Is making friends really that hard?

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I have always found it difficult to find and maintain friendships with other people. The problem is I sort of become friends with someone and then am rejected, and do not always read the subtext/hidden cues that they really want nothing to do with me. In my process of figuring it out I sometimes pass over friendly, lonely people who themselves are more receptive to being friends themselves.

During most of my teenage years, I was an outcast, but after I turned 19, I started making all sorts of friends. It was overwhelming. Fast forward 7 years later, and I don't really want friends, since friends require maintenance, and I enjoy my alone time way too much. Although one friend whom I've known since middle school contacts me every now and then, and he is the only friend who actively contacts me via phone, and asks how I'm doing. I've avoided said friend, and I feel like an a**hole. I don't deserve their friendship, but yet they keep calling me every few months, and I keep answering and talking to them honestly about my current life.

Ditto. Rejection bites, and some folks leave others hanging, not knowing whether or not that person still wants to be friends until asked.
As for lonely folks, those are the ones I seek, almost exclusively. It's probably an empathy thing, because I spent quite a few years feeling friendless and hopeless, and thought that befriending lonely folks would brighten their lives as much as it would mine. So far, that theory has been proven true.
"Cool kids?" *eyeroll* Some of them turn out to be genuinely cool people, but sometimes friendship with them feels like a competitive sport, and not everyone is cut out for that. Hence why I look out for the lonely ones. They usually welcome others more readily.

Yes, tbh it's something that I find next to impossible..

People seem to be indifferent to my presence.

Last edited by owenc on 08 Nov 2016, 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't but people do pick up on my awkwardness and back off as a result.

Maintaining any relationship is hard, small talk is the worst. Making friends is extremely hard if the other person isn't blatantly inviting you to do things with them, though. I find I can maintain about 2 friendships at any one time.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it gets much more difficult to maintain friendships the older that you get. People go through so many life changes (long term relationships, marriage, children, divorce, etc) and if you are terrified of change (me!! !!), then it puts a significant strain on the friendship.

However, if you seek out friends that genuinely want to get to know you and understand you (usually these are not the "cool" kids), you won't need a lot of them. Quality over quantity, as they say. Well, someone says that. Not sure who, though.

Ah, this is the thing I struggle with. I don't think NTs wait for blatant invites. Whereas we do. It's a theme I've seen on this forum before.

I like a direct invite because I know they actually want me around.

I actually think NTs can feel rejected by us because we don't understand what to do and they think we don't like them.