I make friends easily, but it feels like once they get to know me, they don't want to be friends

[Anonymous]

I feel super lame writing about this, but the title says it...

This has happened to me over and over throughout my life, so I know it's me and not them.

I've had so many friends over the course of my life, a couple I would even call a "best friend" or at least a very close friend.

Then, after a few years, we just drift away...

It always feels like they start avoiding me, and I can't figure out why? I feel like I'm acting the same. Part of me is scared that deep down it's just me, that I am unlikable on a deep level.

I really crave close adult female friendships. I just have no idea how to make it happen, or if I even can make it happen, how to keep those friends long term.

I feel like there is this huge part of my life that I am missing out on.

[Anonymous]

I’d suggest therapy to really explore what’s happening.

That said, are you smothering the friendships by relying on one friendship too much? Adults are busy, and many have a lot of family responsibilities, so even friends I adore I see fairly infrequently (really close friends once every few months unless we work together, but we have regular text contact with photos, etc).

[Anonymous]

The average friendship lasts 7 years. Your experience really doesn’t sound that odd!

[Anonymous]

Are you expecting too much? I love my friends, but we don’t talk and text frequently. I know I “disappoint” the frequent group texters, but that’s not just me. With my family and busy job, I make plans far in advance, and I try to give every friend or friend group a “turn”…so if I see a former roommate (from a group house) group out for dinner in July, I’m not going to make plans with them again until I get a chance to see my cousins, or my college friends, or former coworkers, or mom friends from our former daycare. So I have kind of a rotation where I see people, but not the same people often.

If you were asking me to make plans frequently or wanted to text frequently, that’s too much for me and I don’t have enough time and energy to see you as much as you might wish. If you keep pushing I will likely back off. I’m not saying all of this is true for you, I’m just trying to offer some insight.

It might be helpful to scale back your expectations of how frequently you want to text/call/see people.

[Anonymous]

I admire those that have friendships that last over 20 years.

[Anonymous]

A woman I worked with once told me this same thing. I couldn’t be honest with her because we were colleagues and NOT close friends so it would not have been appropriate. But maybe what I would have told her could be helpful to you. I’m not saying you have this same issue (odds are that you don’t) but this is the kind of thing that could be going on.

She had a “mother hen” thing going on that she viewed as a positive part of her personality snd would even reference (“oh that’s just me being a mama bear!”). When you first met her this came off as somewhat charming and sweet— she seemed to really care about people and was attentive and would do little favors. But over time this behavior became grating. She gave lots of advice and was always asking very personal questions even when I’d made it clear that I didn’t want to talk about a subject. And her advice sometimes seemed controlling, not helpful. Her motherly helping actually came off as perversely needy— she needed you to need her. That was almost flattering at first but soured with time. She lacked boundaries and when other people tried to set them, she’d get really offended and double down on her behavior, which just pushed people away more.

All of this was why I kept her at arms length at work— she actually reminded me a bit of my own mom and I knew enough to know that was not a dynamic I’d enjoy. But I watched her do this with almost all of our colleagues, to varying degrees of success, but it pretty much always soured. Ironically, I think she came to see me as HER mother figure because I stayed more distant (I never socialized with her outside work, and I kept my own private life mostly to myself beyond broad strokes) so she’d confide in me. I wished I could have been blunt with her about this— I think she needed therapy to figure out why she was so dependent on others in this way. I hope eventually she figured it out.

[Anonymous]

Are you always in someone’s texts, are you always calling, are you always whining about wanting to make plans—is it never enough? I have one or two “bottomless pit” friends that seriously, you cannot call or text or make plans with them enough. When you sit down to dinner, they whip their phones out to try to set up the next dinner. Like…calm down. If this is you, you are smothering people and they need space and time. Remember that people are busy with family, work and (gasp) other friends, and you are not the moon and sun to them.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to reach out to one or two of the friends who have drifted away, and ask them what happened. Be open to listening, and don't have an expectation of anything being rekindled. You are gathering information to guide your future behavior, not trying to rekindle these specific relationships.

[Anonymous]

You are difficult to be friends with in some way. You could be too needy, or gossipy, or give out to much unsolicited advice, or something.

[Anonymous]

You sound needy and clingy. Manage your expectations. Scale back. Calm down.

[Anonymous]

Are you the type to use your friends as a dumping ground for all your crap, then walk away feeling better — leaving your friends curled up in a ball emotionally exhausted, in desperate need of a stiff drink after a conversation with you then it’s time for a therapist instead of using them to dump on. Needy friends are takers, and eventually sends people running.

[Anonymous]

Are most of your friendships "situational"? I've had a very good friend that I've spent time with at least once a week - kids the same age, using the same playground, houses are nearby, so just wave and pop in with a cup of coffee when you see the other in the backyard. I really liked her and her husband and we've spent tons of time together as families, mostly spontaneous, though. But then I moved - same metro area but far enough that any outing now must be carefully coordinated and planned in advance. And that friendship fizzled because neither of us had a bandwidth for another friend that you have to dedicate half of your weekend to see. No one's fault, it just wasn't in the cards. Maybe at least some of your friendships are like that, they stay alive only as long as there is something else connecting you besides being two people who like each other.

[Anonymous]

I had a good friend for a long, long time. We were the kind of friends who said, "HIS LOSS!!" when we broke up with someone. We were very young, obviously, but we needed that then. Eventually it became not enough to have that kind of friend. It isn't always their loss. Sometimes it's your loss, or even your fault, and a good friend is someone you can talk to about reality, not propped up BS that you want to hear to feel better.

That's why I dropped my good friend of many years -- I could no longer live in Bullshit World with her, and that's all we really had.

[Anonymous]

If I were you I would ask someone who knows you really well like a sister or cousin or maybe a friend to be brutally honest with you and tell you what it is you might be doing that causes friends to drop you. If you are lucky they will actually tell you although it's also possible they won't want to hurt your feelings or alienate you. You really have to convince them you want to know, you want to change, and you won't hold it against them if they tell you the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a good friend for a long, long time. We were the kind of friends who said, "HIS LOSS!!" when we broke up with someone. We were very young, obviously, but we needed that then. Eventually it became not enough to have that kind of friend. It isn't always their loss. Sometimes it's your loss, or even your fault, and a good friend is someone you can talk to about reality, not propped up BS that you want to hear to feel better.

That's why I dropped my good friend of many years -- I could no longer live in Bullshit World with her, and that's all we really had.

Geez.