Reply to Both my husband and I have no friends

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  To clarify, DH has zero friends and has not made a new friend in 20 years.

I have a few acquaintances and one friend, but I want more friends and the friends/acquintances I have aren't good or great friends and we don't get together often (not my choice). It's more that no one really ever thinks of me or invites me to do anything.

I am a great listener and so is my husband.  In fact, I often get told by new potential friends what a great listener I am.  As an example, I went out for coffee with one lady who I met at a meetup group a few months ago, and at the end she said that I was such a good listener that I now knew more about her than her best friend does.  Not sure what she meant by that exactly, but as is the usual pattern, she didn't contact me again or try to keep in touch, but when I invited her out for a walk three months later, she readily accepted.  However the friendship has not really bloomed yet.

I have found that joining meetup groups meant for newcomers is the best way to meet new people who are actually looking for friends, so I have been doing that for years, but with little success.

Here is the usual pattern I seem to have in trying to make friends, please tell me what I'm doing wrong here.  I have made some acquaintances from these meetup groups but they haven't moved into the friend category yet.  They're ladies who are new to the area and they are looking for friends. I meet them at a meetup event and I invite them to meet up for coffee, and the outing goes well, but then I don't hear from them again.

So then I might invite them another time and we meetup two or three times a year but they seem to have no interest in texting or keeping in touch in between meetups, and that's the part that I find most frustrating.  I feel like I try to keep in touch with them by texting for a few weeks or months, but find that I'm putting in all the effort to text and say, "hi, how is your day going" or "how was your weekend" and the relationship seems one sided, so I stop trying, and then I don't hear from them again and they don't invite me to do anything.  So it's like all my potential new friendships stall.  I find it really hard to figure out how to grow the friendship in these situations.

[/quote]

It’s possible that you are being such a “good listener” that you are making the other person feel like they need to dominate the conversation or there would be awkward pauses.  They may feel that they are trying to open up with you but not getting anything back but a wall.

Truth is none of us can say for sure because we weren’t there but I don’t think this is solely about needing to host more or initiate. I think something else is going on in terms of the vibe you and your husband are giving off for you to have had so many interpersonal struggles for so long.[/quote]

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