Venting I’ve never had a friend

[return.]

I don't know where to begin, but it wasn't until recently that it really has been getting to me. I mean, the fact that I've never had a friend, even saying that now I can't fully believe it. It's crazy to think. I've have "friends," but they were more like acquaintances. People I know for certain didn't care for me and I didn't care for.

I've questioned before many times why I've never had any friends. I've heard people's stories and I watched videos and all sorts of things. Eventually I realized that I couldn't really understand these people. The difference between me and these people was that they were yearning for something they had previously felt. These people had friends, they had lovers, and had relationships at some point. But I'm not sure if I've even ever felt love before. Sure, my parents may love me, but I still turned out to be this person, so what now? I can't seem to figure out why I don't have friends. I've considered many things, some which are true but aren't satisfying enough.

I'm starting to give up on trying to make friends, IRL and online. Or even pursue any social interaction. People already have their friend groups, people already have others to care about. Everyday I feel like I have more and more reasons to completely give up. I just don't think I can make it anymore. I just don't believe there is a single person on this planet who cares about me. I don't really see the purpose of friends. I could go on and on and I'll probably make more posts in the future about this topic. But I just can't even fathom the possibility that someone may actually care about me.

 

[Sleeper System]

I use to feel this way because I think I have hardwired abandonment issues.
Somewhere along the line someone let me down so hard that I was no longer capable of sincerely forming attachment to anyone for fear of reliving whatever feeling it gave me. Then, as I got older, I learned more about the futility of life and the ultimate un-importance of if people care about you or you care about them. So, I guess I started accepting and facilitating the idea that i'm emotionally capable of detaching from anyone or anything for any reason at any moment and making friends or connections stopped being a goal and more like something to avoid to spare myself and others.

Now, I have a few people I think of as friends and care about. I try my best to express that whenever possible all the while dealing with this feeling that I can detach at any time if needed and I really don't want to be that person to them.

I also often feel like the third wheel. That has to do with my level of commitement to friendship which all falls under the same sort of issues.

Keeping friends is an effort. That's what gives the relationships meaning. You're willing to sacrifice something to retain it. Your time, your love your money, your patience, etc. You have to be ok with giving a little piece of yourself away knowing maybe you wont get the return you're looking for. But its a gamble and you never know.

 

[danzk]

I'm sorry for what you've been through, I feel the same way you do too and I know how shit it is

I don't know where to begin, but it wasn't until recently that it really has been getting to me. I mean, the fact that I've never had a friend, even saying that now I can't fully believe it. It's crazy to think. I've have "friends," but they were more like acquaintances. People I know for certain didn't care for me and I didn't care for.

I've questioned before many times why I've never had any friends. I've heard people's stories and I watched videos and all sorts of things. Eventually I realized that I couldn't really understand these people. The difference between me and these people was that they were yearning for something they had previously felt. These people had friends, they had lovers, and had relationships at some point. But I'm not sure if I've even ever felt love before. Sure, my parents may love me, but I still turned out to be this person, so what now? I can't seem to figure out why I don't have friends. I've considered many things, some which are true but aren't satisfying enough.

I'm starting to give up on trying to make friends, IRL and online. Or even pursue any social interaction. People already have their friend groups, people already have others to care about. Everyday I feel like I have more and more reasons to completely give up. I just don't think I can make it anymore. I just don't believe there is a single person on this planet who cares about me. I don't really see the purpose of friends. I could go on and on and I'll probably make more posts in the future about this topic. But I just can't even fathom the possibility that someone may actually care about me.

 

[MyChoiceAlone]

may i ask how you go about trying to make friends? i've never actively tried, it just seems to happen naturally/gradually. in fact i probably couldn't tell you how i met any of the friends i've had. the ones that seem to try too hard make things awkward/sus for me so i basically blew them off.

 

[locked*n*loaded]

I "thought" I used to have friends back in my more youthful days. Maybe I did. They were more "good time" friends" though. None of those friendships ever carried over into adulthood, though. After high school all of those so-called friendships just faded away. Never made any at work, either, over the years and I have no friends now. No family, either.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

I "thought" I used to have friends back in my more youthful days. Maybe I did. They were more "good time" friends" though. None of those friendships ever carried over into adulthood, though. After high school all of those so-called friendships just faded away. Never made any at work, either, over the years and I have no friends now. No family, either.

Well it's nice to see you active here again.

 

[Argo]

I still turned out to be this person, so what now? I can't seem to figure out why I don't have friends.

I don't think you're uniquely broken or unworthy in some way, I just think the problem is more of a species thing. I'm reminded of that line from the Bukowski poem:

"people just are not good to each other"

There are better and worse explanations for why that is

It doesn't mean people can't be good to each other in a more genuine way, it's just very hard. I think it requires moving away from most of the species(a lot of cultural ideas and identities are inherently divisive/anti-social). But that can cause a new problem: You no longer relate to people nor they to you.

 

[return.]

may i ask how you go about trying to make friends? i've never actively tried, it just seems to happen naturally/gradually. in fact i probably couldn't tell you how i met any of the friends i've had. the ones that seem to try too hard make things awkward/sus for me so i basically blew them off.

Back when I had "friends," I just naturally met them. I don't know how. I don't try to make friends in-person nowadays. Online though, I joined discord servers and randomly dm'ed people that way. I talked to multiple people but I wasn't interested in most. I only have one person I'm talking to now but she's dealing with some things and we haven't talked in a while.

"people just are not good to each other"

I think it requires moving away from most of the species(a lot of cultural ideas and identities are inherently divisive/anti-social).

I really like that quote.

Can you elaborate on that second part? What cultural ideas and identities are you referring to?

 

[bridgegirl]

I don't have any, either. At this point, I don't think I want any.. too much work at this stage in my life.

 

[return.]

I don't have any, either. At this point, I don't think I want any.. too much work at this stage in my life.

I understand that. I'm unsure if I want any friends at this point. It just feels like so much work. The way I see it is that it's so much work for someone who probably already has plenty of friends that they are satisfied with.

 

[bridgegirl]

I understand that. I'm unsure if I want any friends at this point. It just feels like so much work. The way I see it is that it's so much work for someone who probably already has plenty of friends that they are satisfied with.

That's actually exactly how I feel about it too. It just seems like a lot of work, too, to get to know someone and take the time to build that, and then you don't even know if they're gonna turn out to be a good person or have anything truly in common with you. Idk. Times I've been friends with people before, they just demand all your time and then act in hurtful ways. It makes me tired.

 

[denis]

I would say it's a symtom of the times, probably, cause even having about ~7 good friends, it doesn't really feel to me likey "having friends", like it was in the past times. It's more formal now, like sharing some news, memes, doing birthday calls. Without feeling much. These days our "friends" are mostly celebrities, famous persons, who we worship massively on social media, IMO.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I personally believe that initially friendship is a natural reaction- simply someone you find you really relate to. I think it's also need though. My strongest friendships were made when I went to uni or started a new job. That feeling of being cast adrift on your own. Have you had those experiences in life? I think they quite often create a kind of natural need.

After that though- friendships require so much effort- on both sides to keep alive. Not that it's probably much comfort but, it was so painful to me initially when I lost my best friend. We both moved away and now, they have a family and, all their time is taken up with them and work. Honestly now, I just don't really trust friendship becsuse I know how painful it is to lose it. It doesn't seem wise to rely on other people now.

I'm sad for you though, if it's something you long for or, would like to experience.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

Omg, I relate so much @return.16. I did manage to make one online friend but that was only recently. For the rest of my life before that, I had nobody at all... nobody irl or online. I didn't even have any acquaintances which is where I guess we differ as you said that you did have acquaintances. I also tried to search online everywhere for somebody who I could relate to but I couldn't find anybody. Everybody else's issues is where they had friends during childhood but get lonely during adulthood. In fact, even when I searched stuff like "somebody who has been lonely for their entire life", it always, always talks about adult loneliness. It annoyed me that I couldn't find anybody to relate to.

Without the fact that you had acquaintances, I relate to you for the majority of my life and all I wanted to see was one other person who had the loneliness that I did. I wanted to see that I'm not alone but, for all my life, I felt alone even during my loneliness in which.. I'm alone.

Thank you for making this thread. I feel like you got the message across very adequately. Whenever I tried to explain my loneliness, people always think that I'm exaggerating as they can't comprehend me having not made a single friend during school or college or whatever. It hurted so much that they always assumed that I was using a hyperbole and that my loneliness is just adult loneliness or something. Because of you, I finally don't feel alone in the sense that I'm not the only human on this planet to suffer from an extreme magnitude of loneliness. Thank you @return.16

I wish I could be friends with you but, unfortunately, I can't. After all, my lifelong loneliness by not having made a single irl friend is there for a reason. Just thinking about the idea of friendship overwhelms me. Whilst I do wish that I could navigate life with a friend, I get easily overwhelmed and I know that I will get overwhelmed when socialising. My neurotype isn't such that I can have friends. Some people are just meant to be alone and I'm one of them. Additionally, I never really had any personality too and I still don't. My personality doesn't go beyond "I find death peaceful; I want to be dead asap". I can never talk about any interesting topics as there's nothing that I like

I'm just permanently fucked from being myself and I'm sorry for that. If I was more normal, I'd be friends with you or at least try to. I hope that you find peace or real friendships one day

Fuck, this is the only thread in this entire site that made me have feelings for. I'm on the verge of tears

 

[Ephemeron]

I've had all of those things at one point or another, and sometimes (or even often) I wish I was like you, that I never knew them, as then I wouldn't know the pain of having lost them.

I've tried to make friends online, but these days it's next-to impossible, especially around my age. The only chat program now is generally for kids/younger people, and that's not something I'm interested in, yet there's nowhere else really to get to know people online. That and the fact that I'm just a trash waste of life in general that few people would have any interest in getting to know.

Anyway, sorry you've gone through this shit :(

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I've had all of those things at one point or another, and sometimes (or even often) I wish I was like you, that I never knew them, as then I wouldn't know the pain of having lost them.

It's true that you wouldn't know the pain of losing friends if you never had any to begin with. However, you also get a different kind of pain from the loneliness you get due to not having anybody to begin with and... this pain is extremely painful. I'd rather get exploited in a friend group than be lonely the way I am. I'd rather be the last choice than not be a choice at all

 

[Ephemeron]

It's true that you wouldn't know the pain of losing friends if you never had any to begin with. However, you also get a different kind of pain from the loneliness you get due to not having anybody to begin with and... this pain is extremely painful. I'd rather get exploited in a friend group than be lonely the way I am. I'd rather be the last choice than not be a choice at all

Yeah, I get it. We're both experiencing a different pain, but pain either way. I think I just want to get across the idea that gaining friends/lovers/etc. does not solve personal problems. It will not make you feel content in life if you have psychological difficulties (if you're here, you likely do), but losing them can destroy you.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

Yeah, I get it. We're both experiencing a different pain, but pain either way. I think I just want to get across the idea that gaining friends/lovers/etc. does not solve personal problems. It will not make you feel content in life if you have psychological difficulties (if you're here, you likely do), but losing them can destroy you.

I know that having friends won't solve my personal problems but it'd still go a long away for me. Honestly, you saying stuff like that is exactly why I felt invalidated throughout my entire life. Whilst you are correct, you don't understand the magnitude of my loneliness.

Also, in my case, not having friends destroys me more than what losing a friend would do. Sure, I never lost a friend but I'm almost certain that I'd rather lose a friend than be the way I currently am. Of course if I continue to lose friends, I'll have your mindset where losing friends is awful but I'm not at that stage yet nor will I ever be

 

[VoidedExistence]

I completely relate. Never had friends, still don't have friends. Not even close to any family member. Truly all alone.

 

[MyChoiceAlone]

so you have had friends. i'm glad. yeah the older you get, the harder it is to make new ones. especially if you decided to push all of them away one day like me lol. i still consider them friends. nothing irreparable happened (at least that's what i think). these days it is hard to make new acquaintances. if that's what you need, i hope you never give up!

 

[ijustwishtodie]

so you have had friends.

They just said that they didn't have any friends. That's the whole point of their thread. They had acquaintances but not friends. Personally, I never had either aside from one online friend which I got recently (before of which I had absolutely nobody)

 

[MyChoiceAlone]

They just said that they didn't have any friends. That's the whole point of their thread. They had acquaintances but not friends. Personally, I never had either aside from one online friend which I got recently (before of which I had absolutely nobody)

well i hope you scan one day consider me as a friend.

 

[sserafim]

Personally, I guess I've only had a few friends in my life. Right now, I have like 2 people whom I would consider as a friend (they're both from my high school and they're neurodivergent as well, I think they both have ADHD lol). Even so, I still feel a fundamental sense of disconnect to them. I don't think that I can actually connect with anyone because of my neurotype. I'm sad that one of my friends (more like acquaintance) stopped talking to me though, he was cool and interesting to talk to. I still don't know why he left me on read to this day. My other friend from high school who went to the same college as me was a fair weather friend, we stopped talking and our friendship slowly faded away.

 

[dragonofenvy]

Being alone in a world where it seems everyone else can be connected is one of the worst things to experience.

 

[AllAlone]

I also don't have friends. I had friends when I was younger but I moved alot and eventually I moved to a new school and never made friends and I haven't had any friends since. Anytime it seems like I might make a friend I push them away becuase I'm afraid of rejection so I reject people first. I desperately want friends but I'm so insecure and social interactions make me so anxious that I know I will always be alone.

 

[return.]

Omg, I relate so much @return.16. I did manage to make one online friend but that was only recently. For the rest of my life before that, I had nobody at all... nobody irl or online. I didn't even have any acquaintances which is where I guess we differ as you said that you did have acquaintances. I also tried to search online everywhere for somebody who I could relate to but I couldn't find anybody. Everybody else's issues is where they had friends during childhood but get lonely during adulthood. In fact, even when I searched stuff like "somebody who has been lonely for their entire life", it always, always talks about adult loneliness. It annoyed me that I couldn't find anybody to relate to.

Without the fact that you had acquaintances, I relate to you for the majority of my life and all I wanted to see was one other person who had the loneliness that I did. I wanted to see that I'm not alone but, for all my life, I felt alone even during my loneliness in which.. I'm alone.

Thank you for making this thread. I feel like you got the message across very adequately. Whenever I tried to explain my loneliness, people always think that I'm exaggerating as they can't comprehend me having not made a single friend during school or college or whatever. It hurted so much that they always assumed that I was using a hyperbole and that my loneliness is just adult loneliness or something. Because of you, I finally don't feel alone in the sense that I'm not the only human on this planet to suffer from an extreme magnitude of loneliness. Thank you @return.16

I wish I could be friends with you but, unfortunately, I can't. After all, my lifelong loneliness by not having made a single irl friend is there for a reason. Just thinking about the idea of friendship overwhelms me. Whilst I do wish that I could navigate life with a friend, I get easily overwhelmed and I know that I will get overwhelmed when socialising. My neurotype isn't such that I can have friends. Some people are just meant to be alone and I'm one of them. Additionally, I never really had any personality too and I still don't. My personality doesn't go beyond "I find death peaceful; I want to be dead asap". I can never talk about any interesting topics as there's nothing that I like

I'm just permanently fucked from being myself and I'm sorry for that. If I was more normal, I'd be friends with you or at least try to. I hope that you find peace or real friendships one day

Fuck, this is the only thread in this entire site that made me have feelings for. I'm on the verge of tears

I'm glad we were both able to find each other here. I'm glad this thread made you feel a little less lonely. Reading this post, I see many differences between us, but one thing is still true, we both have experienced magnitudes of loneliness not many others have.

Like you said about those videos that you watched, another thing I heard often from these people was "know you are not know." It's a bit funny, because I can basically guarantee that I am alone.

I honestly didn't think someone in the replies would have been able to relate, but I'm glad you're here.

I've had all of those things at one point or another, and sometimes (or even often) I wish I was like you, that I never knew them, as then I wouldn't know the pain of having lost them.

I like that you mentioned this. It reminded me of a youtube video I watched a while back. It was titled "The Incel to Trans Pipeline and Inside Mari." What I wanna talk about doesn't have anything to do with incels or transgenderism. What I wanna talk about is the manga Inside Mari that the creator of this video talks about. I'll try to summarize it and skip over some details and just try to skim through it to get to the point.

Inside Mari, from the start, follows the protagonist. This guy is a neet, living off of the money his mom gives him monthly. It wasn't always like this though. Our protagonist had gone to college before, in hopes of making friends. But after some time of not being able to make any friends, and overall being overwhelmed, he drops out, and doesn't tell his family. Every day, late into the night, he goes to the grocery store nearby to buy some quick food. And every single night he sees this high school girl that he becomes obsessed with. He follows her every single night after leaving the store. One day, he wakes up as her. Now with this new life, he has to somehow keep up with Mari's social life. She has many friends and relationships and guys try to hit on her, not knowing that they are talking to a 20 year-old guy inside of her. He, like the audience at this point of the story, figures that if he is inside of her body, then she might be in his. Knowing his own routine, he goes to the grocery store. There he finds himself, and tries explaining everything to him. But this other guy (protagonist 2.0) doesn't recognize him, and is actually freaked out by the whole thing. Our protagonist tries to explain that protagonist 2.0 follows him (or her) every day after coming to this store. Protagonist 2.0 has no idea what he is talking about. Mari isn't inside of his body. So where is she? After some more story and plot we realize that Inside Mari was never about the protagonist, it was about Mari. The protagonist never followed Mari nor was he obsessed with her. It was the other way around. This is what I wanted to talk about. She was jealous and envious of his lifestyle. He's a loser who doesn't have to be burdened by the struggle of having to maintain friendships that Mari probably doesn't care about. She's tired and miserable, and sometimes she wishes she was in the protagonist's shoes. This video made me realize that there might be people who envy my lifestyle. Not having to be burdened by friendships or relationships. People might have many friends, and might seem happy, but maybe they're not. Maybe sometimes they just want to live a quiet peaceful life with no friends, even if that's still painful.

 

[Ephemeron]

Inside Mari, from the start, follows the protagonist. This guy is a neet, living off of the money his mom gives him monthly. It wasn't always like this though. Our protagonist had gone to college before, in hopes of making friends. But after some time of not being able to make any friends, and overall being overwhelmed, he drops out, and doesn't tell his family. Every day, late into the night, he goes to the grocery store nearby to buy some quick food. And every single night he sees this high school girl that he becomes obsessed with. He follows her every single night after leaving the store. One day, he wakes up as her. Now with this new life, he has to somehow keep up with Mari's social life. She has many friends and relationships and guys try to hit on her, not knowing that they are talking to a 20 year-old guy inside of her. He, like the audience at this point of the story, figures that if he is inside of her body, then she might be in his. Knowing his own routine, he goes to the grocery store. There he finds himself, and tries explaining everything to him. But this other guy (protagonist 2.0) doesn't recognize him, and is actually freaked out by the whole thing. Our protagonist tries to explain that protagonist 2.0 follows him (or her) every day after coming to this store. Protagonist 2.0 has no idea what he is talking about. Mari isn't inside of his body. So where is she? After some more story and plot we realize that Inside Mari was never about the protagonist, it was about Mari. The protagonist never followed Mari nor was he obsessed with her. It was the other way around. This is what I wanted to talk about. She was jealous and envious of his lifestyle. He's a loser who doesn't have to be burdened by the struggle of having to maintain friendships that Mari probably doesn't care about. She's tired and miserable, and sometimes she wishes she was in the protagonist's shoes. This video made me realize that there might be people who envy my lifestyle. Not having to be burdened by friendships or relationships. People might have many friends, and might seem happy, but maybe they're not. Maybe sometimes they just want to live a quiet peaceful life with no friends, even if that's still painful.

That sounds like an interesting story. Thanks a lot for sharing. Unfortunately, unlike this Mari girl, though, I can't make a choice just to get away from it all for a while or whatever, as I lost everything due to my own stupidity in youth. Anyway, I don't want to imply that one type of pain is more legitimate or worse than any other. We're both experiencing really awful shit that no human should ever have to go through, and we can't help but fantasize about things. I guess this story illustrates just that :(

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I'm glad we were both able to find each other here. I'm glad this thread made you feel a little less lonely. Reading this post, I see many differences between us, but one thing is still true, we both have experienced magnitudes of loneliness not many others have.

Like you said about those videos that you watched, another thing I heard often from these people was "know you are not know." It's a bit funny, because I can basically guarantee that I am alone.

I honestly didn't think someone in the replies would have been able to relate, but I'm glad you're here.

Yeah, there definitely are differences between us but I relate to you in this aspect more than I have for anybody else I've seen. From what I've seen, basically everybody including those who claim to be lonely have had friendships during school, even if said friendships only existed in school and nowhere else. I wish that I had friends who were only friends with me during school as opposed to having nobody at all.

Sorry, but could you clarify the "know you are not know" statement? I don't understand that one nor have I heard it before. I assume you meant "know that you aren't alone" perhaps? If so, yeah, these statements hurt me much more as it made me think that not being alone is the norm. I learnt later on that there are more people who are truly alone but, at the start, I didn't think that because of how everybody kept on saying "you are not alone".

Also, this is a bit off topic to what I'm saying but have you ever read some advice on how to get social and felt more alienated as a result? I'm not bringing this up as a way to say "look for advice on how to socialise" as I'm not here for that. I'm only bringing this up because, when I was looking for advice on how to make friends, it said stuff like "rekindle past friendships" and "accept more invitations from people". These advices made me realise just how alone I truly am as I never had a past friendship to begin with nor have I ever got a single invitation from someone. It just hurt seeing people say stuff like that as it reminded me that the loneliness that most people see is of a lesser magnitude than mine. If you been in this situation, have you felt the same?

 

[Kasumi]

I "thought" I used to have friends back in my more youthful days. Maybe I did. They were more "good time" friends" though. None of those friendships ever carried over into adulthood, though. After high school all of those so-called friendships just faded away. Never made any at work, either, over the years and I have no friends now. No family, either.

Pretty much the same thing, good time friends, but no people who actually care, which is honestly a big problem, now as it was 100 years ago, everyone needs some kind of support system, normally you get born into one - your family, but for many of us here our families don't support us or even are the source of our problems.
That only leaves good friends, and from my experience,.. even if it may look like others have lots of friends, most of them are just superficial friendships.

To have even one good friend, like a bestie you went through school or college with, always ready to hang out with you or to come over when you're not doing well... that's rare.
It's what I wished for all my life and never got, maybe also because I have too many health issues and am too different from others in general.

 

[return.]

Yeah, there definitely are differences between us but I relate to you in this aspect more than I have for anybody else I've seen. From what I've seen, basically everybody including those who claim to be lonely have had friendships during school, even if said friendships only existed in school and nowhere else. I wish that I had friends who were only friends with me during school as opposed to having nobody at all.

Sorry, but could you clarify the "know you are not know" statement? I don't understand that one nor have I heard it before. I assume you meant "know that you aren't alone" perhaps? If so, yeah, these statements hurt me much more as it made me think that not being alone is the norm. I learnt later on that there are more people who are truly alone but, at the start, I didn't think that because of how everybody kept on saying "you are not alone".

Yeah I meant to say "know you are not alone."

Also, this is a bit off topic to what I'm saying but have you ever read some advice on how to get social and felt more alienated as a result? I'm not bringing this up as a way to say "look for advice on how to socialise" as I'm not here for that. I'm only bringing this up because, when I was looking for advice on how to make friends, it said stuff like "rekindle past friendships" and "accept more invitations from people". These advices made me realise just how alone I truly am as I never had a past friendship to begin with nor have I ever got a single invitation from someone. It just hurt seeing people say stuff like that as it reminded me that the loneliness that most people see is of a lesser magnitude than mine. If you been in this situation, have you felt the same?

I've never really been in this situation. I did try to look for advice on how to socialize more but in the end of the day I felt more confused and I had so many limiting beliefs that it stopped me from actually taking the advice. It didn't really make me feel more alienated though.

That only leaves good friends, and from my experience,.. even if it may look like others have lots of friends, most of them are just superficial friendships.

Yeah I've definitely noticed this too. I don't find the purpose in friendship as much anymore because I realized that many people with friends are also depressed and aren't too happy with their friendships. It got me questioning what it really means to love and if myself and others are capable of that.

To have even one good friend, like a bestie you went through school or college with, always ready to hang out with you or to come over when you're not doing well... that's rare.
It's what I wished for all my life and never got, maybe also because I have too many health issues and am too different from others in general.

It's definitely hard to find real friends like you described, but I hope one day you can find someone like that.