My Trouble with Forming Relationships

[Nonsequitur]

Recently, in my life, I’ve been having a hard time bonding and maintaining steady relationships in my life— this includes all kinds.

I usually don’t hang out with people, and due to being reclusive and uninteresting, this results in no one having a desire to hang out with me.

I live in a small, conservative town, and the ratio of baby-boomers— any older adults in general— is high, so it’s hard for young adults to bond with one another.

And with the small-town stereotype, youth either move out for educational purposes, or turn to drugs, sadly.

The public events for youth only cater to a small amount; and most of the time, I have no interest in them.

And with the niché interests and perspective I have, I usually scare off people really quickly. I don’t click with others at all, and this is erupting into a repeating pattern. It’s beginning to form an idea that I’m meant to be isolated.
I’m beginning to bond more with my therapists than my actual group of friends, and now I feel embarrassed and ashamed.

You know the lyric from “The Smiths”, “...there's a club if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you. So you go and you stand on your own and you leave on your own
and you go home and you cry
and you want to die.”
I feel like that. Every time.

I try to expose myself to people, I cannot attract interest. I try to include the small of amount of friends, I can’t attract them.

Even those close friends of mine— have closer friends that they always want to be around with.


Is there something wrong with me?

[Sam W]

Hi nonsequitur,

I can say pretty confidently that having trouble connecting with people or forming new friendships (especially in a town where there's a smaller pool of people to meet) doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. For some people, being able to form friendships, or even keep up conversation, comes really naturally. For others, it feels like this massive, almost foreign thing to try and do. You mention feeling connected to your therapist; have you talked with her at all lately about these struggles with connection to other people?

With meeting and interacting with new people, would it help to talk about ways to approach those interactions that might lead to slightly more success (for lack of a better word)? If it would help, I could also share some of the things I've tried since moving to a small, conservative town that helped me meet people.

With the people who are already your friends, can you tell me a bit more about what you mean when you can't attract them or that they always want to be around other friends? For instance, is it that they never reach out to include you in things?