Should I give up on making female friends?

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Not only do I struggle with finding a girlfriend, even platonic friendships with women are out of my reach. Besides my younger brother's fiancée, I have no female friends my age and trying to make new ones feels just as impossible as trying to find a girlfriend.

Background: There are a pair of twins that visit the library I work at. They usually smile and greet me when they see me and I even had some small talk with who I think might be the older twin. The way they would smile at me made me wonder if they wanted to be my friends or if they were just being nice. Because I didn't have an answer, I would would stress myself out with wonder whenever I saw them. Their visits would also have big gaps in time between them so this didn't help at all.

Last Wednesday, I finally gathered up the courage to ask them if they wanted to hangout. I saw the one I had talked to before doing a computer search and was walking back towards the quiet room upstairs so I took the oppurtunity to say hi to her. She responded and then I told her I had a curious question for her. She stopped and asked what that was. I asked her what she was doing after 5:00 and she told me she was going to write her novel. I told her that was cool and she asked why I asked about 5:00. I told her I was wondering if she wanted to hang out during that time. She said she would ask her twin about it.

I went back downstairs because I was supposed to be looking for a book for a co-worker and took a book cart so I could go back upstairs. I saw her again and she told me she would talk to me between the book shelves. When we went back in the shelves, she told me I was a nice guy but she and her twin weren't up for hanging out because they both suffer from trust issues as well as PTSD due to bad experiences with other people growing up. She told me she didn't think I was a creep but she had been hurt too much to let other people in her life. I told her I was disappointed but that I understood her fear and it was better to be given an answer, even if it was a no, than to keep wondering what it could've been. We both bid each other farewell.

I suppose I should see this as trying to get out of my shell and being courageous but it still disappoints me on some levels. My friendship circle shrinks all the time and the last female friends I've had severed ties with me; one because she couldn't exploit me anymore and the other because she felt I was too negative even though she wasn't very positive herself. The few times I've tried to reach out to girls my age for either friendship or relationships have only ended in failure for me. Should I just give up?

Speaking from personal experience, it's a bad idea just to give up. If you isolate yourself rather than putting yourself out there, you're definitely not going to meet anyone new. At least if you keep trying, the more likely it is you'll meet a female who could be your friend. Try registering with the site 'Meetup'. On there, social activities and events are organised by people who most often would like to expand their friendship circle. On the site you can join as many clubs as you like - just think of an interest, or something you like to do in your spare time, and they'll probably have it! Have a look in your area to see if there are any clubs (sports, arts, etc) that you might like to join. That way, you're meeting a variety of people where hopefully friendships could occur. And take advantage of any events that your families and friends invite you to. If you're one to shy away at parties, don't. Just make a bit of small talk. And any rejections you receive from people for friendship or romance, don't take it personally. Don't jump to the conclusion that it's YOUR fault, because quite often it isn't. Sometimes people are not very nice and don't appreciate others niceness, and sometimes people are nice as you've mentioned, but just can't handle more people in their life because of personal problems. All of this is ok. If the person in question has been nice to you, then just be civil back, and move on.

Meetup is definitely a good place to start. If you join a group about common interests it takes that awkwardness away if you're genuinely seeking friendship. Or at least it should do.

Some people have enough friends in their life, and do not want more, and some people don't like being given any attention. Nothing to deal with you, but it's those two ladies own personal issue, so they walked passed you. Those two may already have a good group of friends. You don't need to give up on finding more women to be friends with.

I can speak from personal experience that this attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Assuming that because those twins didn't want to hang out with you, no girls would is a leap in logic. Even if you can point to many examples of girls not wanting to be around you, that still doesn't mean none of them would. I could point to your brother's fiance as evidence that all girls would want to be your friend in the same vein!

I make friends with girls easier than guys myself, but I didn't bother to try to get into a relationship for 10 years because I assumed it was impossible and all girls would find me revolting no matter what I did. That resulted in me never asking anyone out, never expressing interest in a girl, and doing little to improve my appearance. Surprise, I had zero romantic experiences for 10 years. Only a little over a year ago did I decide to give it a try, but I was badly hindered by my near-total lack of previous experience (at age 26 that's an issue) and, while I do practice hygiene, I've never really done anything to enhance my looks. Still, although it's been extremely hard, I've been on dates with 2 girls and recently got laid for the first time.

What you need to do is challenge your negative thinking and do things that prove it wrong. Find what evidence you have for and against your negative thoughts about yourself. That's what I've been doing the last few months, and I've found that the majority of negative thoughts I've had were proven outright wrong, and none of them have been confirmed true.

In statistics, you'll need around a thousand samples to feel fairly good about making a simple prediction about probabilities. Even then, you can't say anything definite about the next sample you take.

In any case, getting more data will improve your predictions. Even then, there's nothing permanent about how you currently appear to other people.

No, you shouldn't give up on being friends with females just because they aren't interested in you. Rather, I would look for some clubs that revolve around your interests and start talking to people based on those. You and female friends are going to clique naturally.

A second thing to keep in mind is when you ask a girl to do something with you, it's best for you both to be at the same enough times where you see each other, enjoy each other's interests and have conversations. Otherwise, they think that you will sound desperate.

Now regarding those twins, I can't speak for them, but it sounds like they turned you down because you work at the library and maybe they want to establish a professional relationship with you and nothing more. They also could be close to each other and feel uncomfortable around other people. I have heard that twins can become too attached to each other. However, their PTSD story sounds like an excuse or a nice way of saying they are not interested but I don't know them personally. I would continue to be polite to them and continue to talk to them because you never know.

Have you ever considered going to meetup.com and tried starting your own? It costs you a fee but if you wanted, then you could create your own anime group or something else related to your interests because you never know who's interested in the same things that you are.

Otherwise, you may have to take the risk and drive a great distance once a month to a meet up just so you can meet new people who share your interests.

Have you considered honing in on your social skills? Sometimes becoming self-aware of your own actions can help affect the way that you carry yourself. It also helps to listen and learn more about the other party by finding out why they like and see if you have things in common.

Also, based on your replies, I really feel that you seem to be a negative person. Just about every suggestion that we give, you seem to whine. Do you want to move forward with your life or not? Often times, people don't want to be around downers.

Good luck to you then.