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.
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.