How to pick up your social life after a long period of...

Post Reply New Topic

How do you go about starting up your social life again (i.e. gaining a group of friends) after being a loner for a few years? When i moved back to my home country after living abroad for a few years, I decided not to get back in contact with any of my old friends, and instead indulge in isolating myself (which I like to do) but its been 5 years now and my views have changed, now I want to catch up and get a group of friends. Its a vicious cycle because I'm kind of ashamed to let new friends know that I'm a loner right now. I make friends easily, that parts not an issue for me, but what I'm struggling with is how to get back into it. I feel like people will think there must be something wrong with me if they know that I'm a loner right now. I have friends at college, but I've kept them as mainly just college friends, but I deferred the year so I'm in a new class now and I'm making new friends, so I'm wondering how to get myself a normal social status now. Any tips? Should I just let everyone know that I have this high functioning autism thing, and thats the reason I decided to be a loner for the past 5 years?

Why do they need to know? They're not going to inquire about your friendship history.

In my experience people get creeped out when they find out you don't have any other friends.
I lost a friend this way. And they do find out eventually. My friend was astonished that I had
no other friends, but I was more astonished that it had taken her so long to work it out.
To me it showed how little interest she had taken in anything I said or did. (I tend to attract
that type though)

I think the only way would be to have many acquaintances and have several developing into friendships
at the same time so you don't get that effect. Not that I could do that.

A quick procedure would be to make friends with an existing group.