I feel embarrassed to say this, but I straight up have to use reminders to go "hey, talk to X person" and set them up in advance. Because otherwise our chats will just be me going "happy birthday" or "happy new year" and that's it for the year.
It's not that my friends aren't important to me, its just that it never occurs to me naturally to be the one reaching out. Can't tell if I'm a bad friend or if I just have zero object permanence for people lmao
You'd fit in great with everyone in Seattle. It's expected here that you never talk to people you know ever, except maybe a happy birthday during a Monday lunch break you're trying to justify extending a few minutes
I'm the same way! I think it's because I'm friends with enough full on extroverts that my social battery fills up without me trying before I ever reach the point of thinking, "Hey, I'd like to chat / hang out with someone. I should reach out."
this is like half the reason why deep rock galactic is so beloved, i don't know of many other games where you can just randomly join some server and wordlessly (aside from the dwarves speaking for you) communicate almost completely efficiently
It is difficult to make new friends when prioritizing the second desire, or at least takes a lot more trial and error, or luck, to find other people comfortable with that.
Took a few decades, but i eventually realized I want the second one more than the first. So my friendships are dependent on how comfortable they are with not talking for at least a month at a time.
Ya, pretty much. Like I have a friend from highschool I haven't seen in person in fuck like 15 years but when we text and call it's like we saw eachother yesterday.
I also forget my mother exists as stupid as that sounds. I work overnight, and I live 1200 miles away, so I never get a chance to see or talk to her.
A bit of a rant: I have this friend online who is lonely and heavily depressed but she also refuses to talk to people and put herself out there or talking to a therapist all because "she is afraid of people". I have no idea how to help her.
I was kinda like your friend. There's probably some obstacle that prevents her from working on herself. It's easy with depression/anxiety to just blame yourself while ignoring obvious external reason.
It tends to be easier to have friends when you're all living close together and socialization is very easy. I run into my neighbors outside all the time and we regularly chat with one another. Then every month or two someone throws a party and invites everyone else over. That's how we all stay connected.
I've got another group of friends who host a game night at their house every other Sunday. Its a routine, same time and same place, and the house is right in the center of town so its easy for everyone to get there.
I almost never see my coworkers outside of the office, though. They're all out in random distant corners of the various suburbs. Any kind of meeting would be a huge hassle for at least some of them. We grab lunch on occasion, but we don't have any opportunity to see one another outside of work, so friendships never develop past basic business associations.