This last year has been pretty tough in terms of making friends. I moved back home and tried to make friends, that didn’t work. I tried to reconnect with people, and it didn’t go well. Most people had moved on with their lives and there wasn’t a place for me in it. I get it, it happens. It doesn’t make it any easier.
Being an adult and struggling to make friends is hard. Maybe I’m too needy. I don’t mean needy in a “message me every second of every day” kind of way, but maybe I simply send people too many messages. Maybe I dump too much on them and they don’t like it. I completely acknowledge that maybe that’s why I’m still struggling to make friends that stick. But who knows, maybe it’s something else entirely.
The reality is, I’m not anyone’s best friend. I’m not the first person someone wants to tell news to, or the first person someone chooses to hang out with. I don’t have that core friend group that travels together or goes for brunch every weekend. The group chat I can vent to when I’ve had a bad day? It doesn’t exist for me. Being a fully grown adult and not feeling like you have a group of friends who are there is a horrible feeling. It makes you realise how many people have simply left your life.
I think I’m the “out of sight, out of mind” friend. People don’t really miss me when I’m not around, but they’re fine to talk to me when I am.
You know those birthday tributes all over social media? I think I’ve had one of those in my life. How many have I shared? Way more than that. I know this might seem silly to most people, and I agree. However, it’s nice to know that there are people (apart from your family) who are happy that you were born, that want to celebrate you. This year most people, apart from family, seemed to forget my birthday; even people that I message every year for theirs. I’m not angry, people have their own lives and I’ve certainly forgotten birthdays before. It makes me realise that maybe I need to back off a little, just for my own peace of mind.
Have you had people make plans right in front of you but not actually invite you? That’s happened to me, more than once. What about people talking about their weekend but you can’t contribute because you weren’t invited to that either?
I’ve finally reached a point where I think I’m giving up. I’d love to have a group of friends that spends time together and hangs out on weekends. I’d love to have someone who messages me first when something happens in their life. But I don’t know how to make friendships like that. I don’t know how to be the chosen friend. I know that I have people in my life I can talk to about things, and sure, I’m grateful for that, but also knowing that they wouldn’t choose me first makes me pull away.
Making friends as an adult? Not for me I guess.