Reply to Both my husband and I have no friends

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Both my husband and I have no friends"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, it's interesting to hear back from you! Good for you for making those efforts. I think you may be being a bit too hard on yourself and others by calling them completely unsuccessful though. You DID create a successful group, and have organized some friendly get together for yourself and your family.

It sounds like [b]you're really evaluating heavily on reciprocation and intensity[/b]. I feel like in the young family years that's just harder for people to fulfill. My husband lives a mile away from his best friend from kindergarten through college, and we see each other's families just 2-4 times a year. They get together one on one every couple months for a drink and don't text and talk much in between. They don't even seem to be meeting the level of intensity you're looking for at this time in their lives, and they've been friends for almost 40 years. Can you let people be "looser" friends? [/quote]

OP, I am an immigrant. In my culture, the unwritten rules of social behavior is hospitality, inclusivity and reciprocity. If I invite someone from my culture (and I don't have to know them well to invite them) for a meal, they will reciprocate at least within a month or two.  Getting to know each other happens over a dinner at the host's home.  Cliques are discouraged and you are polite to and inclusive with even the  people you don't particularly get along with.

When I immigrated here, it was shocking to me that while my neighbors and other acquaintances would attend meals at our home - there was no reciprocity or even acknowledgement the next time they met us.  I had to make a decision about how I would engage with them going forward.  The easiest thing is to go out for a meal with them and everyone pays for their own meal.  I have three types of friends now - a) group of friends or individuals, from my own culture who will attend and host parties and will show up if we need help, b) Americans (usually individuals) that I am close to and we meet periodically taking turns to treat each other and c) acquaintances that I will host on a low budget/low effort event, or arrange group outings for them.

The burden to host the "c" group is always on me.  I do it with compassion because that is how they are socialized.
The reality is that living in the US is hard. No one has the bandwidth, money, time, manners, skills, EQ to host or spend time on making friendships.  And yes, I too have observed that either you are part of a drinking culture and have partying friends or not.  This is not true of my culture. You will serve drinks to your guests (even if you don't drink) if it is an occasion where alcohol can be served.   If it is a religious kind of event - no booze will be served. [/quote]

[b]Do you get the impression that people here even want to make friends?[/b]

I’d love to make friends in my area but I feel like people are very standoffish and only want to hang with their own families. Time seems to be spent driving kids around or going on vacations.

I hate that I’ll likely live another decade without any friends besides my spouse, but I can’t make someone be friends with me. I’ve more or less given up. [/quote]

I think most people here have FOMO that they don't have friends, family, social network, parties to attend, groups to hang out with during holidays etc.  But, they also don't want to do the hard work of making friends, being open minded, participating, showing up for others or inconveniencing themselves. People lack manners and patience.  They are not accepting of others.

Most do not want to spend money on others to host them, most cannot clean up their homes to invite people, most homes are not set up to host, most do not know how to organize get-togethers, most do not know how to cook, [b]most people are awkward, most people have dysfunctional households[/b], most don't know how to be good hosts and good guests.   When it comes to married couples without kids - I have often seen that one person in the realtionship clearly shows that they are unhappy to be attending parties etc. There is always a  strongly anti-social and rude partner among couples.  Are they all medicated?

[/quote]

Gee, I wonder why you can’t make friends.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics