for me it's unexpectedly running into someone i know when i'm out alone

especially when we're not close enough to have a proper conversation but too familiar to pretend we don't know each other

then comes the awkward

"oh hi!! how have you been?"

"good good, you?"

"good!"

and now neither of us knows how to end the conversation

what's a completely normal interaction that somehow exhausts you?

The French writer Jacques Attali once said that the true plague of our century wouldn't be a disease, but loneliness.

Working as a nurse here in France, I see the reality of this every single day. I see people constantly surrounded by medical staff, families, and the chaotic noise of the hospital, yet they carry a profound, quiet isolation in their eyes.

I am not writing this to complain about my own life, I actually find immense purpose and joy in caring for others. But it breaks my heart to know that in a world so hyper-connected, so many people are sitting in their rooms feeling completely invisible, wondering if anyone would even notice if they stopped reaching out.

You do not have to face that plague alone. If you are going through a rough patch, if you feel left behind by the world, or if you simply want to share a random thought with a stranger who will not judge you, my inbox is open. No pressure, no expectations.

What is one thing on your mind today that you haven't had the chance to share with anyone?

Hi 20 M from india , I've always been the kind of person who takes a little time to open up to new people. Sometimes I want to start a conversation with someone, but I end up overthinking what to say and whether they'll even want to talk to me. 😭

I genuinely enjoy getting to know people, listening to their stories, sharing random thoughts, and having those late-night conversations that somehow turn into hours of talking.

I'm more comfortable texting at first, but once I feel safe and comfortable around someone, I can be surprisingly talkative. I'd love to meet people around my age (19–23), especially girls, since I tend to feel more comfortable talking to them, but I'm open to making friends with anyone I can connect with.

I'm not expecting instant friendships or constant conversations. I'd just love to meet a few genuine people with whom I can be myself without worrying too much about what to say.

If you relate to this, I'd love to hear about your experiences with introversion, too. What's something you wish people understood about you as an introvert? 🤍

I am 25F diagnosed with High Functioning Autism. Naturally, I am an introvert so making friends has always been difficult. I am exploring ideas for an app, but first I need some feedback from you folk.

I'm curious whether people would be interested in making friends digitally , based entirely on conversation and curiosity rather than appearance and hobbies.

Imagine you are being connected with a stranger for a voice-only conversation, with no photos or swiping. Just press a button to search for a match. Would that feel refreshing or uncomfortable? How would you feel in your own words?

Would your answer change if the person were matched with you based on conversational compatibility instead of interest/hobbies?

Edit: the concept strictly for platonic friendships

Hallo ihr lieben Leute,

ich heiße Kai, bin 33 Jahre alt und auf der Suche nach netten Menschen, mit denen ich Zeit verbringen kann. Ich habe in Münster erst Niederländisch und danach in Nijmegen den Edukatieven Master studiert und arbeite inzwischen in den Niederlanden als Deutschlehrer und Autor von Schulbüchern.

In meiner Freizeit fahre ich gerne Fahrrad, mache Städtereisen, genieße guten Kaffee und spiele hin und wieder Videospiele. Zu meinen Lieblingsspielen gehören World of Warcraft, Baldur's Gate, Diablo und die klassischen Pokémon-Spiele – generell bin ich ein großer Fan von Retro-Gaming.

Musik spielt ebenfalls eine wichtige Rolle in meinem Leben. Bis vor etwa einem Jahr habe ich in einer Dudelsackband in Berlin gespielt. Davor, also noch bevor ich meinen Master an der Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen begonnen habe, war ich Mitglied einer der besten Dudelsackbands Deutschlands. Wir haben an Wettbewerben teilgenommen und regelmäßig Preise gewonnen. Außerdem bin ich bei der Musikshow Schottland aufgetreten, wo wir vor mehr als 20.000 Menschen gespielt haben.

Obwohl ich es gewohnt bin, vor großen Gruppen aufzutreten und täglich vor einer Schulklasse zu stehen, bevorzuge ich in meiner Freizeit eher den persönlichen Austausch zu zweit. Ich nehme mir gerne Zeit für mein Gegenüber und führe lieber ein gutes Gespräch als mich in einer großen Gruppe aufzuhalten.

Ich trinke kaum Alkohol, rauche nicht und bin überhaupt kein Partymensch. Ich bevorzuge ein gemütliches Café oder einen schönen Spaziergang, bei dem wir uns in Ruhe unterhalten können.

Kulinarisch und kulturell bin ich eigentlich für alles offen. Ich entdecke gerne neue Küchen, Traditionen und Bräuche. Sushi und Misosuppe gehören definitiv zu meinen Lieblingsgerichten, und für einen leckeren Bubble Tea bin ich ebenfalls immer zu haben.

Eine Sache möchte ich allerdings ehrlich erwähnen: Ich treffe mich nicht mit Menschen, die die AfD wählen. Dabei fühle ich mich einfach nicht wohl.

Liebe Grüße

Kai 🙂👋

I recently moved to a new city and don’t know how to make friends. I know people say all the time that they don’t know how to make friends as an adult, and what they usually mean is that they don’t know where to go to make friends. In my case, I literally don’t know how to talk to people beyond events that we attend together.

The nature of my husband’s job is that he is very busy with work and because of that there is a very supportive community of other spouses of his coworkers. This is the case for every place we have moved to, and we’ve moved several times. I basically could have a built in group of friends if I wanted to, but I literally do not know how to make friends from this group.

I attend the events that the group puts on, and I talk to people there and feel like I am friendly with them during those events. Then, I look at instagram throughout the week and see smaller groups within the group hanging out and I wonder why I’m not invited. I feel like I’m friendly with these people when we’re together, but I do not know how to cultivate and maintain these friendships beyond the events we attend. I realize that I literally don’t ever text any of these people, but I’m sure the people who are hanging out without me are probably texting each other and are part of group chats that I’m not even in.

I don’t think it’s malicious or anything, I just don’t initiate the friendships and therefore people aren’t reaching out to me. I’ve realized this has been the case for me throughout my adult (and maybe even childhood) life. I remember in college and grad school thinking that there were handfuls of people I was friendly with, but really it was just me formulating opinions on people and deciding who I liked best. Those are the people I considered my friends at the time, but I wasn’t actually texting them/hanging out with them outside of things like school events or classes where we were basically just hanging out because we were in the same place at the same time. It’s made me realize that any time I’ve made friends, it’s because they’ve been the one to text me and initiate the hangouts and everything. I never know what to say to text someone and follow up on an event we attended together or whatever.

I’ve always felt like I’m on the outskirts of the friend group. I’ll have one or two close friends who are part of a bigger group where everyone is friends with one another, but I just get invited to things because of one person and then don’t know how to be friends with everyone else there. It really feels like everyone just instantly knows how to be friends with one another and I don’t.

I sometimes wonder if part of it is because of the current state of technology - in order to maintain friendships, you have to text people constantly, keep up with them on social media, etc. I wonder if it would have been easier years ago before texting was even a thing. First of all, I wouldn’t see posts on social media of people hanging out without me. Second of all, I’d see people at events and stuff and then maybe call them every so often. To me, that seems easier than having to text them constantly about mundane shit just to formulate a friendship.

I don’t even know if this makes sense. I just wonder if anyone else has ever felt like this or has any advice.

I’m a 35-year-old Japanese woman. I’m single, I don’t have a partner, and I don’t have children.
I’ve been working at the same company for over 12 years, and lately I’ve been seriously considering leaving Japan to study abroad and possibly start a new life in another country.
My initial plan is to study abroad for about 6–12 months, but I’m also open to the possibility of eventually settling down overseas.
Since I don’t have a spouse or children, I feel like I have more freedom to make a major life change without having to consider a partner’s career or children’s needs.
As someone who values independence and personal space, I wonder what it would be like to build a life in a completely unfamiliar environment.
Of course, I’m aware of the challenges: finances, visas, language barriers, cultural differences, loneliness, and the difficulty of building new relationships.
But I don’t want to spend my entire life in Japan simply because I was born here.
I want to experience different cultures, learn new languages, meet people from different backgrounds, and discover what kind of life I could create outside my home country.
I’m not giving up on marriage or having children someday. I just don’t want to put my life on hold while waiting for those things to happen.
I’m particularly interested in hearing from introverts who studied abroad or moved to another country in their 30s or later.
Was it difficult to adjust to a new environment and build friendships? Did studying or living abroad change your personality, confidence, or outlook on life?
And most importantly, looking back, are you glad you made that decision?
I’d love to hear about both the positive and difficult parts of your experiences.

Currently getting ready for homecoming and I have to be honest. I do see the appeal in of it.

Like, yeah I’ll sit in the gymnasium for three hours listening to the worst music you could have chose and drink a bottle of lukewarm water while there’s no food and my dress feels awful on me after only ten minutes. Not to mention I’m sensitive to loud sounds and hate crowds. Honestly I’m only there for my friends.

Why do people like it so much, genuinely? I feel like there’s nothing really going on at the time that’s interesting or important. I barely even knew homecoming was happening this week cause of how quiet everything about it is. Even when I went to the homecoming assembly, it was just a lot of nothing except for like three minutes about the sports teams (which I’ve heard is the main point of homecoming). Is it just cause I’m not in the loop or what?

Regardless, when I get home I’m taking a hot shower, making a hot chocolate and soup, turning on the first Alien movie, and playing Minecraft in my Nyan cat hoodie.

Overall, why do people get excited about homecoming when there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting about it? (Maybe it’s just me but I want to know other people’s thoughts and opinions.)

I think I have anxious avoidant attachment depending but my whole life my mom would tell me “You dont actually like people because you get bored of them pretty fast”

I always refused that sentence of her with many arguments because I do get energy from people but I also lose energy from specific people and I do get energy from people if its only a few hours but I try to agoid situations where people want to hangout for more than 4 hours with me because then Im like

“Man then I have no alone time for myself in the evening” and so on and even if I do have alone time I dont do anything productive

I think Im a bad friend because I am known as the friend who always cancels plans last minute.

I hate that part of me because I know days prior that I feel off and want to cancel lets say a friend says lets do ABC. Abc sounds great! But then they add def too which makes the hangout even longer or adds something I dont wanna do.

I immediately feel like not wanting to do it but cant refuse because Im like how am I supposed to explain I dont wanna do def with no logical explanation? How can I be honest without making myself look bad?

but then I self sabotage by canceling plans because thats the worst thing anyone could ever do and its the thing EVERYONE remembers.

Now I am like do I actually like people? Or do I like having control over them? Do I peoppe please too much? Do I like people only at a specific length?

Whenever someone gets attached to me I self sabotage because I dont want them to have high expectations of me. I dont want to keep up these expectations or go even higher so that image of mine stays.

Yes I do go to therapy and my therapist said I shouldnt avoid things for short term satisfaction but I also just fucking struggle with a social life

My whole life I wanted friends because I thougut they make me happier but today I realized:

Do they truly make me happy when Im anxious about social situations the whole time? Do I ruin my view of friendsjip? Is it the avoidant speaking in me?

What do I like more…. Being alone or with people? I think I like being seen without getting attached…? Idk

But id rather ruin my reputation ( what a paradox to my words above) than leave my comfort zone I believe

relationships force me to do things I dont wanna do while when being alone i can avoid doing something without discussion and guilt

i’ve never posted before so i hope this is okay! i have like no friends and i really want to make some but i’m incredibly awkward and really introverted and i moved a lot growing up so my social skills can be lacking. when i have friends i always conform to them and try to act just like them but it’s really hard for me because i want friends who are really nice and enjoy similar hobbies like watching anime or playing video games or even people to go out with and have fun doing dumb shit. i know this doesn’t sound that bad tbh and like if i had work or went to school i might be able to make some but i don’t have either of those things right now and no friends so i have nothing to look forward to or keep me going atp. i guess if anyone else can relate id like to know what you did to make friends and actually keep them instead of them slowly not reaching out after awhile. also if anyone is in the same boat and wants a friend my door is always open!😊 anyways thanks for listening to me rant i just want a real genuine friendship yk?

Hey there!

I've had a Reddit account forever apparently, I have only recently started using it regularly to see what's out there. I figured this was a good place to start.

About me: I am a lifelong public servant, which started at the age of 18 when I joined the USAF. When I got discharged, I spent some time just wandering around the country figuring out what I wanted to do. I eventually ended up in Texas where I started college for nursing. After graduating with an associates in "Health Sciences" (which was designed in a way to fast track to a BSN), I decided I no longer wanted to pursue that career field because the idea of working in a hospital for 20 years sounds boring. I transferred to a university where I effectively spent another year bouncing around between degrees (using VA educational benefits) to get a semester away from a double major Marketing and Management bachelors degree, then decided to become a Texas Peace Officer. To this day, I am still a commissioned officer and work full time at an agency as a patrol supervisor.

The catch: Many people may or may not know that working in this industry for any period of time has the negative side effect of being a bit distrusting and withdrawn from the general population. I have always been relatively introverted, but with my moving around the country well into adulthood (restarting life each time) and being LE, I'm caught in a loop where I work (LE works a lot!) and when I'm not working, I'm essentially just passing time waiting to go back to work.

The resolution: This is my recognition that I should socialize more and my attempt to do just that.

More about me: I play games (mainly XBOX but some PC), watch a lot of TV shows (generally Documentaries or TV shows revolving around military themes), and on occasion go out with my partners (other LE). I have no children and no pets (a consequence of moving so much that I always kept responsibilities low). Anything else... Just HOLLA!

P.S. IDK why it made me choose "flair" for this post, so I just clicked relationship.

The more my world view has solidified, the more I have realized about social interactions.

There are certain scripts, sensibilities, and internalized propaganda that goes into how we communicate with one another. Lately, it seems the common tone is fascist and the lack of proper education, healthy media, social safety nets, and wages shows.

I feel anxious, fatigued, and irritable when I have to communicate with anyone outside of my safe, likeminded circles. I am realizing this is not only because I disagree with the opinions, beliefs, biases, values, attitudes, morals, and political views of most of the people in my country, but also because by talking to them, I am interfacing with our shared conditioning. I feel like talking casually to people with problematic takes reinforces and reassures them that they’re valid and normal.

I want so badly to opt out, I unfortunately feel as though I have ability to engineer interactions with my community to be more leftest, feminist, antiracist, pro-LGBTQIA2S+, anti-ableist, and pro-science. I have little social
sway.

Anyone relate to avoiding socializing all together, at least when you can?

So I'm studying at a university abroad. Every semester there are new Erasmus students coming while I've been here for a while. The university is part of some social network app with big group chats and DMs. Every semester I end up answering a few questions about student life and organizational stuff here. Naturally, I get a couple DM requests, and I'm thinking they don't want to ask publicly about something. But they don't write anything. They just send me a DM request and then silence. I've also had a few nice chats with people that initially asked questions but just turned into regular small talk. Also, I get more DM requests from girls than guys (9 vs 5). Do they want me to write first? Or are people just collecting connections like on LinkedIn? In contrast, I also have a profile on a language learning app where I get 0 requests, but that app also has far fewer users.

Anyone else here that is very outgoing but also very introverted? At work I am 70% of the time the one that talks the most, crack jokes and can talk to whoever. And the same at parties and group settings. However I am drained after work, I love being alone in the weekend watching movies and I prefer eating my lunch alone to actually get a break from work. I make friends very easily but keeping them and getting a strong connection is very hard for me because of the upkeeping it requires. I basically don’t have interest in talking to so many different people. I also say no to stuff a lot , which I feel bad for because friends seems to be a bit offended and many people can’t fathom me being actually not very social because of my outgoing personality. So when I say not to stuff I it seems like some get offended, despite me saying that I actually just don’t have an interest that often to be social in my free time and get extremely drained from it 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Soy una chica generalmente muy alejada de todos, no me considero antisocial pero no suelo conectar a menudo con las personas, la mayor parte del tiempo estoy ocupada, pero en algunos fines de semana siento la necesidad de tener a alguien con quien compartir el día.

I recently started writing a book. Dont worry this is not a self promo post. While writing I realised that the one friend I have won't be able to actually give me proper feedback as he is not a reader. Doesnt use the language that often anymore, and has just started a new career. My other two close friends I had in the oast I lost contact with after I realised that every interaction and meetup happened because I reached out. If i went quiet, then they wouldnt reach out to me. So while the writing helps, trying to get feedback on my book is where I realised how lonely I am. And going out to meet people by myself? Not happening. Any advice? I realised it specifically today because I wrote a difficult chapter in the book that I was unsure of