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I'm 31 and have a difficult time approaching strangers. Women especially, but also guys I might connect with.

It's not even fear that's holding me back, but the thought of approaching and talking about something not even occurring to me.

I have no idea what people my age like or even want to talk about. So what do 30 year olds even like? (Especially those in large American cities)

This is something I’ve decided to focus on more. I asked myself what my biggest problem in life is and that is my social life. I don’t have many friends and don’t often speak to strangers or girls. This is caused by my low confidence.

I have started to vision my future self as a confident and charismatic man who can take on conversations with anyone without fear. Having this would be like a super power that would drastically change my life.

I’m not a confident person at all. I believe I am a super boring person and that people look down on me. I put people on pedestals.

What can I do to become more confident in social situations?

I find that this is a core of a lot of social and personal issues I have. I cannot tell when I or others are being overly sensitive, versus the other person being insensitive. This has kept me in a lot of toxic friendships because I keep thinking I’m being sensitive.

The thing that fucks with me is how cultural and individual I think this question is, but how it’s not treated as such, rather as black and whites. Like, I’ll have one person say “x person is too sensitive when they cried bc their football team lost” but then they’ll be the type to cry because they ruined dinner.

In general, I try to operate on the idea that “no one is too sensitive as it’s not on me to decide what hurts them”. But then that also allows quite manipulative and controlling people into my life.

For example, I had a friend who was CONSTANTLY hurt by me and accused me of not liking her. Things like not replying to texts immediately, if I DARED get distracted during a conversation, if I told them I had a different memory of events. One time we were having a conversation about Animal Crossing and I stopped and pointed out a statue, and she got really upset at the interruption. Their reasonings were always that they were hurt, and when I said I didn’t understand (bc seriously who gets this mad at half this shit) I would be accused of avoiding accountability.

And it’s like sure, I’ll apologise, no skin off my back, but is this not ”walking on eggshells??? I don’t feel like i should HAVE to apologise.

And basically I’m always confused as to whether I’m being insensitive or if someone is making me walk one eggshells, and as a result knowing when I’ve actually messed up vs someone treating me badly. I am autistic and have CPTSD so my “normal” meter is very broken.

Everyone I talk to seems pretty convinced that THEIR boundaries and upsets are reasonable and that those of some others are not.

I've been informed by my wife and mother in-law that wearing goggles in a public pool is weird and unacceptable for an adult man. I never really thought about it until I was rebuked for donning a pair and about to go to a pool. Admittedly, I was not going to do laps or anything, I just like to have vision under water. Always have since being a kid. I do somewhat get their perspective that it looks like I'm a creep/pervert trying to see women's lower halves underwater. However, aren't they already in bathing suits outside the water? I decided not to wear them. But I'm curious, is it a mostly universal opinion that an adult man wearing goggles in a public pool is weird?

For context, I’m pretty loud and off the wall. Especially if I consume any alcohol. I’m probably the most blunt person ever. My friend has expressed that our group is embarrassed by my presence in public. I texted one of my friends to apologize and his response was “thanks for your apology. Love you.”

My other friend gave me the response of “I’ve just accepted that you’ll be embarrassing”

It’s a difficult feeling for me since I feel like I’m definitely in the wrong, but social norms always ticked me off due to potential undiagnosed autism. I wish I they would accept me for how I am, flaws and all, but I can’t expect them to compromise their own individuality or social preferences just to hang out with me.

I wasn’t expecting an apology in return for mine, but I definitely felt cold after getting that response.

I’m torn because I want to improve but there’s also a part of me that wants to distance myself from them if they find me embarrassing.

Just to clarify, I don’t think my friends are wrong for feeling the way they do.

What do you guys think is the best course of action in situations like these? Do I need space or do I need to make some hard personal changes?

I find myself home a lot because I don't really have anyone to do things with me. When I am out alone I always feel awkward and like everyone notices me. At the same time I am tired of waiting on others just to get out of the house. Any advice?

I've been always told that the real world doesn't lower expectations to appeal to my emotions, but sometimes your feelings about them do matter in some ways. What is your ways of drawing a distinction between those platitudes?

I'm 14f and she's 13f(almost 14) and she just always has to put me down and she always has to be right, or better than me for example,

-Calls me dumbass when I make a very minor mistake that most people wouldn't even notice

-Calls me a fatass(im 100 pounds and 5'3)

-We were playing the sims 4 (a video game) and my character i made wasnt doing what it was supposed to and she said "you don't know what the fuck your doing just like in real life"

-One time she showed me something and said "told you" when I never disagreed with her in the first place

I'm honestly just looking for a reason of why she does this. She does have a chaotic home life because her parents are pretty mean to her, but I'm still looking for deeper reasons as to why she acts like this so if anyone knows please tell me lol

We got in a huge fight over misunderstandings and miscommunications. Neither of us felt like the other side was hearing what we had to say, or understand our feelings. Now she told me that "we need to hang out much less than we have been" and that things are getting "weird and uncomfortable" and she needs to set more boundaries on this friendship, that she needs space away from me.

We haven't talked or seen each other in two weeks. I'm giving her space, but is there a period of time to pass that I should reach out just to check in on her? I'm so scared of losing this friendship as she's been a staple in my life for a while and she was one of my favorite people. What do I do?

I was thinking about how in the start of 2024 I would only interact with a few people and often with a lot of drama. By the end of the year, I reached a higher plateau. Mostly it's because I adopted new habits of making small talk to more people and then overanalyzing it less. Eventually I admitted to myself these habits, even though I had a lot of reasons why not, made the day a lot more bearable.

I wonder whether in the end higher level social skills just come to the same thing, like it's never gonna seem like the right time to develop a friendship or ask someone out, the first few months are gonna keep seeming like, this sucks and is fake, until it becomes a new habit you adopt because it has obvious benefits?

I'm also curious whether anyone else feels like they went through a boring phase for a while. I used to be more antisocial but also more intense when I did connect, sometimes I feel all this Ned Flanders hididdly hi neighbor talk is just getting me stuck into bland pleasantness.

My argumemt to myself its fine is that it's a phase, you have to walk before you can run, you have to be stable before you can take a deliberate shot, you have to be comfortable with banality before you rock the boat. Maybe?

I’m a 20F currently living with parents but hopefully in a few months I’ll be fully moved in with my partner. I am struggling heavily with loneliness. The only social interaction I get is with my partner and his family. My family consists of just me and my mom and dad. They’re about to be 50 so they’re very set in their ways and not very keen on being attentive parents anymore. I don’t blame them for that, I’m an adult I don’t need 24/7 care. The few friends I had have drifted away or become husks of tiredness due to their jobs. My best friend is a nurse and I haven’t got to see her in nearly a year. I was home schooled until senior year. I had many friends at public school but they drifted as soon as graduation hit. I only have 3 friends left from high school. They’re all very academic so again not a lot of free time. My cousins have all moved on into their own lives. I haven’t seen them except for one family reunion and it felt like talking to strangers. I went to college for 2 years but it wasn’t something I felt inspired or led by for my life. I did not make any friends in college, most of it was online and one year in person.

I struggle slightly with making friends but I’m great at conversations. It just seems like it’s hard for people to click with me. I can get along with just about anyone. My only boundaries are people that are born assholes and like to cause drama. I do try to interact and set plans with people but things would fall through or we’d hang out and my older friends would literally pass out on the couch from exhaustion. I work an office job Monday-Friday so I never feel drained afterwards. I live in a small rural town so there’s not many club opportunities, unless you go drinking which I’m not a fan of.

Just like some advice on how to accept loneliness and if anyone else is in a similar struggle. Or how to better approach the art of making good friends.

EDIT: Thank you everyone for the advice, I’m going to start attending my community colleges student center more and try to make friends there. And maybe try volunteer work

So im in hs, i get called pretty, people say i seem cool and that we should be friends. I personally think i have a good personality im not fake nice to people and i stick to my word. But nobody talks to me first, i dont get invited anywhere, and my best friend ditched me. Im a social person but why does nobody want to talk to me or be a genuine friend.

A girl at my work keeps on smiling at me everytime. Even if I'm looking somewhere else I could see her smiling looking at my face with my side eyes. Once I was talking to someone and noticed she looked at me and smiled looking down. I'm really bad when it comes to talking and understanding girls

Every interaction with a Boomer at work gnaws at my brain. They can't help but touch you. tapping you on the shoulder, a hand placed on random parts of you. Every time they shake your hand they have to pat you on the back or shoulder. Nevermind that weird shoulder rub/squeeze they do. Like bro, UNHAND ME!

I never used LinkedIn. Maybe log in once a year just to do random updates. But in may, I was laid off. So I went back to LinkedIn to use it more frequently. One of the first things I did was to send connection requests to my old coworkers… but hardly any of them accepted? Some of these people I worked with for 3 years. I thought I was good aquaintences with some too. Was sending the requests bad? Was I secretly hated? I have no idea

Am I the only that thinks celebrities could be on here just as anonymous as we are because in real life they can't just go out and interact with others?

Do y'all ever feel like talking to people online is wayy scarier than in-person? I get so nervous to vc on online platforms but irl is usually better. Idk if I'm weird for this but I just have some kind of mental roadblock when talking with strangers online 😭. Does anyone else also experience this?

So I saw a post from a year ago on this sub about people pleasers being rather strongly disliked, but it was closed so I couldn't reply there. I agree with most of the reasoning why it's bad, but I'm very curious to know what somebody who was raised up being groomed to be one is supposed to do to change. I spent most of my life up until 2 years ago (32 years) having to care for my parents and grandparents, who all taught me that if I didn't do what everyone else wanted before my own feelings and needs that I would go to hell, be killed, and generally fail at life. The most common threat however was that I would get my ass beat for not showing respect to others and doing/agreeing with everything they want. My folks did beat my ass up until I was about 15 or 16, when they all got sick and too weak to do it, but they still kept the mental abuse in high gear and created an environment that trapped me with them in their sickness and I couldn't get out before I was turned into a complete slave who does nothing but put everyone's needs before I care about myself. They're all gone now and I'm completely alone, and I can't even care for myself and make choices that will excel my life because I'm terrified that if I don't do what the people in my current situation want, they'll beat me or make sure I get hurt somehow. I hate my current job and living situation but I've turned down better opportunities because I feel obligated to keep doing all the crappy work and live in a trailer instead of moving on with my life all just to help them because if I said no, they might hate me, and the number one thought ingrained in me from birth was that impressing others and being liked and popular is the only way to get through life. Therefore I'm 34 years old and can't say no or stick up for myself because that might hurt other people's feelings and that's basically the same as murder. I realize that this is unhealthy and deranged and I don't want to be that way anymore, but I don't have any idea how to grow some balls and do what I need and say fck everyone else. Any helpful tips on how to stop being a bitch and take care of myself?

It’s a long story, but one thing I’ve realised I have a pattern of staying friends with people for yeaaars, and need them to do a LOT of wrong before I cut them off. Specifically, I need them to hurt me a LOT, or hurt other people (less events needed here for me to stand up). This often ends up in me getting entangled with some pretty toxic people, and developing a lot of anxiety around this person. Good friends have told me I am far too forgiving.

I don’t know why I do this. FWIW I’m autistic. I think part of it is I take apologies at face value and genuinely believe they mean what they say, and any time they repeat their behaviour I believe it’s a mistake and they’re trying to be better. I know actions are louder than words, but I also know that some people do genuinely mess up (myself included) and I think part of loving someone is making room for their flaws.

Some times this has worked, like a friend who had a bit of a fit on a night out - I spoke to them after and they apologised and revealed to me that they had just been disowned by family due to being gay. They have never repeated that behaviour in the years since. I see this as an example of where forgiveness and trusting them to do better worked.

I think the other autistic aspect for me is that I’m so used to assuming I’m in the wrong in a social situation that it doesn’t take much convincing me that I am. For example one “best friend” constantly bails on plans I make (never makes any herself, in hindsight), and whilst she apologises, there’s always some insinuation that it’s my fault (I didn’t send the invite early enough, didn’t remind her, didn’t send calendar invite, she once even flat out told me I was entitled when I was upset that she only came to my bday for an hour before clubbing with other friends). It has taken about 3 years of being treated like shit before I finally clocked she’s not a good friend, and I don’t get why it keeps taking me so long.

What I realise is that I assume that if someone likes me, then they surely have good intentions towards me, and I would never do this to people I like. And I think these less than nice people take advantage of my optimism.

At the same time, I don’t want to just be paranoid. Something I’ve discovered is that I’ve actually always had an inkling of these people’s negative traits (autistic pattern recognition) before others do, but I almost see it as me being a pessimist or mean. I think most people I’ve met have “quirks” like this but I also trust that most people will keep things in check (eg a friend with anger issues who never lets it get taken out on others/in public, they calm themselves in their room). It’s not so much the traits but how they handle them, which means I have to let them fuck up first, and then I end up believing their apologies that mean nothing, over and over often for years.

I realise that I basically struggle to cut people off until I find them absolutely insufferable to be around, at which point I’m already way past my limit. And I hate it.

Basically, it seems that the average secure person trusts openly until there has been a fuck up, and then tolerates these fuck ups a lot less than me. And I have no clue how to reach this healthy middle ground.

has anyone ever felt like they're the 3rd wheel in a friendship? It hurts my heart so much, but at the same time I feel like I've mourned about it enough to the point I feel like I don't mind as much anymore and that it just is what it is.

My best friend (that I've known for since like middle school ) and I recently met a guy through a friend. After meeting him, we started hanging out more and more with him. At first it was the 3 of us hanging out together. We'd play video games for like almost entire days and hang out a lot during summer break. But as school started again, I couldn't hang out as much to focus on my art and school but I'd still pop in to join them. But they kept hanging out almost daily, calling for hours and even overnight. (keep in mind my best friend is my roomate in collage and this new guy we met is through discord and they would no joke stay up till 5 AM playing video games and it was so annoying getting woken up by their loud screams and also the fact I always felt left out because most of the time it was me asking to join them, not them actually inviting me.) Eventually they just started playing 2-player video games and I couldn't join at all. Some of the 2-player video games were games that me and my friend didn't even finish because the both of us got too lazy. But for him, she re-downloaded the games and even started from the beginning and completed it all the way to the end with him.

Recently, my friend called me and told me that he asked her if she liked liked him, and she told me she said yes to him. It wasnt much of a shocker to me since they hung out that much. But at the same time she also asked me if I was willing to go home (aka, leave the house that we roomate for the weekend) because he was buying tickets to come visit her at the house we share. I was shocked, why did I have to leave and get kicked out for his visit? Wouldn't that be unsafe since he is some totally random guy from the internet that we just met months ago? But her reasoning was that it was because he would be staying overnight for several days and she thinks I would feel uncomfortable with some guy sleeping in the same room. (Which is correct, I dont talk to many people and having someone that I barely even talked to recently sleep in the same room as me would be so awkward and I dont think I could fall asleep knowing he was there) but it just felt like an indirect way of saying they don't want me around.

Now at first I was scared about losing her because she is the only person I talk to everyday, and being such a introverted person I just dont think I have it in me to go out and meet new people or make new friends. (basically it feels like shes my only friend and im about to lose her to some guy) I also spend so much time drawing, that I dont have that much energy to give to anyone either. But Ive cried and thought it so much that now I just feel like I am just going to have to come to terms that he is the person that shes going to hang out with now instead of me. I know that I can still hang out with her despite him now being her main priority, but Im tired of inviting myself to hang out with them all the time instead of actually being invited.

Also im worried for my friend. I know she and that guy have been talking for months since summertime, but at the same time he is still someone random on the internet. As for the friend that we met him through? All 3 of us had to block him recently for being racist. My friend and I still haven't told our parents about this either because we both have asian parents and how the hell are we supposed to explain that we met some random guy on the internet and now he's visiting us-(oops sorry I mean her)??

Well I (M20) study CS in a university. J saw this girl a couple of months ago and i really want to go talk to her and get to know her. She on the seconda year if college and im on the first(it would be my second year too but i was in another uni and i changed my mind so i started all over again to the one i am now). So my problem is i cant find an opportunity to go talk to her. Maybe she will think that im younger(probably we are both 20 but im on my firts year and she is on the second) and i fear that many girls want a man that older that them. I also dont know how to go there and like have a conversation that will show that im not some kind of creep and will give me an oppirtunity ti have the ability to say hi to her whenever i see her without that being weird. So i want to find a way to go talk to her in a friendly way and then start to approach her more romanticaly day by day. Any idea? Any help would be useful

Hi, I’m looking for a small Discord server to meet new friends. Any recommendations?

I'm always asked why I'm so quiet and I never know what to say. I think deep down I want companionship and for people to like me but I can accept that a lot of my interests are my own and that I like doing things on my own (going to the movies for example).

However in regards to simply talking to people I feel as though I've become complacent. Even in regards to people I care about I don't want to say and I go hours, and sometimes even days without saying anything. I noticed this happening with a close friend recently and I'm wondering if this is normal and I could fix this.

basically yeah. i don’t know why but i literally break down in tears when i apologize every time without fail. i end up having to apologize a lot in my house because my parents never apologize to me and if i don’t apologize, we literally will never speak again 😭😭😭 but i still cry every time!

i got into a big argument with my mom today, and i basically blew up and yelled at my other mom when she was instigating the argument and trying to egg me on. she got upset that i raised my voice, and she mentioned how every time i apologize to her i cry, like i’m victimizing myself. i was wondering if this a victimizing issue? is this a normal response to apologizing? im extremely sensitive and i always have been, but im still wondering if this is normal or if i have to do some deep diving or something!! i try so hard to be mature and literally fail every time because i get so emotional, but it’s just because i don’t want my parents (or anyone) to be mad at me 😭 how do i fix literally being a big fat crybaby and crying when i’m supposed to be the one saying sorry, the fact that she pointed it out has embarrassed me so much and makes me think maybe i’m like lowkey manipulative by crying but i swear i can’t help it! help !!!

I (16F) like to think I'm a fairly friendly person, I try to be kind to everyone and I like to start conversation. I know I'm weird but I just equate it to my odd interests and weird humor. Today I was with some friends, those who I only met a few months ago (might I note- they have similar interests and humor so it wouldn't have to do with that). We were talking about when we first met and one of my friends (15F) told me she thought I was really weird at first, to which the others agreed. I looked back on our first few impressions and I felt I was just being friendly to her as I remember asking her questions about her classes and complimenting her earrings. I thought she seemed like a cool person. I have heard this from many other people and people in general just always seem off put by me and I have never been able to figure out why. I know I'm not a bad person necessarily because once I'm in a friendship I can keep it for a long time, it's just that initial period people don't really want to be around me. In my friends case she only kept talking to me because she was my dance partner in the musical we were both in. I'm not looking for sympathy, I just genuinely struggle finding friendships and relationships and I feel this might be the reason because all of my close friends (minus elementary school ones) have told me this. Any ideas on how I can fix this?

How do I verbally stand up for myself? For years I have just ignored people but it eats me up on the inside and I’m just sick of it. I feel like I missed a lot of opportunities in school growing up and that there is no hope anymore

I have never really experienced fake nice people before, but I have always wondered what is an example of it. I have been working with people from other countries and its also a thing that indicate that Americans tend to do. I just wonder what is fake nice exactly and what can be done to be more genuine

I am a big talker and I do wonder if sometimes I come across as overbearing. People will talk to me and respond to my texts and struggle to understand if they are interested in talking or if they are just politely responding to me so I am satiated.

I wish I came across as more charismatic. Lately, I’m focusing on listening more, being genuinely curious about people, and not overthinking my reactions.

I genuinely wonder how other people end friendships that clearly don't provide you with any kind of benefit or that simply for whatever reason don't work at all and after all you know you won't go any further with this friendship. I wonder if they just let time pass until they lose all communication with those people and pretend they were never important or just forgot about them, I genuinely wonder. Well I have no previous experience at all in dealing with any kind of friendship issues and that's why I'm here. How should I let this person know, should I personally talk to them face to face or just tell them by text message.

So yes I’d appreciate any kind of advice, anything it’s welcome :)