[LordSappington]

So, I somehow stumbled upon this website, and I've been impressed about the level of insight that many of you have regarding personal development. I've always been a big proponent of having personal projects, whether it is to learn an instrument, get into shape, or whatever. One thing that has alluded me for the past 25 years is the social aspect. I apologize for the length of this, but I have a lot on my mind.

Lately, I've been feeling intensely lonely. I'm a graduate student currently working towards my thesis. Most of my coworkers are older than me in one way or another. Although I do enjoy working with them, I can't really relate with any of them since most of them are married and have children, even the ones my age. The lunch room talk pretty much involves people talking about their kids, and actually many of them do so in their native tongue, Chinese. That's grad school for you, I guess.

But what about the other graduate students in my program? When I first came to grad school, I was determined to make new friends. I bought How to Win Friends and Influence People and studied it intensely. During orientation, I kept a list of all my classmates who I had met and a little tidbit about their lives that I could remember, and I sought out anyone I had not met yet. Within a week, I had learned a tremendous amount of about 120 of them. But once orientation ended, I found that people were starting to form social circles, and I was generally excluded from them. So I decided to befriend those students who I worked closely with (we were paired up for some classes). I picked those I had a fair amount of contact with, and I would invite them to do things. They always would decline with a seemingly legitimate excuse, which in retrospect, I think was their way to saying, "I don't want to be friends with you." By the end of first year, I had a few friends, but when it came time to organize into mandatory study groups, I didn't have anywhere to go. I had a few friends, but no one particularly close. I ended up just filling in an empty spot.

So fast forward a few years later, and I'm still in the same rut, but worse. I had managed to branch out a bit, but I discovered that many of my friends are getting married or in serious relationships. While they used to hang out with me, maybe once a month, they now don't ever do anything with me and often don't even answer the phone when I call, or decline whatever I want to do because they're either hanging out with other people or their significant others. I spend most of my Friday and Saturday nights alone or calling around to find someone to talk to.

So I decided to take charge and meet new people, and it's been a failure. I tried a frisbee league, but I soon realized that those people were far too invested in the sport (playing 4-5 times a week) for me to relate, and I also injured myself, making me unable to play for at least a year. I mustered up the courage to go to some local young professionals groups alone, but I had almost universally unpleasant experiences with them (at my first meeting of one group, everyone else referred to me as a child and backhandedly insinuated I was too stupid to get into graduate school; at another, someone I was talking to suddenly said, "I'm bored" and walked away in the middle of the conversation; in another group, people would literally walk away from me the minute I said "hello").

I'm quickly running out of energy to keep this up, and certainly running out of organizations to give a shot. I thought at first that the main problem was me, but I've heard from several people that the residents of this city are snotty and off-putting; in fact, I recently found out that my parents left this place for precisely this reason. Lately now, I find myself overwhelmed with so much anxiety in approaching people that I don't even bother when I go out.

My dating life is terrible. I haven't had a girlfriend for years, and my attempts to date have been abysmal failures. I simply don't meet single people in my life, and my friends say they don't know any single people. When I do meet them, I'm not attracted to them or they're not attracted to me. I tried the online thing, but those girls were incredibly flaky and wouldn't even show up for dates. I did have one reasonably positive online dating experience, but after a few very fun dates, she suddenly decided she didn't like me and pretty much told me to go away.

So I tried the online thing to meet friends. That's been a pretty bad failure. I did make one good friend, and she invited me to hang out with her friends, and things seemed to be going well. They even invited me to hang out with them at New Years! I was so excited, but after I went to the party, they never invited me to any parties again. I asked them why, and they said I didn't look like I was having fun (I felt a bit out of place, and it's hard to open up around a tight-knit group of new people). So, now I'm not part of their group anymore.

Meanwhile, my best friend of 10 years, whom I used to talk to every week, suddenly stopped returning my phone calls and e-mails. We didn't get into a fight or anything. I wasn't dumping my problems on her like a therapist. I guess, she just didn't want me in her life anymore.

So needless to say, I got somewhat depressed. I went to the doctor, and she gave me some Lexapro. I referred myself to a therapist, and I felt somewhat optimistic that she could me, but after a few sessions she had to refer me to someone else because she was moving away. I met with the new guy, but I became really turned off because I felt he was trivializing my problems. At the last session, he said, "Well, if you ever need someone to ♥♥♥♥♥ to, give me a call." I don't think he understood that I didn't want someone to just listen; I really need some insight, some plan to make things better.

Meanwhile, the Lexapro was making me a mess. I went from feeling mildly crappy all the time to feeling terrible. I ended up sleeping 12-14 hours a day. It ended up screwing up my vision, so I was having trouble reading, and I kept on falling asleep at work. Eventually, I stopped it and I returned to my mildly depressed, but at least functional, self.

So I started going to a new therapist, and things were OK with her. But the thing that got me was when I asked, "Well, what can I do to make new friends?" and she said to keep on doing what I'm doing. I wasn't looking for reassurances that I was doing the right thing. I know that going out and trying is better than sitting at home and feeling sorry for myself, but it simply wasn't working. I would go out and wander around aimlessly, talking to a few people, getting snubbed two or three times, and end up wandering home and feeling worse. I guess she didn't understand that.

So, right now, I have very few local friends, and many of them are moving away in a few months. Medications haven't really done much for me. Therapy hasn't help very much. Forced socialization, it seems, just makes me more anxious as I fail miserably. One of my old college friends says that I need to have positive social interactions at some people to reinforce that they can be positive, but I have yet to have that happen.

Things have gotten so bad, that I've found myself involuntarily withdrawing from people, feeling completely unable to carry on a basic small talk conversation or just being a complete jerk for no reason other than I feel bad. I'm growing tired of people telling me to be myself (clearly that is not working). I'm sick of being alone and tired of having poor and mediocre social interactions.

So, wise Internet people, what the hell do I do? Is there some sort of plan I could implement to fix this? I apologize for the lengthy post, but I hope it paints a clearer picture of where I am and where I want to go.