Friendship anxieties

I almost had a friend, but I feel them pulling away.
I’m reminded of a bojack quote

You didn’t know me
And then you loved me
And then you knew me

How do you remove a 'friend' request? My cub sends these out too often sometimes, to people I don't even know.

It's not as if she hasn't been burnt many times before, including recently.

How do I cancel a friend request I sent to someone on Facebook? | Messenger Help Center

I found this fuzzy.

Thanks Discombobulated

I just sent a message to someone which wasn't heavily edited, and now I'm thinking ''what a horrible person you are fuzzybear''. The thing is, my parents were so incredibly deceitful that growing up was very confusing. It's natural for me to speculate about someone if they have hurt me. And I often seem to be accurate.

I think a lot of this stuff is about our own perception.

One of my closest friends (I don’t have many) has been seriously unwell recently. I was very scared of losing her. I don’t mean losing her friendship I mean actually losing her altogether and the thought was unbearable to me.

I look back at my earlier posts and think I was skewed when I thought friendships weren’t for me - this woman has been part of my life for 8 years and yet somehow I wasn’t counting her… not sure why. We don’t see each other often, there’s literal miles between us and we’ve both got families and busy lives but she’s always consistently there for me.

I think I have had some kind of cognitive distortion going on.

Last few months have been strange, a lot of stuff happening to people around me. My own parents have had illness, one seriously, it’s absorbed me.

I notice one of my friends just hadn’t been in touch, she’s okay, she posts on Facebook all the time, but although she knows my dad is sick she doesn’t message me.

Rightly or wrongly I’ve decided not to make the first move as I normally do. I suspect if I got in touch she’d be friendly but she posted on Facebook she’d sent out all her Christmas cards last week - I haven’t got one and despite remembering her birthday every year she’s never once remembered mine. I like her, she’s a nice person but I’m going to take the hint. I simply don’t have the energy or time for one sided friendship anymore.

I don't think any human can live well in isolation from other humans. Even monks in a monastery are part of a community that is closeknit and that regularly meet for group prayer. I've had a mild social phobia since early childhood. I could echo a lot of what you say, as being true for me. Before considering a diagnosis of ASD, I would look at situational causes because I believe those are more common. Specifically, what kind of social habits did your parents role model? My own parents tended to not mingle a lot. Neither had close friends. They tended to socialize only with blood relatives. Social ease and competency depend on a set of skills that are not innate, but must be learned. We need capable role models. Plus, we need lots of experience.

You are self-conscious in social situations because you feel unsure of what to do. I go through that a lot myself. Regardless of the cause, the fix is to go after and embrace opportunities to interact, knowing that we may be a bit socially clumsy and will make mistakes. Fear of embarrassment can be a strong reason to hang back, which we must push past.

You're very self-aware in a good way. It sounds like you have plenty of empathy. You have found yourself in relationships where you seem to invest more than the other party, and you wonder how to handle that. Me too. I tend to back off and not pursue closeness beyond what the other party seems to want. I don't like to get my feelings hurt by rejection, so I am probably overly quick to back away from others. That sensitivity to rejection probably has a history behind it that reflects the social dynamics we experienced within our nuclear families. I tend to look to "nurture" over "nature" as being what shapes our personalities. To some extent, that's just a prejudice I have. But I have found that knowing family dynamics is sufficient to explain a lot.

Sorry to hear that. That person isn’t your real friend, sorry. Did they need you to listen to them? Did they need something from you?

Stop making time for & chasing after people who don’t intiate plans with you.

One sided friendships suck. I give up quickly on most people who don’t try to intiate plans or who never or rarely contact me anymore.

I don’t understand people like that. It’s like they keep you around just in case you might end up being useful to them eventually.

To me, those kind of people aren’t friends. I don’t know even bother keeping them as aquaintences anymore.

I’ve had similar experiences to both you & nonightowl. I’m on the verge of giving up on even trying to make any new friends from now on as most people seem to be pretty selfish & self absorbed.

I’m sensitive to rejection too. I back off the second I sense that the other person doesn’t seem to ne that interested in me. It just takes two I’m busy’ excuses to make me stop intiating contact.

Well it’s early in the morning here and I’m almost off to work but thanks for the replies.

One of my friends who wouldn’t get back to me became better at doing that this year, after I stopped initiating. But another friend didn’t get back to me at all. So I guess it can go either way.

My h has needed more help this year so naturally I’ve been with him, likewise my parents have needed more of my time and energy. So I am around people, plus I socialise in my workplace on a basic day to day level so luckily I’m not isolated.

On a superficial level I’m fine, I’m the kind of person who can and does make conversation easily, so that’s good. In fact I’d say if you met me you’d never guess the issues I’ve had with one sided friendships.

Actually I read up a bit on one sided friendships yesterday and it was interesting.

I did listen to this person a fair bit although not so much in a support dynamic, this most recent friend I mention who doesn’t initiate is nice and a lively sort, but I wonder if I maybe was on occasion nothing more than an audience to her stories. She is an interesting and entertaining person. We kind of bonded over similar humour.

But when I look back she didn’t really ask too many questions about me. So that may be a sign.

Anyhow the one sided friendships angle is one for me to ponder on. Why do I end up with this dynamic so often.

Edit: I realised that I was aware that sometimes she interrupted me when I was saying something, and seemed like she would change the subject. It made me feel like I was boring her. Maybe I was boring her. Yet I didn’t talk excessively.

Yes I’m going that way myself, who wants to prolong the friend dumping. Two sounds about right.

I’ve had that happen to me plenty of times too with other people. I have often felt like some people just want to use me as a sounding board.

It’s not a healthy dynamic. The fact that she interrupts & doesn’t listen isn’t a good sign.

You deserve better friends than that. I wouldn’t even acknowledge her on FB if she is ignoring you on there too. I’d just unfriend someone like her. You don’t seem like you’re that important to her at all.

Sone people just want an audience or followers.

Yeah it’s definitely not a good sign.

I’ve picked over the last couple of friend dumpers (frumpers?) although the second one isn’t a confirmed dumper it’s looking that it might go that way and I don’t think I did anything wrong. I listened, I kept in touch, I remembered birthdays, I gave gifts, I hope I was fun company although that is something only they could decide.

I’ve not decided what to do about my most recent possible dumper friendship, I guess I could try getting in touch but I’m unsure if it’s wise. Maybe she’s bored with me. Maybe I need to take the hint.

Thinking out loud.

You sound like you're dealing with the same thing as me. I've had a lot of failed friendships. I figured out over the last year that I have both Autism and ADHD. I realized this at 41.

I notice now that if I try to open myself up and "put myself out there," I feel like I trigger some PTSD. I get very anxious and filled with so much despair that I tend to just withdrawal again.

Thanks for sharing your experience with me, did you get an official diagnosis do you mind me asking?

Yes it is stressful for me too to put myself out there, yet I’ve pushed through a few times, I don’t seem as resilient or brave these days however.

The most recent friend who dropped away, I’ve just let it go, I did stop interacting with her on social media, I didn’t unfriend or anything but I did unfollow so I don’t get her posts in my feed anymore. Tbh she did post a lot about everything she did, I’d noticed that, and that isn’t my way at all. So maybe we were fundamentally more different than I realised. I still think she’s a nice person just maybe we weren’t meant to be friends other than very casual acquaintances.

No official diagnosis. At this stage in my life, there's no real point in making it official, but I'm 100% sure. It explains a lot of issues I've had throughout my life.

I know what you mean. That's a bit of an issue I have. I don't know what to post online. or even really what to say. I think my ability to trust people is just broken now. It's very hard for me.

So today I deleted all my posts on Facebook going back 10 years, I didn’t like having personal photos/info on there anymore, I disabled my account too, I may delete it completely but I’m a bit nervous of losing contacts especially for work.

I still feel like on one level I’m doing okay, employed, able to cope socially at work, volunteering (I actually took on a new group late last year). But my inner confidence is low, I no longer have the bravery to put myself out there, I’m a coward!

I’m getting stronger and stronger urges to protect myself and withdraw.

Another person i talked to decided they didn’t want to talk to me anymore

Honestly I wouldn’t have anything to do with me either if I had the option