Friendships: Quality and Quantity

[SupersecretIdentity]

My main focus on personal development has been on my social life, as I felt that is the area which is least developed so far. I was dabbling in all sorts of areas such as consciousness, spirituality, purpose, etc. Once I discovered RSD I put most of my energy into furthering that area, focusing a lot on self-confidence, social skills, and just overall enjoying life more. I have seen leaps and bounds of progress, and have seen a huge boost in my social life. Last summer I pretty much didn't hang out with anyone; this summer I've gone out almost every night of the week for the last 3 weeks. I've hung out with tons of different people, met all sorts of new people (including lots of girls ). Overall, a huge improvement.

The problem is, while I have definitely been much more social and have been having a really good time, I don't feel like I have succeed much in the area of making truly strong friends. Sure, I hang out with tons of people and we have a blast, but I don't feel like I've made any really strong connections or even progress towards having a "best friend." I'd say I've put in 90-95% of the effort in organizing stuff to do and I think I'm starting to burn out. Part of it is that I am a natural introvert so I think all of the socializing has been taking its toll, but another part is that I'm not feeling any reciprocation.

This puts me in an interesting predicament. What it really comes down to is that I'm not really feeling wanted. Of course people enjoy hanging out with me but I don't feel cared for on a fundamental level. I enjoy contributing and organizing stuff to do but it feels so one sided not to have people calling me up to do stuff. I recognize that most people are inherently lazy and will not go about organizing, so I try not to take it personally. What makes this even tougher is that having this feeling of wanting to be wanted is contradictory to many of the fundamental concepts of social dynamics. Basically I'm coming from a value-taking mindset which is neither healthy for me nor attractive to others.

Now don't get me wrong, I've already had a prolonged stay in the island of depression so I don't see myself going back there. I know there are people out there that care about me but I'm just lacking the really strong bonds of friendship that I see so many people have. I've been more of a lone-wolf type for most of my life, always having a circle of friends but ultimately on my own. Whats even more frustrating is that I am conscious that envying these relationships and wanting to be wanted are negative, ego-centric and value-taking thoughts, yet it is difficult to let go of it.

A side issue is that I am wary of the effect studying RSD will have on my character. I certainly like the increased self confidence and freedom to be yourself in social settings. Learning to be more authentic and be a more attractive guy are great, and better success with women is always a plus . However, I'm concerned that a lot of things in that learning process can be rather toxic to my character. It seems like there is a very fine line between growing the courage to go for what you want and infringing on the boundaries of others.

From everything I know, it feels like the best way to handle all this is to just keep working on my own life, learning to love it and let people in who want to be apart of my reality. I think I'm supposed to let go of attachment of what happens and just roll with the punches but it is difficult at times to keep trucking along solo.

Anyway, I guess I don't really have a question here, or not an obvious one at that. If anyone has any thoughts that jump out I would love to hear it.

[evevera]

interesting. I'm a major introvert too and have never found it easy to make friends. It used to really bother me and I still get lonely (esp during the holidays) but I do have a best friend I cherish a lot who understands me completely. If I didn't have this person I think I'd be a lot more sad about my social situation. But I think you're closing in on it, for some people it's about having a ton of friends, but really you just need a couple of close relationships in the end. THey are the ones that really make a difference, it's definitely quality over quantity.

The way to gain these type of relationships is kind of like seeking romantic ones too, you need to meet a lot, and try to narrow down to the few that you connect with the most, if you feel youre connecting then they will too. If like you say you're not finding any friends that are developing into close relationships, it could be either you don't have enough in common or you're not narrowing them down and putting in the effort to develop it further.

So that's what I would do first, look at your friends and find ones you connect with most, or have the most potential with and then try to develop it. You do this by weeding through the stuff on the surface and trying to discover their inner beliefs and values about life.

Now in terms of feeling not wanted, people not calling you back, the thing you have to realize is even though you want friendships, that doesn't mean THEY do. This doesn't mean they don't want to be friends with YOU, but just that they're not consciously or actively seeking friendship with you. If you want the friendship, you have to put in the work, but this is ONLY AT THE BEGINNING.

Once you hang out with someone enough, they will unconsciously build a habit of hanging out with you, so make sure you do a lot of diverse and interesting things with whoever and when they're bored or lacking something to do, they'll think oh I had fun doing so and so with this person, lets give them a call. Get what I mean?

Hope this has helped. GL

[Erock]

Hey dude I can relate to what you are going through a little bit, and I think you are definitely missing "the male circle" which I have found extremely valuable and I think every guy should have. It doesn't have to be a lot of guys, but I think it should be more then just one or two (it depends on the personalities of the guys). It's basically just a group of guys that you hang out with frequently, in which there is a very good vibe and in which everybody genuinely cares about each other. There's nothing wrong with wanting a good group of friends and I think you're being harsh on yourself for calling that impulse ego-centric. You have to be fulfilled before you can give back, and I think that point is deemphasized in some of the pick up stuff. I'm not sure where you are in life, but I would think the best way to find these groups of guys is through work or school.

One more thing. I disagree with the lone-wolf mentality of some of the pick up stuff, and I think maybe you've adopted that a little too strongly. It's fine if you want to work on that, but having a sweet group of friends to fall back on when you need a state-booster is an incredible asset. I don't know if you watch Entourage, but a perfect example is the main character Vince. He obviously doesn't need his group of friends, because they are all much lower then him on the social food-chain and he's quite successful with women on his own, but in a way he does. They keep him in state 24 hours a day, and so they really are essential. Ideally one can maintain that on his own, but it's 100 times easier with a good group of friends. That's why most real celebrities keep a close group of friends with them all the time. They intuitively understand this.

Erock

[SupersecretIdentity]

Erock, you are definitely 100% on the money about the male social circle. When I say lone wolf I don't mean that I set out that way intentionally, but that is how things have been for me unintentionally until now. I would totally dig having a close-knit brotherhood type group but I haven't had great success with that in the past. There's usually one or two guys I hang out with on an individual basis, but I haven't typically flourished in a larger group of guys.

One of the trends I have noticed is that I don't often encounter a group of guys with a dynamic that works for me. I usually end up around a group of guys that are too tame/boring for my tastes, and only want to stay in and stick to themselves. The other extreme is very loud and outgoing group where I end up being "beta'ed" and end up at bottom of the pack, typically getting picked on more than I could handle. This of course was before I started looking into PD so I might have grown a thick enough skin to handle it now.

I guess the real problem is that I'm pretty picky when it comes to guys I like to hang out with. I find it challenging to encounter guys who are both physically and mentally developed, which is a big issue for me because my interests span both areas. Having friends who are only mentally oriented or physically oriented leaves me on my own when I want to do the other activities. The alternate solution is to have multiple circles of friends but I have found that makes me feel isolated from both groups.

I know I'm pretty much digging my own grave being so picky with the type of personality I want to hang out with, but so far compromising just hasn't resulted in the types of friendships I really want. It probably sounds extremely arrogant and self-centered, but the people I want to hang out with the most would be people like myself, and I just can't seem to find many of them.

[jetpack]

I'm about where you are SSID, or maybe even a little behind you. I've worked hard on some male friendships lately, but they've really disappointed. Guys are either too lame, staying at home, or really just too wild and stupid. I'd like to think that I don't have to move just to find the right people. I work from home and I'm out of school, so meeting people in general is pretty hard.

[sonicpunk32]

I'm an introvert. Having only about 2 or 3 friends at a time, it can be very dramatic, traumatic, and confusing when one of these bonds ends for me. Especially when you've formed a deep bond with them. But, it beats having 200 "friends."