Hi everyone, I just wondered how you know if someone is friends with you out of pity. I always feel like people only hang out with me out of pity or obligation, or even boredom. How can you tell if that is the case or not? Just confused and wish I could stop feeling like this.

[ChipperMonkey]

Stop calling and/or texting them. Wait a week or so. Your true friends will contact you.

I doubt there is any way to be certain at any given point in time. My perspective would be just don't worry about it. Anyone whose friendship is based solely on pity or obligation will be revealed, over time, as a result of their actions.

The other thing I would wonder about, though, is: do you feel as though you may be worthy only of friendships based on pity or obligation? Is it possible you are projecting your own misgivings onto your friends' motives? Often the things we dislike most about other people are the things we have the most trouble accepting about ourselves. If you can come to feel better about yourself, then perhaps you will not feel as though there would be any basis upon which a friend might stick with you out of pity or obligation.

[hvert]

I do think you can separate pity friends... sort of.

If it takes 10 tries to nail down a friend to meet and then they back out at the last minute... and you have to start the process all over... or they say that they will call you for coffee next week but they never do and they don't respond to your message until the a few weeks later...

It's not a definite that those are pity friends -they may be socially anxious or busy -- but unless someone is doing that, I would assume that they want to be around you.

[tallulahxoxo]

Maybe you haven't met your kind of people? I got a puppy and he is my best friend and I am alone a lot. I am becoming okay with being alone. That's when I started to make friends is when I was okay being by myself.
I feel true friends do the dance with you. They'll text you first or invite you out too. You don't have to do all the work. They don't cancel a lot. They're honest with their feelings.
Also I read an article that said "Not even you* can like you for you*, you need to have something to offer." So I try to have something to offer. People love my puppy. I help pay for pizza. I'll bring a movie over. I'll think of an activity to do. Laugh at people's jokes. Ask people how their day was & really listen. Hand out compliments. When you really try to offer something of value it's hard to feel that people are your friend out of pity.

When you catch them talking down to you as if you were a child.
When they grapple for words to find something in common.
When you notice the tone of their speech changes when talking to someone else.

[jaynedough]

When they dutifully make that call to you, the same day and time each week. You know the day I'm talking about? It's the one their religion has declared things like tv and games off limits. The day they have nothing else to do. That way they honor their religion *and* do their good deed for the week.

Sorry about that anger there; I guess I still have a tad bit of resentment about that.

Also, I have a relative who stands behind me and "pets" me.

I have to confess that I do tend to believe people only want to be friends becuse they're super-nice and don't want to hurt my feelings. But I do believe the first rant has merit to it.