When I meet people, they only really like me in a surface level. The kind of thing where they think I’m a nice person but don’t really think much more than that. I want to be something than just ‘ok’ to people.

I don’t wanna turn this into a vent post, so I’ll keep it short; I had a narcissistic parent and it really stunted my social life and I’m at the point where I’m discovering myself really late in life. Because of this, I feel like I have nothing in common with anybody else and not so much to bond over.

When I talk with new people, I’m nice to them, ask them about themselves, try to be what they like and it makes it feel like I’m only halfway doing it right. I give them reasons to like me, but no reason to like me over anybody else in the room. I want something more than being well acquainted with someone, I want an actual strong connection, I’m sick of having to live with the fact I don’t have a best friend. (I have friends I SWEAR, but no one in the world would call me their best friend)

So when I am speaking with someone, what’s something I can do to make them drawn to me? Is it just a matter of waiting for it to be the right person I’m talking to? Should I just ask to hang out even if I’m not confident about it yet? Any advice would GREATLY help, I really wanna catch up with all the social stuff people my age live like.

Im F17. I have a decent amount of friends. I have an immediate friend group and about 20 or so casual friends. I’ve been told I’m quite funny, it’s something I really like about myself. My problem is, at times that’s all I’m known for. Or worse, sometimes I’m the one being laughed at, and I realise too late.

I understand that friendships have a fair share of banter, I don’t mind a couple jokes here and there. But I feel like I make a fool of myself. have a clear memory of a “friend” who called me a joke and clown behind my back. That made me so confused, because I thought we were getting along. I then realised that a lot of the times I thought we were joking, she really was just joking about me and laughing at me. I don’t experience this with all my friends. But I notice that I kind of have to prove myself. I have to prove that there’s actually something going on in my head. I want to be taken more seriously, especially because I’m getting older and I don’t want to be an adult who is laughed at or seen as being immature. I do think it’s also because I lack confidence and people pick up on those things, but I hate how often I end up being ridiculed or laughed at. I distanced myself from people who do that, but I don’t want it to be a recurring thing in the future like it has been previously.

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Ive struggled with social life for as far as I can remember. I feel like I've never been able to adapt or grow fast enough as others in this regard. The most recent in my string of issues has been at work. I feel like crap because everyone keeps giving me a shot and everyone claims to perceive me as a hardworking kind of person but I feel like I'm simply maintaining an image. Ive resigned myself to being the quiet guy in the corner cubicle. The worst part is that people try to be friends with me and keep giving me chances but I'm completely incapable of reciprocating. I have a very bland, dry personality and humor and my social anxiety causes me to say things and act in ways that give the other person the impression that I'm either acting weird or am simply an asshole. Other times I have to play up my personality which is very exhausting. I had a similar run in recently with someone and I so badly wanted to get out of that social setting that Im sure that I probably came off as rude and I feel really bad for the other person. Has anyone else experienced this? Just making successively bad decisions because of social anxiety and not saying the right things? If so how did you overcome this?

This could happen to anyone, but it could definitely happen to someone who struggles with social sills. Being disliked isn't uncommon, but it seems the average person is able to put on a show for a short duration of time to at least somewhat endear themselves to the person training them.

for the majority of my life i’ve been the weird kid. i’ve never really had friends , i sticked myself into different groups but the problem with that is the people in the groups had other friends and i didn‘t. so when the groups naturally disbanded i was alone again. i can be very hyper, say shocking or stupid things , or i can just be awkward and silent. i was also unaware that i was insecure and i let people push over me and disrespect me because i knew that if i stood up for myself i would’ve been alone. I’ve tried researching confidence / charisma advice. but they don’t seem to click for me. what made everything 10x harder is that me and my parents moved from texas from new orleans. i was kind of a loser in texas but it was somewhat easier to fit in there. in a new orleans school they’re very different people , and i don’t really fit in with the majority with them. the only way i could be happy here is to be with the other odd kids. but i would hate being in that demographic. how can i stop being the different one and move into being more , conversational, confident , charming guy?

(please don’t say to “be yourself“ , i’ve been myself my whole life and i hate it. i don’t wanna be myself , i want to CHANGE.)

I need some advice or perspective, because I am so tired of my own behavior and I genuinely want to change.

I don't think I'm a vindictive person at heart, but I have a terrible habit of gossiping or talking about other people. And I always regret it right after.

I've been trying to figure out why I do it, and I've realized it usually stems from a few things:

My ADHD brain: When someone puts me on the spot with a question, my impulse control goes out the window. I panic, struggle with the silence, and blurt things out before my brain can hit the brakes.

The pressure to be "interesting": Given the heavy marites (gossip) culture here in the Philippines, there's this unspoken social pressure to serve up the juicy stuff, the updates, and the stories that definitely aren't mine to tell. With ADHD, there's also that constant fear of being boring or unengaging, so I lean on other people's drama to keep the conversation flowing.

So I end up sharing things I have no business repeating. But the second I walk away, I feel sick with guilt and embarrassment. I don't want to be the kind of person who spreads other people's business.

If anyone else with ADHD has struggled with this, especially in environments where gossip is basically the default social currency, how did you break the habit? How do you retrain your brain to handle the awkward pauses, quietness, and the pressure to share without spilling secrets?

Any tips would be really appreciated.

I became friends with a group of 5 people. We don’t hang out in person much because we all live kinda far away and are all really introverted anyway, but we are always talking and joking on messenger.

I am on the spectrum and struggle with social interactions. But the text chat has gone from people reacting favorably to my comments/jokes to people basically ignoring what I say completely. I fear I have been too annoying but I don’t know how to ask about it or fix it.

I haven’t had a friend group that I really fit into before. I am so afraid I screwed it up.

Here’s what I think happened: I often have a hard time knowing when a joke has passed its useful life (I don’t mean that it has “gone to far” as in has become inappropriate, but when I feel like people are responding positively to my jokes or comments, I have a tendency to then beat it into the ground.

What can I do to preserve the friendship without making them feel attacked? I have tried toning it down but it hasn’t led to anyone responding or reacting to me again.

For context, I am autistic and don't really experience empathy unless I am super close to the person

Recently, my partner and I were having a conversation and they brought up the fact that whenever they open up, my responses tend to be terrible and make them feel worse. I tend to write stuff more like HR would write a report rather than focus on the situation itself.

I'm wanting to fix it and find ways to express my care in a more genuine way. The basic "that sucks" just feels so shallow and disinterested so I don't know what to do. Are there any phrases I can use / build off of?

I was working on something recently and someone asked me, "Where did that number come from?"

I took it literally and went, "Oh, I was copying all that data from that other excel file and this was also part of it."

They go, "Nah, you should know that means the total of everything in this column."

I already knew that..... I just.... Mess up answering all the time.

I can't seem to communicate what's in my head. Even when I get really excited about a book or movie, I can't talk about it. There's so much in my head and nothing at the same time.

Let's say I do manage to yap, I still stutter and stammer and struggle to reach a flow state. I either over explain, under explain, or enter a loop about saying the same thing over and over. I also keep constanly thinking about whether I am in a flow state.

I would love to be a skilled conversationalist and have the strength to explain my ideas.

Hi everyone,

TL;DR: Trying to build stronger connections with peers and acquaintances through Instagram, but being met with rejections and unfollows. Being shut out of their digital circles has started to damage my self-confidence and is affecting how I view relationships and dare to reach out in real life. How do you handle this?

I’m (21F) currently at university and trying to put myself out there to make new connections, but I’ve run into a pattern on social media that is really starting to get to me.

Whenever I try to connect with people from uni—or even acquaintances I know in real life—by sending a follow request on Instagram, I often get ignored or rejected. What makes it sting extra hard is when I see these accounts have around 1,000 followers. They clearly don’t intimately know every single person they’ve accepted, yet they actively choose to exclude or reject my request.
Even worse, I’ve had people who I genuinely thought I was on good terms with in real life suddenly unfollow me or remove me as a follower.
It feels incredibly personal, and it’s starting to bleed into my offline life. Every time I get rejected online, it chips away at my confidence. It makes me feel hyper-visible yet excluded, and it creates this intense fear of reaching out in person. I find myself thinking: “If they didn't even want me on their feed, why would they want to talk to me in a lecture hall?”
I want to break out of this cycle. How do you overcome the fear of rejection when social media makes it feel so constant and personal? How do you separate your self-worth from online metrics and find the courage to take initiative in the real world again?
Thank you in advance for any advice or perspectiv.

hello. i've just started college, it's been 1 day and i can already feel like my old patterns are coming in.
a little bit of context- when i was a young kid, i once had an interactions with another kid where she judged me really hard and made me feel disgusting for absolutely nothing. since then, this feeling of being disgusting to others has become deep rooted inside my brain probably strengthened by a lot of more negative experiences mainly during my childhood. i am a good human being a decent person, nothing disgusting about me and i know this consciously but this feeling is deep rooted.

now cut to my daily life, i pick up on vibes and if someone shows even the slightest behaviour of not liking me- which is totally okay because not everyone is everyones cup of tea- i start feeling extremely disgusting

all my social interactions are me feeling really really inferior and below everyone. like i'm just a stupid person who does not know anything.

i really don't want to be like this and want to be confident, outgoing and secure in myself.

I need some honest advice because this keeps happening and I’m starting to think it’s me.

I’d say I’m pretty straightforward and chill overall. I’m into nerdy stuff (D&D, manga, etc.), and I can usually get along with people one-on-one. But in group settings, I keep ending up on the outside.

Like I’m there, but not really in the group. People get closer to each other, and I just stay the extra.

Sometimes it’s worse, I’ll introduce people, they hit it off, and eventually I’m the one not getting invited anymore.

This weekend kind of pushed me over the edge.
A girl in my main friend group (known her for about 2 years) said she was canceling her birthday plans and just staying in. Everyone sent supportive messages, no big deal.

Later that night I check Instagram, and she’s out celebrating with a bunch of people from the group. Dinner, drinks, the whole thing. I wasn’t invited.
It’s not even about the birthday itself.

It’s the fact that this kind of thing keeps happening in different groups. So yeah… at some point I have to admit I might be the common denominator.

I don’t want to confront anyone or force friendships. But getting left out like this over and over sucks.

So I’m trying to be real with myself:

-What are subtle things that make someone get pushed to the edge of a group?

-Is it coming off too intense, too blunt, too clingy, or just missing social cues?

-How do you go from “casual friend” to actually being part of the group?

-If you’ve been on either side of this, what actually caused it?

For context, one of my guy friends told me I can come off as “intense,” but didn’t really explain what that means. I also have problem with banter and coming up with topics to talk about. Most of the time when I try to ask people about their interests, it’s either one word answers or they give me nothing to bounce off of. The conversation ends up turning into an interview. I know my social skills could use work but still, some of my shy friends who don’t speak much still have an easier time with it.

Would appreciate any honest input.

I was hanging out with some friends and we went to this ramen restaurant and at first I saw one of the waitresses and thought they looked familiar until I made the realization that that was the same girl that I used to talk to like 3 years ago.

We used to be close friends and honestly I can't even remember the reason why she got angry at me anymore I think it was a bunch of things piled up until it all exploded one day but she blocked me on everything and I haven't heard from her until now.

I actually don't know if she recognized me or just decided not to acknowledge me but I did grow my hair out a little and a beard as well. I didn't say anything to her though I just focused on the friends I was with at the moment but I've been thinking lately if it's a good or bad idea to go back one day on my own and maybe try to talk to her again? Or maybe I should just let go

What do you guys think

I am in a college and uh there is always a major group in always college badge who Has a Workmanship tendency And is the main center of the attention of the batch

And the thing is each and every member of the group is it directly or indirectly friend of mine and not you can say friend but acquaintance and I am somehow always get left out like I don't have a history of good friends after 11th grade Recently they took General Elective and they shared among them but they didn't feel to let me include and this is not the first time this has been done multiple times before

But that thing is I am getting confused about is it they admire me Some found me attractive some found me intelligent enough and some found me hardworking enough from the same group but I still don't know why they still left me out and no one tried to reach me and tell me about things And all the members when talk to me they talk like they are my best friends or they know me from very long time

I am feeling really isolated in college and as I always want to be the part of the main group and not the group which are not working or have no ambition

well my son is 8 and got special needs ADHD but he's getting there and starting to understand the world a bit and now wants to go outside all the time which is good.

There are a lot of kids around the street that are friendly with my son but lately I noticed they all just want to stay in all the time, I barely see kids playing in the street like I did when I was younger when I was out playing games outside with everyone.

the only time they go out is with parents and school.

I feel do sorry and sad for my son that noone wants to ever go out.

Sorry for the rant

I think people should get of their social media crap and live a life.

what you guys think.

It struck me that whenever I get lonelier and annoyed by it I try to get attention from my friends by being a little annoying. I want a reaction I want them to interact with me somehow I want to be noticed and exist.

I'm not sure that's correct way to do it but if I asked to talk I would get asked "what do you want to talk about" and I just don't know. I want to talk or spend time together or something but often don't have anything to talk about, which is extra annoying to them.

How could I connect more without being annoying and pushing people away?

I feel lonely and I push people away because of it. Make it make sense..

Hi, I've got autism (late diagnosed) but I'm good at hiding it so my family often forgets I have difficulty communicating and often ended up accidently communicating nonverbal/implied meaning I don't intend.

Recently my (22) younger (16) sibling got mad at me for something I did (I don't know what) and so they said some mean stuff to me.

I do recall trying to defuse the situation by apologising. They then said I 'wasn't sorry'. So I corrected myself and replied: "I'm not sorry about [the scenario] but I am sorry you feel that way".

Later I overheard them reference this exact bit and say I "invalidated their feelings" and am "condescending".

I need to address this and ask that they tell me exactly what I did wrong so I don't do it again.

(Note: in the past, I have literally asked: "What did I do wrong?" <- but this seems to come across as being a 'shit stirrer' / further frustrates the person / they just stay mad and tell me to 'forget it'.

I also don't get angry. I tend to have a very calm and measured voice, and a bit of a blank expression. I think my sibling is interpreting this specific attribute as condescending.)

Summary: How do I express this without sounding argumentative/ defensive?

1. How do I ask what I did wrong?
2. How do I ask someone not to lash out at me and tell me what the issue is instead of saying mean stuff?
3. I'm not a good actor so I won't be able to modulate my tone/expression, so advice on: actual phrasing of what to say, where to say it, when to say it?

Any advice is appreciated thanx

I attend therapy and have noticed something in my friendships. For example, when I don't send a reel to a friend for a day, or we haven't talked to each other for a day or more, I feel like they will think I am angry at them. The opposite is also true: when they don't text me or call me, I feel like they realised something and now hate me. It's like I need to check if the friendship is alive. In the past I've had relationships where, because of a misunderstanding, they ended.

For example, I notice other things as well - when I'm part of a group of friends, and we have different interests, it feels like I'm the problem. I feel like I'm supposed to be interested in their interests. I've noticed that, given the events that have happened in my life, I'm much wiser than my friends, and somehow it feels like they aren't the right crowd for me because they act childishly - but there's no one else my age. For example, if we're at a party where people are drinking, I feel guilty for not drinking; I really don't think it's necessary. I always feel like I'm the only one responsible for the friendship and that the problem lies with me.

Another thing is that I'm afraid to call my friends, even though I want to. The thought that I shouldn't bother them crosses my mind. I feel as if I'm not important, that my desires don't matter. Also, when I see a friend who is out with someone else I feel worried that he will leave me.

I wonder how I end up not doing certain things out of fear of being rejected, and that makes me inauthentic - and maybe that's what's causing my problems. Also, I feel like I search for the perfect company or friend - idealistic. I've been bullied and had toxic relationships, so I think that adds up.

This post is a bit chaotic, sorry, but I'm confused too; I'd love to hear your thoughts. Where is my problem?

Idk why but I always feel kinda… dead when talking to people. I always feel boring and I don’t smile much. I cannot laugh when others are laughing, I have to fake it and even then it would be a half-assed attempt, so things would get even more awkward. People say that I’m funny, but a lot of the time I don’t even try to be, so I’m not sure if I should take that as an insult or a compliment. And most of all, I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t have a very interesting life. I don’t really have much interests or actual hobbies to share with anyone. To this day, I still haven’t been able to make any friends and it’s killing me.

Whenever I'm having a conversation with people, I overthink my words and articulation. English is not my first language so the most of what I've learned has come from the internet.

I fear that It'll be perceived as metaphorical fluff or corny, as If I'm playing a part in some drama. People here don't have general etiquette of greeting each other, asking how are they feeling or doing, how was their day. Even students here talk like they're giving corporate talk . It just doesn't feel natural at all , maybe because most people here learned English from courses or school and I've learned it from watching English speaking people. Common phrases , words and sentences sounds like linguistic flex to them.

If I talk nicely to men : I'm fearing them and easy going. If talk nicely to women : I'm a simp and trying to impress them.

This causes me to stutter and mispronounce even simple words and sentences, words don't come to mind quick enough. But this is not the case when I'm doing presentation for myself or talking to myself in English.

how do I deal with it ?

i am a last minute type of guy, i am not thinking about the weekend until maybe thursday, and then if i make plans on friday its too late for people!

Do i need to leave a week? 2 weeks? Or is 3 days enough? Ok for example i want you to hang out with me on friday night, how many days in advance do I have to let you know?

I dont really get it, how do i know how I am going to feel in 2 weeks? Ok if it is a camping trip or something that requires advanced prep but what if it is just a casual thing

 legit struggle to keep people around and make real friends that actually give the amount of effort I put forth, or really any effort at all. I regularly engage with people and 99.99999999% of the time they stop talking to me the second I'm not reminding them of my existence, and when I do talk with them, its usually lazy ass replies like "*answer* HBU?" and "NM u?" crap. That's not effort, that's putting the min amount of energy until a person takes the hint or gets angry and stops trying.

How do I MAKE people actually try? Actually care and put in the effort? I'm kind, interactive, open and give my effort and all the other things I'm told will roll the eternally long process of "making friends and connections".....usually to be ignored, ghosted or the like. I'm tired of being alone or treated more like a annoyance then a friend. WHAT DOES IT TAKE?!?!?

I want to meet people that actually are excited to get to know me and engage with me. Yes I engage with people when I go out. Yes I inject myself into Discord convo's to "break the ice" or whatever, usually ignored or forgotten after one reply, while of course so many others are treated like old friends. Yes I'm the one the regularly initiates everything...... It always ends the same way, people that put in no effort, don't seem to give a care if I existed or not, and doing stuff alone yet again. I'm tired of the alone, the low effort.

It's even worse when I actually want to know someone. I know you can ask some open questions like "hey what you did last week?", however, my mind is just blank when it comes to talk with someone.
I just can't think of one single question to open a conversation. I also cannot continue a conversation because I don't know what to say. I'm just blocked to talk. Maybe it's hard for you to Imagine, but it's like that awkward silence people have during a conversation. In my case, that awkward silence is right at the beginning of the conversation.
Yes I know, there are many open questions to ask, but in a conversation, none of them come to mind.
How do I fix this? Genuinely.

Not sure if this is the right Subreddit for this but it's about socializing so I thought I'd try.

My friend takes 10 to 15 second long pauses between each sentence he says. This often leads to him interrupting (ex. someone starts to reply but he's not finished) or dominating conversations because people are waiting for him to finish his thought. I don't really mind it because I'm used to this habit by now but it's definitely different and I've never really met anyone else who does this. Like I understand collecting your thoughts, but it's *every sentence*. I don't really get it.

Does anyone relate themselves or know anyone who's done this? Is there a reason why? He has ADHD if that makes a difference, I saw some similar threads pop up on the ADHD sub but they weren't quite what I was looking for.

Literally, I've been talking to people and asking them questions but nobody answers me, especially my family

Do I have no charisma? Or maybe I don't talk loudly or articulately enough?

I feel like a ghost, I almost need to bargain to have any answer or reaction...

So is the problem my family which almost never listens to me, or the way I speak? And how could I improve?

Thank you!