If talking about things isn't doing it for you, you could try doing things where others are around. Sharing efforts creates its own conversations and its own bonds.
I don't know what's available in your local area, but volunteering in a local cause you can bear can lead to a lot of that.
so the issue is everyone else and not you? then yea youre probably socially screwed. this post gives nothing to work with. mental health professionals said you have depression? cause everything about this post backs that up. If you had interests youve apparently lost any passion for them and that is going to be issue number 1.
might need to get nerdier or more specific interests and find groups for that interest, rather than people who are into general pop culture stuff. a couple years ago i got into removing invasive plants from city parks and i met people that way, which i never would have thought of before. it really is interests and hobbies and culture that connect people. (and probably some other categories im not thinking of)
it's hard to make a best friend as an adult. i kinda think it's close to impossible. but i think you can make good friends still. maybe not some soul mate.
i have best friends but ive known them literally 20 years. Other friends ive made since then have sorta come and gone as ive filtered through different hobbies or interests. "people who do things together occasionally" is what most of your friends become when you near 40 years old. if you have people you can do stuff with occasionally, youre already ahead of the game. Many would beg for just that.
oh no it isn't. i remember being 20 and thinking "why doesnt anyone wanna date meeee" but i got through it. you can't even comprehend the changes that will come in your life.
sure, it's maybe it won't all work out like that, but your options are change or accept who you are. without change or growth in yourself theres no reason to expect change externally. based on your responses the change doesn't seem to be an option right now, but hopefully when you're 40 youll be a different person in some ways and youll look back on this and have advice for someone else like i'm trying to give you. ive been where you are but i didnt really have a place on the internet to vent then. when i was 20 i thought nobody would ever want to date me and that was incorrect. it took years to become less shy. if making connections is something you want, you'll have to make the attempt and hope it's reflected.
I'm not quite twice your age, but I've had this off and on as far as I can remember. Keep trying new things, finding new music, engaging with new ideas, and maybe try low-risk recreational drugs like weed and hallucinogens (I recommend staying away from uppers and opioids as they're very addictive).
I don't want to imply that drugs are a good solution for everyone or a silver bullet, but if the problem is in your brain it might help rewire it in a helpful way. Be aware that you need a healthy, supportive environment for that. Accidentally taking too much LSD really helped me see things differently and killed my depression for a year, although it did come back. Now, a friend of mine had a similar experience but had a negative outcome, so it doesn't work for everyone. But, I've been so much more open to new things since. Hell, I'll sing and dance in public now, something that would have terrified me at your age.
I guess this is a rambling way to say it will get better if you put in the effort.
wth is this comment and how did it get upvotes, they just insult the op and tell them to take acid
I dunno. This post is basically asking us to do therapy for the OP because they won't or can't pay for therapy. The responses are either going to be platitudes or this, which is basically saying you have to actually try and engage with people to get something rewarding, not just expect them to be interesting for you.
that's... simply not true. like, c'mon. it takes work to reach out to other people but you're allowed to just be bored
and either way, the comment is terrible advice. it sounds good to people who are both neurotypical and only reading it on a surface level, but this is still the social equivalent of "dodge better". it's not actual advice, it's a judgement.
it could AT LEAST be framed less judgementally. the last thing someone who is obviously going through a rough spot needs is to be called arrogant.
Regular exercise helped me a lot.
My friends are the people around me experiencing the same shit, so like coworkers, neighbors, interest groups nearby, people who are at literally every show, etc.
Small talk didn’t matter to me a long time ago but it’s important now. Things like talking about when it’s gonna rain soon are huge reminders for me of shit that’s gotta get done before or has to wait till after.
yall never heard of shooting the shit?
i just come up with random conversation topics like if you'd rather have cow udders or a horse cock and debate the merits/demerits with my friends.
oh wow this is very revealing.
i agree with eight, you have boring friends. not in the sense that they don't know about high political conversations or whatever, but that they just seem un-engaged. are you sure they just aren't taking the effort to try and engage with you that you're putting out? If they're not doing that, have you tried just saying that to them directly? If you make it clear that you're open to deeper and weirder conversations, they might be more open to having them.
sounds like you just need cooler friends ngl
you do have to wade through the boring convos with new people though
I'm a similar way with small talk or family talk (no, I don't care that my fascist cousin has another kid), but I'm able to have lengthy conversations about my hobbies and (ironically, given your first paragraph) analyzing media. Are there any subjects you could you see yourself having an interesting conversation about?
If everything is boring then it sounds like those $50 therapists were right about you having depression (or similar), at least. Your options at this point are pretty much to pursue some kind of treatment, or to just accept living with it. Treatment probably means more therapy and trying out antidepressents until something sticks. Living with it means you're going to miss out on living a "normal" life. Ultimately it comes down to how okay you are with how you are now and if you actually care about having a "normal" life.
Sorry if this seems harsh or unhelpful. :meow-hug:
I went through a lot of this too - it's kind of hard to explain this, but the goal isn't to take something away from the conversation, the goal is just to have the conversation. You don't have to be interesting, you don't have to be funny or charming. Just talk about things that are at hand, no matter how inane they are. Talk about the weather, talk about that new thing that happened in your part of town. Talk about a bird that just flew by.
People like to talk about themselves especially things that no one else asks about. I think that cultivating a genuine curiosity about other people and their lives is useful, and most importantly: kind. If you are kind, then asking others about what they think and listening to them will result in some enjoyment for you as well. Something to feel proud of. It restores the soul.
they think and listening to them will result in some enjoyment for you as well. Something to feel proud of. It restores the soul.
sounds like it doesn't for OP
Yeah, it didn't for me 30 years ago, too. Like I said, it has to be cultivated. I looked for quick fixes for years and then I got to be like 40 and 50 and it was all "sigh, okay how about medium-time fixes" and so on. The time passes either way.
So what's the problem?
You have interest doing hobbies (only alone), and other people don't interest you, so just do your hobbies alone and don't talk to people.
Your depression means nothing to you, too, so that's one less thing to worry about.
You know, I was being purposefully obtuse in my comment because I actually identify with your situation a lot.
I hate small talk, and I don't make any effort to talk with anyone that I don't find interesting. Something happened to me that changed my perspective, though.
Once at work, mid small talk, my coworker said "you really hate small talk, don't you?" And I said yeah, and he asked what I would prefer to talk about, and he gave some stuff he'd prefer to talk about, too. In one moment, we jumped from acquaintances to friends. You might be surprised what happens when you're just direct with people.
I think this idea that other people don't find you interesting is projection. And if they don't think you're interesting, then it's likely because they know nothing about you because you don't like sharing. If they know about you, and still think you're not interesting, then move on.
And I hate to be the 501st person to tell you this, but if you really want to engage with other humans, but you find every single one boring, then your depression is causing your antisocial behavior.
I had very serious mental health problems in my life, and I really hated the advice I would get. I fucking hate keeping a journal, and it doesn't work at all for me. My therapist wasn't helpful either.
BUT, there are a thousand other things you can try, and you need to try them. That process is really frustrating and it looks bleak, but you need to find what works for you, and nobody can tell you what that is.
You can grow past this, comrade, but it's going to take some effort and pain.
There is surprising depth in everything :shrug-outta-hecks: ask about work, or hobbies, something where people have skills in
Do you live with your parents? Can you go to college? just trying to get a bit more info so I can help
it sounds like you just don't like talking. I know plenty of people like this. I'm not really close with them, I'm a conversationalist and cannot stand silence most of the time, but they seem to be doing fine. If you're wondering if you're missing something, it's the deeper conversation you can access after having chatted with someone for a while, but you don't necessarily get that, or it isn't worth having, with everyone. It seems like dating figures into your difficulty connecting with people. Maybe look into a hobby that inherently involves multiple people, like sports, and just vibing with people doing that can get them more comfortable with you. You could look into things with more of a dialog to them like philosophy or literary critique, where there's more of a back and forth about the topic you can have. If you have any decent friends you could try doing something to meet people with them, and they can do the chit chat and explain you're jsut not much for chatting but still cool. This is based on how I've met people who are very quiet, I really cannot fathom your experience. Good luck
they're not missing anything, really. it is possible to develop deep connections with other people while only talking about what's strictly necessary. shared activities exist for a reason and have existed for millenia.
yes they are, bonds developed in different ways are different, obviously. I'll never know what a "silent conversation," gettin to know each other through action instead of speech, is like, so I am missing out on that. They miss deep chats and the feeling of someone else's voice in your head when you've spoken with them a lot. All of us miss something due to how we are as people, that's what it is to be human.
well, yes, but that isn't really what i think of with the term "missing out". "missing out" kind of implies they're committing some sort of grave error that will make their life worse than the alternative, not that it will give a different experienced as is expected with quite literally every small decision humans make ever
sorry you bring so much baggage to the term then, but that isn't what it means.
It is though. When you "miss out" on something that implies you've made a mistake on not choosing to participate in that thing. We describe a person who brought one movie to a desert island and watched The Room instead of some sort of masterpiece to be "missing out". We never say that about someone who takes another masterpiece instead, though, because they wouldn't be "missing out" because they could only choose one of those things in the first place, so it's unnecessary thing to point out, even though it's technically true. It's one of those annoying things where the phrase itself doesn't have any real implication like that, but in this context it does.
:jesse-wtf: weird-ass metaphor that makes no sense. I wouldn't say any of that, and I can't think of anyone that would. missing out just means not getting a particular experience. I missed out on some things because of covid, doesn't mean I made a mistake. I also missed out on hanging with a friend the other day because I had something else going on, it doesn't mean it's a mistake or can't be fixed.
If you tell a lactose intolerant person that they're "missing out" on ice cream, people will think you're an asshole (Ethics of ice cream aside). Not that you are one, it seems pretty obvious you didn't intend it that way, but I was just explaining why I read it the way I did.
I say shit like that all the time, and so do most of the folks I know. I also probably am an ass pretty often.
please end more posts ethics of ice cream aside.
That's cool, I just didn't appreciate the relatively small implication that I was weird for reading it that way (that you may not have intended of course, I'm sorry).
also I will
what do you like talking about? try talking about it, even if people hate it.
do the things you enjoy, as long as it isn't murder or whatever. talk about the things you enjoy. do the things you enjoy with other people. conversations will emerge naturally
sure, you should give other people space to talk about their stuff, but you shouldn't feel obligated to enjoy it. it's just a nicety for if they're in the same situation as you. most of all, the fact that conversations are boring doesn't mean you're broken. you should be allowed to be bored (and allowed to be kind of angry about it!)
not everyone should be expected to be perfect neurotypical conversationalists. Oh, god forbid, not everyone even needs to talk all the time!
I would recommend focusing on what makes you happy and finding a way to balance the competing interests. For example, when you more or less say you're uninterested in most conversations relevant to your current experiences and political interests, the first thing that comes to mind for me is, so why are you having those conversations? Presumably you get something out of human connection and spending time with family, but important aspects of it no longer interest you. So the real task is to figure out how to balance those things. Obviously you can just do trade-offs, like taking breaks or scheduling fewer actions. But there's something deeper that is probably more useful: what is lacking, for you, about these conversions?
I would speculate that you might benefit from some "antisocial" time. Time away from people, punctuated by the (still valuable!) time with people. You might be, to put it simply, burned out from repetitive thoughts and discussions.
The next thing is variety. How can you inject it into the repetitive? Are there any interests you have but haven't explored? Anything you've wanted to do but haven't? Anything about a loved one that you'd like to support? These are all good ways to take ownership over the situation. Maybe suggest new activities with tglhe people you interact with.
Simply put, you sound bored and exhausted, and are attaching some of that to other people. You can't control them, so see what you can do yourself to combat them on your own terms.
Edit: out of curiosity, when you look up the term "anhedonia" and descriptions of its effects on people, does any of it resonate with you?
