A Prisoner of My Own Social Inadequacies
Volunteered to work a evening shift at work alone and I've tried to keep myself too occupied to think about it, but it keeps creeping up. I feel more and more isolated from the world, less and less connected.
There is a guy at work that is in a local band. I've gone to see his band a few times and heard from him they were playing. I immediately got excited about the idea and told him I'd try to come. They were planning to play in a pretty sketchy bar on Friday and then on a stage by a Mexican food restaurant in an equally sketchy part of town. I love going to dive bars, biker bars and industrial area breweries. It's just kind of my vibe, the lower class areas, where no one cares what you wear or what you look like.
So my continued problem is that I have no friends in this town (moved here a few years ago for work). I love going to concerts, and I have tried many times to go alone, but it's just not fun. I meet people, they disappear. I go and can't even get drunk, because I'm too responsible to drive home drunk. I reason with myself that I shouldn't go to the bar venue on Friday because I have to work Saturday morning, but I try to convince myself to go to the Saturday show. Saturday rolls around and I can't get over how lame I am, going to concerts by myself and my inability to make friends. I end up not going.
Now I've been thinking about how lame it's going to be when I come back to work on Tuesday and probably run into the guy that's in the band. He'll probably ask me why I didn't go to either show. I'll probably just lie and say I was tired to not state the obvious, that I have no friends and am sick of trying to make friends and sick of going to concerts alone.
I've tried to make friends at work and it usually goes like this. I invite people to go get a drink and get told they are busy. I heard that the dude in the band was playing in the next town over playing with some real scummy punk bands, sounded awesome. I asked if I could just catch a ride with him and his friends. They very politely basically said there was no room in their cars. Honestly it was pretty heart breaking and ego breaking. I don't think I tried to be friendly to anyone at work since that happened.
I kind of feel like I'm held hostage by my own inadequacy. When I was in the military there were always guys around ready to party or hang out. It's been pretty terrible adapting to being a regular joe civilian worker. But if I'm this bad at making friends maybe I always was and the military just had a bunch of people that had no other choice than to be my friend. Maybe it was my rank that was the only reason people hung around. Maybe it was a fluke.
I can't seem to make friends down here. Every person I meets just wants something and don't really want anything to do with me. The dude in the band is just marketing for his music. The people I've played magic card or Warhammer with just want to play a game and bounce. The people at meet at bars or concerts just want conversation for that moment.
I really wanted to go see the new Top Gun movie when it came out, but my wife had no interest and I assumed my daughter was too young to see it. So I waited and waited. I didn't want to be the one dude at the movies by himself. I don't really care what people think about me on most cases, but I'm not really a fan of people feeling sorry for me. I did eventually see it but it was on demand and at home, I really wish I had seen it in Imax. All the guys from work saw it and were talking about it. I thought about asking if anyone wanted to go see it, but I had a fear. One no one would go with me and I'd feel like shit. I'm still pretty sure that is what would have happened.
I recently bought a Nintendo switch bundle with games to resell. I gave the switch to my daughter to upgrade her pocket switch for a full sized switch. I kept a few games. One of them being Octopath Traveler, a Square Enix pixel RPG. I've been enjoying it a lot. I guess at some point in your life you just switch to single player games as you become to obscure for the general populous.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm really just super autistic or have Asperger's or something. I have a lot of trouble relating and fitting in with people. I don't think people are really offended by my presence, but I don't think anyone would like to be friends with me outside of what they feel obligated to deal with me. I'm a pretty blunt person, so I'm sure some think I'm an asshole, but at least I'm honest. I think it's possible I'm super autistic and just learned to adapt to pretending to be normal.
It just sucks being lonely all the time, and thinking that doing things would be fun if I had some dudes to hand out with. I'm beginning to feel depressed every time I watch a show and see two friends hanging out. I start feeling like shit. Like damn, this is what normal people do, what the fuck is wrong with me?
I'm sorry to hear about your problems, but it's a first step to write them down and be open about it. Maybe it would not be a bad idea to talk to someone, try to figure out how to make the next step, how to get out of this situation as the deeper it goes, the harder it is. Although I don't know you, I don't think you are autistic or have Asperger's, you would have been diagnosed if that would be the case.
I hope you find a way out of it and I'm glad to see you're active on Hive, writing about what's going on in your life. That helps.
Yeah, I'm probably not autistic, but I feel like an alien sometimes. Even if it's equivalent to screaming in a cave, it feels nice to let some of this crap out.
This is why I told you to try to post and engage on Hive, who knows, it may help a bit :)
For the longest time I struggled with always being on my own. I simply fail to connect. Then I learned that I am an Empath. I'm not less lonely but it got easier when I réalised that lonely is, for me, the safest place to be.
I stopped looking for friends to get attached to and started paying attention to living. I choose to experience every moment with faith hope and love and to be thankful in everything.
I hope you get to make one or two solid connections with people you can really trust.
I read a lot, and there is this constant suggestion that people with no friends should just "put themselves out there". I have do this so many times and gotten nothing back, it's kind of feels like defeat at this point. Trying to stay positive though.
The military had a lot of people who understand your outlook on life. Civilians usual wants to hang around with people who makes them feel good and doesn't remind them that life has responsibilities so it's a different mix to fall into.
Instead of volunteering for more work at your job, maybe become a volunteer firefighter. I have a feeling you will meet some guys there That is easier to trust and get along with.
That’s difficult man, sorry to hear about those challenges. As I mentioned before sadly I have the same challenges myself. I would like to think that it’s perhaps the state of the world right now where people are aggressive and fight a lot, not sure exactly. I do know that after years of being on the outside of my friend group, I may have inadvertently found a friend from a place I used to work, a coworkers husband. I’ve been chatting with him for a few weeks now and it’s great to just have a conversation about things that isn’t with my wife, as great as she is, it’s not the same as with a friend.
In any case though, I think you just have to keep your chin up and stay strong. Being a man in these days is difficult as hell with the intentional forces out there to break us down and destroy us.
Have you considered trying to join a church or something? I know religion isn’t for some these days but there’s a lot of community around it if you find the right one and can be a good thing. Just a thought!
Yeah man, it's hard to explain to people that having a wife is not the same thing as having friends. As for finding a group, when I was in Northern California I joined a local fraternity that was centered around volunteer-ship, my goal was to make friends and do something good. It ended up being a job and I made no lasting friends. I was stationed in Asia for 7 years and became a Buddhist, I use to go to temples and try to meet up with other Buddhists, but it's not common to meet other white people that are real Buddhists. Every time I go to a Buddhist group I end up being some kind of oddity to all the people there and it's really weird. As sad as it sounds, I have considered going to join a Christian church and pretend I'm Christian just to make friends...
I hear you man, I'm religious but not of a particular denomination, kind of my own thing but I'm looking for ways to connect with people to make friends, sadly. I could likely fake it to do that I think!
I can imagine that being a white guy in a buddhist group is likely a situation where people that are legit. I know there are a lot of people who aren't genuine on stuff like that!
Do you have any neighbors that aren't shitbags?
Both my direct neighbors are upper middle class Mexican families that don't speak much English. House across the street is a cool dude, but wildly different interests. He thinks I'm hella richer than I am and is always telling me his new financial plans that sound like pyramid schemes. I think he may be an alcoholic too, I like to party but drinking alone is sad.