Why Can’t you Make Friends?
Why can’t you make friends?
As someone who has organized several events over the years, I have had the privilege to interact and socialize with all sorts of people. And it’s clear that while some people find it really easy to make new friends and acquaintances, others will find it more challenging. Why is that? If someone is not a social butterfly, are they destined to make little to no new friends? These are some of the things I will be answering, but first let’s answer this…
Why can’t you make friends?
Whether you like to keep to yourself or not,
People are naturally social creatures, and we all need friends to share our ups and downs. There are a variety of reasons why you might be finding it difficult to make new friends, such as your social skills, not putting yourself out there and your own self-evaluation. It can feel lonely and unhappy without the right people around you. But it doesn’t have to be this way; you can make new friends easily with the proper strategies.
In this post, I’ll go over 5 reasons why you can’t make friends and how to overcome them. These techniques will give you a much better chance of finding new friends, so you can share your happy and low times with.
Without further ado, let’s begin!
1. Not giving yourself opportunities
By far the biggest reason why you are unable to make friends is simply because you are not giving yourself enough opportunities to meet new people! If you want to make new friends post-college years, working your 9-5 job Mon-Fri and then playing video games or watching Netflix the entire weekend isn’t going to cut it.
You’ll need to dedicate some time into going out and socializing. I know as someone who is 30+ years old, that can definitely be difficult to balance your time! But if you’re working a full-time job, you’ll have at least 2 days off. So try to block off at least an afternoon or evening for going out and meeting new people.
Here are some ideas you can do for your social time:
- Join a Meetup.com group and either organize your own events or join the ones that are already happening. I organize Meetup events and this is by far the easiest and best way to meet new people and ultimately new friends!
- Do something fun with the hobbies you enjoy with other people. Stuff like dancing, hiking or even playing video games. Whether it’s taking classes or attending an event, there are lots of stuff happening related to your hobby.
- Go through websites or newspapers that list all the events happening in your area. Whether it’s a meeting or something related to anything you’re interested in, there are always events going on! Unless you live in the middle of nowhere. But even if you do, you can always take a trip down to your nearest city in order to attend these types of events.
When we were younger, it was easier to meet new people through school and the extracurricular activities we took part in. But when we get older, our time is more limited and we often forget that we have to create opportunities to meet new people.
2. Fear of rejection
Another reason why you can’t make friends is something to do with you internally. Often, we fear what others think of us and feel we are not good enough. If we’re always worried about being perfect, then it can get to the point where we don’t want to put ourselves out there. The fear of rejection is a big obstacle to meeting new friends; we can subconsciously avoid talking to new people because we are afraid of being hurt by them.
I used to struggle with the fear of rejection. I am a people-pleaser at heart and when I visually see that I’m not living up to that standard, it used to hurt me a lot. It’s probably why I avoided meeting certain type of people and getting to know; I felt like they didn’t want to be my friend anyway.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that getting rejected is a GOOD thing! I know, that sounds strange. Here me out though.
If you’re being honest with yourself and projecting your true personality to someone new, being rejected is great because you and that person will immediately know if you are compatible or not as friends. As one mentor has taught me, it’s better to rejected for who you are than accepted for what you’re not. So if someone doesn’t like your personality or style, then you saved yourself a lot of time of not having to be around someone who doesn’t appreciate the real you.
With that said, it leads me to my next point…
Another reason why you might be struggling to make friends is that your social skills may be lacking. If you don’t go out and socialize very often, then probably even more so. This is not meant as a personal insult! We all have to learn things like social cues and what’s cool/not cool. However, some are more experienced than others. When I first started out, I did a LOT of things wrong in a social setting. It took me years to learn all the right social cures, listening to people genuinely and learning to give value (more on this later).
Without competent social skills, it’s hard to maintain good friendships when people don’t want to associate with you. They will likely find you repulsive and not enjoyable to be around.
Fortunately, you can always get better with social skills, especially if you’re not experienced. The best way I found to improve your social skills is by asking the people currently around you, if anything bothers them what you do. If you’re a guy or a girl, ask your guy or girl friends what gets them annoyed with the things you do. You can also try taking a class that specializes in social skills development.
4. Being open to invitations
In my experience, if you want to meet new friends and keep them, you gotta be open to invitations! So if someone invites you to hangout with them at a bar or for dinner, you got to accept that invite. It’s okay to be unable to attend once in a while.
But if you’re always turning invitations from your friends, then at some point they’re going to stop inviting you. Because either they will assume you’re always busy, or you just don’t want to hangout with them.
If you’re in the midst of trying to attain new friends, then you got to keep your schedule open. Go out with people and accept their invitations as much as you can.
5. Taking more than giving
Last but not least, we need to talk about the concept of being a giver more than a taker. It’s hard to quantify in friendships. But in reality, friendships are about giving and receiving. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. You help me out, I help you out. You listen to me, I listen to you. And so on!
In any friendship, being a giver always makes you a valuable friend. Of course, you want to strike a good balance of not giving too much, otherwise you run the risk of being taken advantage of. But at the same time, if you’re always trying to take from a friendship, then your friends will resent that and dislike hanging out with you.
Things like:
- Always being the one receiving the free food/drinks, but never the one to pay when it’s your turn
- Being the one talking but never listening
- Asking favors from your friends but when they need your help, you’re nowhere to be found
Again, if you do these things often, that will kill a friendship real fast! So you got to ask yourself with your current friends, “Am I contributing to our friendship? Or am I always taking?” If it’s the latter, then that could be a HUGE reason why you can’t make friends.
Summary
To summarize, here are the 5 reasons why can’t you make friends:
- Not giving yourself opportunities
- Fear of rejection
- Your own social skills
- Being open to invitations
- Taking more than giving
And there you have it; 5 reasons why you might be finding it hard to make friends.
Don’t feel bad though; making friends is always challenging. Making GOOD friends even more so. But you need friends in order to feel happy and live a fulfilling life. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself; building a solid group of friends takes time and effort. Take it one step at a time.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them below!
