you need some small talk tips, see this short video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw
amon_spek 4mo ago
Volunteering to help the vulnerable (in person) helped me with the vacuous superiority. I met some amazing people who just had bad luck. Your post shows you're on the right track and might be ready to make the next step.
vovavili 4mo ago
That is the saddest thing I have read on this website.
lowercased 4mo ago
Perhaps the name "ZpJuUuNaQ5" makes it harder for people to be able to do casual chit chat and introduce you to their friends?
- eddieroger 4mo ago
  > Hey, Z, how's it going? People have had "weird" or out of the norm nicknames forever. Where do you think nicknames come from?
- latexr 4mo ago
  I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that’s not their real name. But if it is, it would make it easier to strike up conversations. “What an unusual name. How do you pronounce it, again? How’s that spelled? What’s the story behind it?”
sureMan6 4mo ago
You have to find people you value, then it'll feel worth it
norome 4mo ago
You said it yourself, you never developed the skills. there's a learning curve, but learnable skills they are. You need the courage to start developing a skill that you're completely incompetent in, and just do one thing each day. I was in the same place as you at 32 but four years later It's another story.
- astura 4mo ago
  How?
  - throwfish3000 4mo ago
    I avoided people because I was treated badly. Once I got muscles people started laughing at my jokes and treating me well. Working out is the only thing that helped me.
    - throw4847285 4mo ago
      Just to say the obvious, but gaining muscles gave you confidence. People aren't laughing at your jokes more because you're swole. I mean, I'm sure there is some of that. But with any virtuous cycle, it's never just one thing that makes a positive change. It's a reinforcing loop.
  - jodrellblank 4mo ago
    Literally any way. If you're nearly a professional athlete then "how do I improve?" has very few answers that could help, and many ways that won't, but if you're a couch potato then anything is better than nothing. Any movement or club, from walking to bodyweight exercise, community hall dance group, exercise bike, treadmill, gym club spin class, climbing gym, Starting Strength, Couch to 5K running podcasts, Pilates, Yoga, Martial Arts, frisbee, volunteering to walk dogs - anything at all is an improvement. Any book, blog, video, article, about developing social skills will have some ideas and approaches. Asking anyone - family member, counsellor, therapist, doctor, coworker, stranger in the street - for ideas could give you some. Take anything other people do and google "how do I learn that?" and try some of the suggestions. Charisma On Command channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Charismaoncommand/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Charismaoncommand/videos Harvard Business Review on enjoying smalltalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw Dr Burns on empathic communication: https://feelinggood.com/2016/12/12/014-the-five-secrets-of-effective-communication-part-1/ https://feelinggood.com/2016/12/12/014-the-five-secrets-of-e... Dr Burns on stop trying to "be somebody" and dare to be Average: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz_Iw3JLCb0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz_Iw3JLCb0 Dr Burns on stopping criticising yourself with "I should XYZ" to everything you do or don't do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Zl12LS3bg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Zl12LS3bg anything on improving your fashion, haircut, body language, giving genuine compliments, making people feel happier around you, helping interactions feel fun and less like a competition you have to win, how to start conversations, how to keep conversations going, how jokes work, some jokes to memorise. Imagine all the "how do I learn programming?" posts on the internet, if you want to make a 100fps 3D game in C++ there's only a few useful ideas, if you want to "learn programming" it does not matter what language, computer, IDE, editor, book, article, video, tutorial, you start with. Anything is more progress than doing nothing.
thisisauserid 4mo ago
Taking a look at your past comments, I agree with you about you curating "vacuous superiority." That kind of self insight is valuable. So maybe, ya know, stop pretending on the internet that you have things figured out?
throwfish3000 4mo ago
I know it seems stupid, but hit the gym. People will want to be around you if you have muscles.
- latexr 4mo ago
  People will want to be around you if you’re kind and generally pleasant, which is a much stronger reason to hang out with someone and leads to much longer lasting and healthier bonds than a physical trait. It also costs nothing and once you can get into that mindset, takes no effort.
  - throwfish3000 4mo ago
    I've always been nice and pleasant, but from my analysis, people thought that was weakness. Weak + Nice = Uncool, Strong + Nice = Cool.
    - latexr 4mo ago
      It saddens me that has been your experience. I’d argue people who see kindness as a weakness are not people one would want to be around.
- rhines 4mo ago
  There's some truth to this, and I'm sorry it's been your experience, but I'd like to gently expand on this a bit as I don't think muscles are the only thing that matter - I know plenty of skinny and fat people with friends. Relationships are inherently transactional. You won't want to spend time with someone if you don't get something out of it, barring certain unconditional loves like your immediate family. When making new friends, proxies like attractiveness and social standing are how people judge if someone is likely to add value to their lives or not. So yes, unfortunately, if you talk to someone and you're just some small quiet guy with no interesting characteristics, you'll probably be written off before you get a chance to develop a friendship with them. Whereas if they see you have muscles, or know you're successful in your career, or know you have other friends, they'll be more likely to assume you might be worth getting to know. Things like working out, dressing well, learning to speak well, etc. all help. However, there is an alternative shortcut to building close friendships - forced interaction. When you're stuck sitting next to someone in class for a year, you don't have the privilege of swapping that person out for someone who seems cooler, you just have to get to know them. When you're stationed in the military with a squad you don't get to swap that squad out for people you think you might like more, you just bond with them. But there are few opportunities like that in normal life, you have to seek them out. Go on a 2 week long canoeing expedition, join a start-up incubator with a small team, play an MMO at a competitive level where you have scheduled runs and are in voice chat. Do stuff that forces you to interact with people for a long time and puts you in environments where you can't just leave and seek out people more like you.
bitexploder 4mo ago
Well. Start now. Treat it like an algorithm. Schedule reminders to text/email/call/follow up with people. My ADHD was hard. I would just forget about people and not because I don’t care about them. Then I would feel bad and delay even further because of that. Just do the thing. It may never feel natural except with very close and trusted people. That’s okay. Having friends for the sake of it isn’t the point. Being genuinely interested and sharing experiences and common interests and learning from each other are good reasons though.
- registeredcorn 4mo ago
  > Being genuinely interested and sharing experiences and common interests and learning from each other are good reasons though. (Not OP, but interested to hear more) In terms of motivation, do you know of a way to begin a sincere and genuine interest in others that doesn't have some ulterior motivations? That may sound kind of mechanical, but what I mean is roughly something like: "I don't know people, so I do not have any 'genuine interest' in them. As a result, any interest that I do have is insincere." I chose not to have friends for several decades, which has been extremely convenient for the most part, except for tasks that require more than one person, or work-related situations. Not having to worry about offending people, remembering birthdays, messing up my own plans for the needs of others, etc. was very burdensome. However, being able to use people as a job reference, or getting leads on future opportunities from people I used to work with would also be beneficial so I can understand why people would expend the effort. However, retaining a friendship solely for those job-related purposes seems grossly manipulative because there is no sincerity in what I want from them. I do not want them I only want to extract what they can give to me. Is it simply understood that, if you make friends with someone as an adult, it is inherently with ulterior motivations in mind, whether it be to avoid loneliness, get work-related benefits, or extract knowledge from them? As a child, I think people tended to make friends simply because they were bored and the person seemed neat. Is that why people still try to make friends with people?
  - anthonypasq 4mo ago
    Your primary motivation for having a friend is that you enjoy being with them and talking to them. thats it.
chinathrow 4mo ago
> I have only now started to realize that all that vacuous superiority has led me nowhere It's not too late, but it might need more effort than if earlier.
subtlejellyfish 4mo ago
For what it's worth, it's never too late to keep in touch. You said you wish you'd kept in touch, if you're able, you should reach out. No one cares that its been awhile (and they're equally culpable), most people are happy and/or flattered you were thinking of them.
fullstop 4mo ago
You're only 29 -- I have good friends in my life that I didn't meet until I was in my 40s. You might need some hobbies which are more social, like volunteering. It's very easy to fall into work -> hacking at stuff -> sleep cycle, but you can't live inside your own head for the rest of your days. I'm older and I've lived through the analog era, before people had cell phones or internet. Facebook wasn't around when I graduated from college, so most contacts from before that withered away -- especially if you ended up living in a different state or city. It is sometimes heart wrenching to hear about people from your past, knowing that you didn't keep in touch. A girl that I went to elementary school with, always kind of an odd girl (but in a good way), developed leukemia in her 30s and passed away in 2019. I didn't know for seven years. Seven! I went through her Facebook page and it was a roller-coaster of emotions, playing her life backward as she chronicled her condition worsening, periods of hope, all the way back to when she was saying that she had some kind of bug and felt awful. She was a good friend to me in elementary school, but we ended up going to different high schools and different directions after that. I feel bad that we didn't keep in touch, and that I was completely unaware of her suffering. I can't wallow in this, though, and this is where I'm attempting (maybe poorly) to make a connection to your situation. You can't change the past, but you can start making meaningful attempts to forge new relationships and to rekindle old ones. Those people that you never kept in touch with? Reach out to them, if only to say "Hi". Reach out because you want to do it, and not because you need something. How many days will you sit there and think "why doesn't anyone reach out to me?" when you, yourself, are not also making the effort to do so?
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
ge96 4mo ago
Funny I go out a lot and I have so many random numbers in my phone from dudes who added me, single serving friends for the night But yeah I only have like 5 real friends and then maybe 10 acquaintances eg. work
geodel 4mo ago
Many will tell otherwise, but I think it is fine to not have these friends, contacts and acquaintances etc. In my case I did put in effort to stay in touch, call up people after many years. But in most cases result was like "Okay, we were in same school/office/rpoject/neighborhood / waited for same bus etc...etc.. now what do you want from me?" It maybe that you most definitely want it. However for me "missing out" hasn't make life any worse.
jdw64 4mo ago
Sounds good, let's be friends! Feel free to email me anytime, and I look forward to us staying in touch.
dan-bailey 4mo ago
Dude, you can still recover some of those friendships. I went through a phase during college where I alienated a TON of my friends, and that was on me. For a variety of reasons we don't need to expound upon here. I eventually reached out to them, made my apologies, and would occasionally check in and see how they were doing. A few of those friendships are repaired and growing again. I think that there's a tendency toward second chance for people who've recognized their shortcomings, worked on them, and then taken responsibility for their actions.
dangsbrother 4mo ago
Zero follow ups. The perfect bait.

DesaiAshu 4mo ago

You still can. Most people have more and less social periods of their lives. I have plenty of _very_ social friends in their 40s/50s who weren't as social in their 20s. Or the opposite. Life is long, and many of us need decades focused inwards with others focused outwards

myst 4mo ago
Doing it late(r) only adds to the pain of missing out before.
- vladms 4mo ago
  Just because you enjoy a thing at a certain time in your life, doesn't mean necessarily that you would or could have enjoyed a similar thing earlier. Besides, social interactions are one of those things that don't depend exclusively on you but also on the environment and on luck. I had better and worse periods, I doubt I could have had only "great periods". Going through periods is how you also learn and get to put some effort to change (the environment and yourself).
- sublinear 4mo ago
  In the grand scheme, it's very difficult to miss out on anything. Taking phrases like "when you're ready" as a condescending insult or ego challenge is a stronger guarantee of pain than simply doing nothing. Your own expectations and misguided impressions are most of the pain. There are plenty of bitter and unhappy people who got that way by being delusional. Misjudging one's own experiences and accomplishments is what it really means to "miss out".
astura 4mo ago
How, though, If you never developed social skills?
- bonesss 4mo ago
  How to start riding a bicycle in your 40s, if you never developed bike skills? How to snowboard, if you never developed snowboard skills? … Do it; suck. Do it more; suck less. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a great & classic book about giving people social room, focus, support, and attention with genuineness and humour (“influence” isn’t meant in a manipulative sense). Effort and attention are required, and practice, but that’s the cost of change and improvement.
  - astura 4mo ago
    I mean.... Riding a bike is nothing like making friends. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a salesman's guide, Dale Carnegie was an traveling salesman and the book techniques he learned making sales. The techniques you need to be a salesperson is probably not the same techniques to build lasting relationships. These tips are great for brief interactions; they are not for building relationships. There's a couple of things that need serious caveats - The "using the person's name" is so well known it's now clocked as exclusively a sleezy sales behavior. Don't do this - you sound like a sleezy salesman. Asking people endless questions about themselves can really come off as a really weird integration and can be extremely off-putting if not done carefully/correctly and with grace. My mom does this, she asks hundreds of the dumbest most inane questions and she doesn't even listen to the answers to. It's so insufferable that people actively avoid her. I'm sure she read this book and thinks she's a social genius. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/17943742-how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people https://www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/17943742-how-to-... "And also, if you think about these tips of smile and try to avoid arguments and greet somebody enthusiastically a lot of these are tips for making somebody like you immediately... They're not tips for ongoing relationships. They're like, when you show up at somebody's door, how can you make a good impression in the first five minutes and establish trust very quickly?"
    - 4mo ago

Gigachad 4mo ago

My advice is to go somewhere in person and to keep going there consistently. It could be a club, a meetup, volunteering, etc. The internet is the fast food of socialising. While it might be quick and easy, the quality is terrible. You’ll make real life long friends just being in the same room as someone regularly and chatting face to face.

mgh2 4mo ago
This largely depends on luck, though it can improve your chances. There are places where you can be a regular your entire life and never meet a meaningful person, while at other times, simply being in the right place at the right time can lead you to someone with whom you develop a lifelong relationship.
- wholinator2 4mo ago
  Yes, it does have a component of luck. But it also has a component that's not luck, namely the showing up part. Of course there's no "friend solution" and i wouldn't go looking for friends by sitting in the corner of a cafe on my laptop all day. But i bet going to a makerspace, or a hobby meet, is basically guaranteed to make friends within 1 to 3 months of attendance. So don't let the doubt prevent you from going. There's only one way out and it's to start showing up
  - mgh2 4mo ago
    Of course you have to be proactive, but even then, people for any reason, might not be open to connect - language, culture, clique, personality, etc. You just have to find the tribe you vibe with, and that is mostly luck.
rabarbra 4mo ago
I'm in a similar situation — 0 friends, 0 regular contacts, 0 significant others in general (though maybe I'm less worried about that than the original poster). So, I have no chats to analyze. What you offer doesn't work for me. I studied onsite at 2 universities and have 0 contacts/friends from there. I've now been studying for 3 years at an onsite school (I'm there every evening after work and on weekends) — 0 contacts/friends. I moderated a support group weekly for 3 years — 0 contacts/friends. I worked at 4 non-remote jobs, at least 2 years each — 0 contacts/friends.

arrowsmith 4mo ago

29 isn't remotely close to too late, dude.

latexr 4mo ago

> There is only a faint aftertaste of missing out, which sticks to me like tar. I can’t wash it off. Sure you can. There are various paths to it, some outlined in sibling comments, and here’s another one: Pick up the phone and call or text some of those people you wish you had kept in contact with. Don’t have their contacts anymore? Ask someone who might or find them on social media. What do you say to them? “Hey, I was recently thinking of <that time you did something together> and felt like reaching out. How have you been doing?”. Maybe beforehand “collect” some relevant events which have happened to your life since you last met, so you have something at the ready to keep the conversation going if you need. I’m not saying rehearse it, just have them in mind. If you need some small talk tips, see this short video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw

amon_spek 4mo ago

Volunteering to help the vulnerable (in person) helped me with the vacuous superiority. I met some amazing people who just had bad luck. Your post shows you're on the right track and might be ready to make the next step.

vovavili 4mo ago

That is the saddest thing I have read on this website.

lowercased 4mo ago

Perhaps the name "ZpJuUuNaQ5" makes it harder for people to be able to do casual chit chat and introduce you to their friends?

eddieroger 4mo ago
> Hey, Z, how's it going? People have had "weird" or out of the norm nicknames forever. Where do you think nicknames come from?
latexr 4mo ago
I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that’s not their real name. But if it is, it would make it easier to strike up conversations. “What an unusual name. How do you pronounce it, again? How’s that spelled? What’s the story behind it?”

sureMan6 4mo ago

You have to find people you value, then it'll feel worth it

norome 4mo ago

You said it yourself, you never developed the skills. there's a learning curve, but learnable skills they are. You need the courage to start developing a skill that you're completely incompetent in, and just do one thing each day. I was in the same place as you at 32 but four years later It's another story.

astura 4mo ago
How?
- throwfish3000 4mo ago
  I avoided people because I was treated badly. Once I got muscles people started laughing at my jokes and treating me well. Working out is the only thing that helped me.
  - throw4847285 4mo ago
    Just to say the obvious, but gaining muscles gave you confidence. People aren't laughing at your jokes more because you're swole. I mean, I'm sure there is some of that. But with any virtuous cycle, it's never just one thing that makes a positive change. It's a reinforcing loop.
- jodrellblank 4mo ago
  Literally any way. If you're nearly a professional athlete then "how do I improve?" has very few answers that could help, and many ways that won't, but if you're a couch potato then anything is better than nothing. Any movement or club, from walking to bodyweight exercise, community hall dance group, exercise bike, treadmill, gym club spin class, climbing gym, Starting Strength, Couch to 5K running podcasts, Pilates, Yoga, Martial Arts, frisbee, volunteering to walk dogs - anything at all is an improvement. Any book, blog, video, article, about developing social skills will have some ideas and approaches. Asking anyone - family member, counsellor, therapist, doctor, coworker, stranger in the street - for ideas could give you some. Take anything other people do and google "how do I learn that?" and try some of the suggestions. Charisma On Command channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Charismaoncommand/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Charismaoncommand/videos Harvard Business Review on enjoying smalltalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw Dr Burns on empathic communication: https://feelinggood.com/2016/12/12/014-the-five-secrets-of-effective-communication-part-1/ https://feelinggood.com/2016/12/12/014-the-five-secrets-of-e... Dr Burns on stop trying to "be somebody" and dare to be Average: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz_Iw3JLCb0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz_Iw3JLCb0 Dr Burns on stopping criticising yourself with "I should XYZ" to everything you do or don't do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Zl12LS3bg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Zl12LS3bg anything on improving your fashion, haircut, body language, giving genuine compliments, making people feel happier around you, helping interactions feel fun and less like a competition you have to win, how to start conversations, how to keep conversations going, how jokes work, some jokes to memorise. Imagine all the "how do I learn programming?" posts on the internet, if you want to make a 100fps 3D game in C++ there's only a few useful ideas, if you want to "learn programming" it does not matter what language, computer, IDE, editor, book, article, video, tutorial, you start with. Anything is more progress than doing nothing.

thisisauserid 4mo ago

Taking a look at your past comments, I agree with you about you curating "vacuous superiority." That kind of self insight is valuable. So maybe, ya know, stop pretending on the internet that you have things figured out?

throwfish3000 4mo ago

I know it seems stupid, but hit the gym. People will want to be around you if you have muscles.

latexr 4mo ago
People will want to be around you if you’re kind and generally pleasant, which is a much stronger reason to hang out with someone and leads to much longer lasting and healthier bonds than a physical trait. It also costs nothing and once you can get into that mindset, takes no effort.
- throwfish3000 4mo ago
  I've always been nice and pleasant, but from my analysis, people thought that was weakness. Weak + Nice = Uncool, Strong + Nice = Cool.
  - latexr 4mo ago
    It saddens me that has been your experience. I’d argue people who see kindness as a weakness are not people one would want to be around.
rhines 4mo ago
There's some truth to this, and I'm sorry it's been your experience, but I'd like to gently expand on this a bit as I don't think muscles are the only thing that matter - I know plenty of skinny and fat people with friends. Relationships are inherently transactional. You won't want to spend time with someone if you don't get something out of it, barring certain unconditional loves like your immediate family. When making new friends, proxies like attractiveness and social standing are how people judge if someone is likely to add value to their lives or not. So yes, unfortunately, if you talk to someone and you're just some small quiet guy with no interesting characteristics, you'll probably be written off before you get a chance to develop a friendship with them. Whereas if they see you have muscles, or know you're successful in your career, or know you have other friends, they'll be more likely to assume you might be worth getting to know. Things like working out, dressing well, learning to speak well, etc. all help. However, there is an alternative shortcut to building close friendships - forced interaction. When you're stuck sitting next to someone in class for a year, you don't have the privilege of swapping that person out for someone who seems cooler, you just have to get to know them. When you're stationed in the military with a squad you don't get to swap that squad out for people you think you might like more, you just bond with them. But there are few opportunities like that in normal life, you have to seek them out. Go on a 2 week long canoeing expedition, join a start-up incubator with a small team, play an MMO at a competitive level where you have scheduled runs and are in voice chat. Do stuff that forces you to interact with people for a long time and puts you in environments where you can't just leave and seek out people more like you.

bitexploder 4mo ago

Well. Start now. Treat it like an algorithm. Schedule reminders to text/email/call/follow up with people. My ADHD was hard. I would just forget about people and not because I don’t care about them. Then I would feel bad and delay even further because of that. Just do the thing. It may never feel natural except with very close and trusted people. That’s okay. Having friends for the sake of it isn’t the point. Being genuinely interested and sharing experiences and common interests and learning from each other are good reasons though.

registeredcorn 4mo ago
> Being genuinely interested and sharing experiences and common interests and learning from each other are good reasons though. (Not OP, but interested to hear more) In terms of motivation, do you know of a way to begin a sincere and genuine interest in others that doesn't have some ulterior motivations? That may sound kind of mechanical, but what I mean is roughly something like: "I don't know people, so I do not have any 'genuine interest' in them. As a result, any interest that I do have is insincere." I chose not to have friends for several decades, which has been extremely convenient for the most part, except for tasks that require more than one person, or work-related situations. Not having to worry about offending people, remembering birthdays, messing up my own plans for the needs of others, etc. was very burdensome. However, being able to use people as a job reference, or getting leads on future opportunities from people I used to work with would also be beneficial so I can understand why people would expend the effort. However, retaining a friendship solely for those job-related purposes seems grossly manipulative because there is no sincerity in what I want from them. I do not want them I only want to extract what they can give to me. Is it simply understood that, if you make friends with someone as an adult, it is inherently with ulterior motivations in mind, whether it be to avoid loneliness, get work-related benefits, or extract knowledge from them? As a child, I think people tended to make friends simply because they were bored and the person seemed neat. Is that why people still try to make friends with people?
- anthonypasq 4mo ago
  Your primary motivation for having a friend is that you enjoy being with them and talking to them. thats it.

chinathrow 4mo ago

> I have only now started to realize that all that vacuous superiority has led me nowhere It's not too late, but it might need more effort than if earlier.

subtlejellyfish 4mo ago

For what it's worth, it's never too late to keep in touch. You said you wish you'd kept in touch, if you're able, you should reach out. No one cares that its been awhile (and they're equally culpable), most people are happy and/or flattered you were thinking of them.

fullstop 4mo ago

You're only 29 -- I have good friends in my life that I didn't meet until I was in my 40s. You might need some hobbies which are more social, like volunteering. It's very easy to fall into work -> hacking at stuff -> sleep cycle, but you can't live inside your own head for the rest of your days. I'm older and I've lived through the analog era, before people had cell phones or internet. Facebook wasn't around when I graduated from college, so most contacts from before that withered away -- especially if you ended up living in a different state or city. It is sometimes heart wrenching to hear about people from your past, knowing that you didn't keep in touch. A girl that I went to elementary school with, always kind of an odd girl (but in a good way), developed leukemia in her 30s and passed away in 2019. I didn't know for seven years. Seven! I went through her Facebook page and it was a roller-coaster of emotions, playing her life backward as she chronicled her condition worsening, periods of hope, all the way back to when she was saying that she had some kind of bug and felt awful. She was a good friend to me in elementary school, but we ended up going to different high schools and different directions after that. I feel bad that we didn't keep in touch, and that I was completely unaware of her suffering. I can't wallow in this, though, and this is where I'm attempting (maybe poorly) to make a connection to your situation. You can't change the past, but you can start making meaningful attempts to forge new relationships and to rekindle old ones. Those people that you never kept in touch with? Reach out to them, if only to say "Hi". Reach out because you want to do it, and not because you need something. How many days will you sit there and think "why doesn't anyone reach out to me?" when you, yourself, are not also making the effort to do so?

deleted 4mo ago

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ge96 4mo ago

Funny I go out a lot and I have so many random numbers in my phone from dudes who added me, single serving friends for the night But yeah I only have like 5 real friends and then maybe 10 acquaintances eg. work

geodel 4mo ago

Many will tell otherwise, but I think it is fine to not have these friends, contacts and acquaintances etc. In my case I did put in effort to stay in touch, call up people after many years. But in most cases result was like "Okay, we were in same school/office/rpoject/neighborhood / waited for same bus etc...etc.. now what do you want from me?" It maybe that you most definitely want it. However for me "missing out" hasn't make life any worse.

jdw64 4mo ago

Sounds good, let's be friends! Feel free to email me anytime, and I look forward to us staying in touch.

dan-bailey 4mo ago

Dude, you can still recover some of those friendships. I went through a phase during college where I alienated a TON of my friends, and that was on me. For a variety of reasons we don't need to expound upon here. I eventually reached out to them, made my apologies, and would occasionally check in and see how they were doing. A few of those friendships are repaired and growing again. I think that there's a tendency toward second chance for people who've recognized their shortcomings, worked on them, and then taken responsibility for their actions.

dangsbrother 4mo ago

Zero follow ups. The perfect bait.