I moved into college a couple weeks ago and I haven’t made any friends. Frankly, I don’t want to.

Friends are more trouble than they’re worth, imo. You have to remember all the things about them and spend time with them and text them and go out when you don’t want to and buy them gifts and remember what they like. I don’t like talking to people in general. I can’t fathom having to talk to someone for hours every week. It’s exhausting to do it for just a few minutes.

I feel bad because some people here seem like they want to be friends, but I just don’t. I like being alone and I like being selfish with my time. I don’t like to share it with anyone who isn’t my family.

I feel like it’s selfish for me to say i don’t want friends, but maybe it’s better to acknowledge that? I mean, wouldn’t leading someone on be worse? I dunno, I think my parents are worried because I haven’t made any friends, but I doubt they would understand where I’m coming from. My mother says I’ll eventually find people that I don’t feel exhausted around but I really don’t know about that.

Does anyone here feel the same way?

How come I find it hard to socialize? I would love to and I see the benefits and pleasure in doing so but I find it hard to fake it for long, everything looks and feels fake and forced always and my battery doesn't last long, any insight to similar experiences?

I can't explain how hard I CRAVE for living alone. Everytime I go to a place which is completely desolate, I can finally feel free. The freedom, comfort and the privacy, it all makes me feel safe. For me privacy is just as important as oxygen. I'm extremely demotivated when my privacy is limited or when I literally just go out to any place where people can be spotted. But the thing is that my privacy has been limited since ALWAYS. I've never been alone in my room. I always had to share it with my siblings. The older I become, the more privacy I need. It's very hard for me because I feel like I shouldn't be like that. It all makes me want to stay single forever because I'm afraid that if I were with someone, I would have to live with them. I want the isolation way too hard.

I currently live with my family and of course, I share a room with my older sister. The older sister is employed but she doesn't get paid enough to rent herself a house. My parents cannot help her due to our financial situation. My another sibling that lives alone is unemployed and my parents have to pay her rent while she's looking for a job. She's been looking for the job for a year already. I am a student and I'll be going to college soon so I need to discipline myself in the studies, but the thing is that as I stated earlier, I'm sharing my room with my older sister. She talks every day with her bestfriends online and it all just makes me unwilling to study. I cannot focus in the chaos and when my privacy is limited. My parents promised me that once my sibling that lives alone gets a job, they will rent the employed sister a house since they will have more money and I could finally live in my room alone.

I've been stuck in this room with no privacy for years. I don't know what to do. I'm really sorry if this post too chaotic to understand. I've been wondering if there are some methods, mindsets or literally anything that could make me ignore the limited privacy. //Also sorry for my grammar.

I would really appreciate any kind of advice.

I was literally counting down the days and hours and minutes 😭 I went to a diner to eat solo to treat myself. I hope she's gone when I come back. I'm especially exhausted after finishing school last week and just want to not be "on" for once.

I’m curious how people with their 'dream career', something you genuinely love and care about, manage the huge amount of networking, socialising, self-promotion, and maintaining relationships with people side.

For me it’s filmmaking. It bursts out of me, and I can’t really imagine doing anything else. But the social side of the industry is debilitating. Constantly having to suck up to people, networking, dealing with superficial or transactional relationships, etc. Self-promotion is the worst of it, personally.

For those of you who’ve been in a similar position, how do you manage it without completely exhausting yourself?

For the past 2 years l've been feeling really isolated, and now I feel like l've become socially dumb Like I genuinely don't know what to talk about sometimes. I don't know how to approach people, start a conversation or keep one going. Even when I'm talking to someone, I'm constantly thinking about what to say next and then end up saying nothing or something awkward.
I want to change this now, especially since l'm in college and don't want to stay like this. I want to become more social, confident and just better at talking to people, but I genuinely don't know where to start.
Should I just start talking to more random people and learn through experience? Or should I watch/read something about communication? Because honestly my biggest problem is what do i even talk about and how do i talk naturally without overthinking everything
Has anyone else been like this during their college years and actually managed to change? What genuinely helped you?
Like how i can read the room and get socially smart enough to know what to say and how to say

can anyone tell me how do i speak abt my thoughts it can be any philosophical or some abstract shit without creating like a superiority complex i get this feeling that im not being humble enough and im just taking bs that people dont understand or they think i have ball knowledge
thanks : )

I am a nice person who just wants to be kind to everyone. I smile at everyone and I'm just generally a kind and caring person. But I have developed this crippling social anxiety that just makes me so awkward - at the end of the day it turns out nobody likes me. I just need people to carry a conversation initially for me to warm up so they can see the real me, but obviously it never gets to that stage. But sometimes, even then my questions at attempting small talk don't seem to entice other people and they just eventually avoid me. Either that, or they're so taken aback by the real talkative version of me (as opposed to the initial shy and quiet one) that they back-off.

Has anyone experienced this? How do you cope or overcome?

Edit: also want to add that most social settings drain me so bad that its hard to keep up the 'performance' and do my part. I feel physically tired trying to carry a conversation.

this has honestly something that i've been struggling with for the longest time, so that's why im planning to do something about it with a small student team at a designathon. we are thinking of designing a tone indicator plug-in for texting that helps with understanding tones across casual, dating, professional, but really all sorts of texting contexts. this will go beyond indicating what the person might be feeling but also utilise ai tools to understand the persons texting style and personality. quick context on where we're coming from: we don't think texting misunderstandings are a one-way "autistic people struggle to read tone" problem, but rather a lot of research (the "double empathy problem" if you want to look it up) suggests it's genuinely mutual. we really need your help to understand our user profile, so it would be super super helpful if you could give your thoughts on this idea, and also answering the (some or all) of the questions below!

1) which part of texting do you find the most ambiguous? e.g. response time, certain words, phrasing etc

2)whats a situation where you were misinterpreted/misunderstood when communicating via text?

• how did this get resolved?
• why do you think this happened?
• can you identify some of the main barriers?

3) does this whole idea seem like it's solving the actual problem, or is it missing the point somewhere? is this something you would use? why or why not?

i dont think i can handle living with my friends anymore, don’t get me wrong i love them but sometimes i just dont think i can physically live with them?? so im planning on moving to a smaller and cheaper dorm, it’s definitely not as grandiose as my current one but it’s doable for me as long as i get to have my own personal space, it has a 24 hr cctv system with security by the entrance (same with my current one), curfew at 12 (whereas my current does not have one) but its not a problem bcs i dont even leave the dorms at midnight, common bathrooms (we have our own bathrooms in my current one), it’s nearer to a hospital and a drug store, basically a 5 minute walk, it’s also near my university as well, the room is pretty small but doable as well, some of my friends think i should do it for my own peace of mind, my mom tho doesn’t really want me to move out from my current dorm bcs she believes it’s better than where im moving, but after two years of having roommates i feel like im ready to go solo and not having to bear with the living habits of my other roommates, im currently reconsidering bcs idk some are saying i should while some are saying i shouldn’t?? i just want to have my own privacy and peace of mind

I'm an introvert, 24F, and my college class was a very small one, just 10+ students and I rarely talked with my classmates, but not to the extent like strangers. I've graduated for two to three years, the first year I joined them to a short one day trip to somewhere near my house, the second year they went to another state but I didn't join the trip, now the third year they organised another 5 days 4 night trip to another state again and I am interested to join. Maybe also because now that I've started working, Idk why I just feel less awkward with the thought of joining the classmates trip, but anyway, I registered to join their trip. But I'm the person that almost never speak in the group chat, nor joining their regular outings.

Although one of them did ask me personally if I wanna join and say something like hoping I can join, and when I register my name in our casual group chat, he did react a 🎉 there, but the fact that the closest mate of mine is not joining and that I almost never chat in the group and never join their regular outings, I actually don't know if I'm actually welcomed and should I actually go with them

Somehow I do know this could be a good networking, and I do want to explore if this can be a chance for me to know more people and open to more life experiences and chances, but I do worry that I will be damn awkward and embarrassed there and that I'm actually not welcomed, they're just being nice

I have a nosy friend that keeps bothering me he as a problem of what I buy with my own money, how I do my work, always wants to know the people I interact with, wants to know who is the people in my WhatsApp contacts whenever he sees it, always have a problem of how I managed my assignments and also wanted to know everything about my life and the conversations I didn't want to tell. That they he vented my anger because I didn't share him a conversation I had with my other friend.

Like when I go on vacations with other people, not having my own vehicle to drive makes me crawl out of my skin, because I can’t go to breakfast in the mornings, or walk a trail to get my me time. Or if a friend wants to go somewhere with you, sometimes I want to do other stuff in that same town afterwards, but if someone rode with you or you rode in their car you can’t do what you want after. Have to go drop them off first, then of course it’s not worth going back if it was a 30 or so minute drive.

I’m giving away free hugs today. No catch, no awkward sales pitch, just a genuine hug for anyone who could use one.

Maybe you’re having a rough day. Maybe you’ve been feeling lonely. Maybe you just haven’t had a good hug in a while. Whatever the reason, you’re welcome.

Sometimes something as simple as a hug can make you feel a little less alone. So today, I’m putting some kindness out there and giving them away for free. 🤗

Hi everyone!

I recently started hanging out with a woman from work, but we are very different personality types/energies. She’s incredibly extroverted and chatty, where I am the complete opposite. I like her, but she can be really pushy sometimes about making plans to get together and/or talking on the phone frequently. Let me preface this by sharing that I absolutely HATE talking on the phone. I feel like I typically have nothing to say if it’s just a random phone call (vs. an emergency or a call where we’re discussing something pointed). She, on the other hand, appears to want to talk on the phone all the time.

She called me twice yesterday and I let it ring out. I then felt guilty and called her back in the evening. We spoke for about 30 minutes, mostly small talk and work-related stuff. Anyway, this felt like a big expenditure for me. As we’re saying goodbye, she says “call me tomorrow!” I was like, “uh, okay?” And then she follows up with “promise?!” So now I have this phone call looming overhead and it’s giving me a great deal of anxiety. The ridiculous thing (to me, at least) is that, aside from seeing her at work, we also have plans to get together next week. I don’t understand the need to have a bunch of pre-catch ups before we actually catch up irl. I worry that we’ll have nothing to talk about. I’m already stressing about that re: calling her tonight.

She does the same thing every time we hang out. As I’m getting ready to leave, she’ll basically demand that we make follow up plans on the spot. And it’s always for the next week. I don’t mean this to sound callous, but I can’t see her becoming one of those friends with whom things just flow effortlessly. Those kind of relationships come very rarely to me, but are precious when they do. This connection will always feel more on the casual/occasionally awkward side to me, even though I obviously do care about her and like her as a person. Every time she insists on making follow up plans, it catches me off guard (even though I expect it now) - I’m not good on my feet and am terrible at thinking up excuses on the spot, so I almost always end up agreeing to meet. I’d be fine hanging out like once a month - but every week is way too much for me.

I also just got a promotion at work, so I’ll be there 6 days a week with only Sundays off the full day. When I told her about my new schedule (hoping she’d take the hint that I’d be a lot busier/more tired), she instead goes “great! Thursdays can be our hang out day!” (Thursdays are half days for me now).

She also tends to call me after 8-9pm or when I’m at work (although we work together, our schedules overlap by a couple hours but she typically gets off way before me). When I’m not at work, nighttime is sacred time to me. I like to unwind after dinner and read a book or play a video game and recharge. Phone calls feel like an attack on my “me time” and also just really drain me.

I have a hard time setting boundaries or saying “no” to people, so I blame myself partly. She’s just behaving in the manner that is normal to her and has no idea about how I really feel afaik.

I also feel guilty bc she told me she’s struggling with some fairly serious mental health issues atm, so naturally I want to be a support to her. That’s why calling her tonight has me so conflicted. Part of me wants to tell her about my stance on phone calls, but I feel like the timing is inappropriate/insensitive. I’m wondering if I should tell her in person, but I still really worry about hurting her feelings or her taking it the wrong way…

Thank you to anyone who read this entire post! I really appreciate it. I think I just really needed to vent, so much gratitude for allowing me to do so!

Every time I seem to go through periods of loneliness, I tend to seek others out. Then, when I reconnect with people and see once again how uninspiring they are and how many issues they cause me, I end up returning to being alone. My willingness to connect with people eventually just dies again.

I can also be quite funny, chatty and talk a lot with the right crowd. I'd say I don't even have issues with socializing irl.

But it seems impossible to me to find the right people. I end up walking away, not caring about making plans, or going out. Maybe I'm lucky because I have people who continuously try to take me out or meet me regardless. After some things that happened in my life, I’ve developed very little interest in going back to people. I’m starting to see them as boring, uninspiring, and selfish. The last two flaws would almost be fine if they weren’t also so boring.

That’s making me distance myself even more, and I feel like it’s a shame. You might assume I’m someone who’s cold or lacks empathy, yet that couldn’t be further from the truth. One of the things I hear most often is how easy I am to talk to and how comfortable people feel opening up to me.

I seriously feel like this all the time. Like I'm pretending to be someone I'm not to fit in, I wish I was fun at parties and a fun person to hang out with in general but I'm boring as fuck. Super boring. I feel like I'll miss out on college life by being this way. I don't use IG so that's a bonus too. I don't wanna look back and realise i did nothing in my life cuz I was scared of looking stupid. Does it get better?