Pretty much everyone figures out how to actually socialize, maintain relationships, have new relationships, improve them, and date at high school, MAYBE college at the latest. I'm 30, almost 31. Did I miss the boat on learning that and having a semblance of happiness in my life, and there's no going back.
I've tried it all. I've tried social hobbies, I've tried going out, I've tried putting myself out there. The basics of social skills elude me. I am, at best, a filler friend. I can't see myself being any more than that, and I think it's too late for me to get better.
I think I doomed myself to a life of loneliness, all because of the bad choices I made. The only possible hope I can have is maybe reincarnation is real and I can suck less in the next life.
To quote a post:
"Does anyone else feel like a 'filler friend'?friend's? Like, you just sit there, never contributing to the conversation, and when you do, no one notices. You don't really have a purpose or do anything and just kinda sit there existing. No one ever invites you or asks to do anything with you, and people even make group plans in front of you and neglect your presence. It's not that anyone means for this to happen, it just kinda does?"
I want to preface this by saying explicitly that your experiences are not “all in your head”.
First: That’s your post from six months ago. I’m glad you quoted it, because it makes how you feel much clearer, but I’m putting the name to it in service of building a point, so please don’t mistake this for an attempt at a call out.
Looking up the idea of a “filler friend” on several search engines turns up a bunch of Reddit threads and a book with two pairs of sunglasses on the cover. Nothing I could find before 2010.
So the idea comes from either Reddit or a paperback novel and there aren’t many people talking about it.
When I read both your descriptions and the descriptions of others, a filler friend seems to be just a quiet person or someone who doesn’t actively reach out to people in order to socialize. That’s always been a social type and it doesn’t make someone “filler”.
Just because someone put a negative spin on something doesn’t make it true or different.
Second: you’re not destined to be anything. The whole point of communism is that people can exert control over their environments and themselves. When someone says all your decisions are pre-determined by either your surroundings or your biology just walk away from them. You’ll never convince them otherwise, they invented a mechanistic understanding of the entire world around them in order to hold that position.
You’re not stuck on some path forever because you can make choices.
So no one is a filler friend and you’re not destined for anything.
Now: when people make plans in front of you, invite yourself. The world isn’t an episode of mean girls. This isn’t high school. Say “room for one more?” Like Igor if it makes it easier. When someone makes a comment like “look who decided to come out of their cave!” Say “yeah, gotta make sure not to forget what daylight feels like. What’s good here?”
I’m not sure this is you, but don’t expect to be able to make a bunch of friends based on your hobby interests either. Your friends are the people you work with, play basketball with, your neighbors, the postman you see every day, the regulars at your local bar and all the other everyday people.
We go through school thinking that friends are the groups of people you try to be a part of, but once you’re not literally locked in a room with thirty other people eight hours a day five days a week, your friends are the people you just are a part of because you see them everyday.
anyone who did this would be my acquaintance, not a friend. When I make group plans everyone who hears about it directly is invited.
I don't want to totally invalidate your experience, because there are different levels of friends. I have some people that I get along well enough to invite to a small party and be happy to see them and hear what they've been up to. I have some people that I am happy to spend 8 hours with just me and them. A lot of your friends may very well be in this first group. Ideally this is a mutually-understood relationship. I also understand that I'm not close friends with these people, and I'm not offended when they do stuff without me (showing that I am not their close friend) just like they're not offended when I do stuff without them.
If you feel like all your friends are in this first group, there's probably a mismatch. Maybe your friends erroneously think you want to be loose friends; maybe you have a pattern of not showing up to events or not organizing hangouts of your own or accidentally sending some other signal. Maybe you're the one receiving signals they don't intend to send, and they'd happily come to something you organized or otherwise reciprocate.
The thing that I try to remember (and it's harder for men, we're poorly socialized and all seem to be bad at this) is that it takes two to tango. I should be organizing about half of all 1-on-1s, and about 1/n of n-person hangouts. If I want to deepen my friendships with people by seeing them more, I need to be taking the lead on more than "my share". If they reciprocate they'll match the effort.