I’m in my late 20s. In the last years, I’ve moved a few times and tried out a bunch of things. And discovered I have a hard time getting close to people.
I used to think I just need to go out more. But I found out that most people I meet just don’t seem to “fit” with me.
Let’s say I meet some interesting people, who are funny, smart and have shared interests with me. We make a bit of small talk, hang out, and then I go home exhausted, feeling like I just came out of a work meeting that should have been an email. And given from how they rarely invite me back, I guess the feeling is mutual.
Someone told me I am quite cold towards people I don’t know well. Part of that might be that my usual way of talking is a bit emotionless. Another part could be a consequence of me basically going through the script in my head. “How is work these days? Cool. Yeah, me too. Yup.” I don’t want to be this way. But I also don’t want to go into full sales presentation mode, because that feels really wrong.
I used to think I would just become misanthropic. But there are people where I just click with. Talking to them is not a chore, but something I look forward to. And they seem to enjoy my company as well. Some events seem to have a lot more of “my people”, some less.
If you read my rambling until here, thanks. I genuinely don’t know any more. Am I becoming the old sod sitting on his porch yelling at kids? Or am I just spending time on the wrong people? Have you experienced something similar? And how could I change this?
Your best bet is to find activities that you enjoy that you can do on a regular basis in an environment where you’ll be around other people who also participate regularly. Sign up for a class, join a sports team, volunteer somewhere, find a local meetup group, or even just become a regular at a bar.
Making new friends definitely gets harder as we get older because people are busy and just don’t have the same opportunities to casually yet regularly interact with strangers any more. As kids, most people repeatedly engaged with the same group of people on a daily or weekly basis due to school, sports, etc., and the familiarity that came with that made it relatively effortless to develop some friendships.
Even when I totally hit it off with people I’ve just met and we exchange contact details, I’ve rarely ever intentionally hung out with them again. The new friendships that I’ve formed as an adult were either with a friend of a friend or with people I happened to cross paths with many times before we ever intentionally made plans together. It’s those repeated, low stakes interactions that have been most successful at forming new friendships.