Anonymous wrote:I am a good friend to others, I just have a hard time breaking into the friendship. At my kids stuff I don’t talk to other families and it’s because I’m shy and I think that comes off as unapproachable which I hate. How do you all make an effort to talk to others without coming across as a busybody? I stay in my lane. I am the type of friend who would give you the shirt off my back, hate gossips, don’t keep score, etc just find it incredibly difficult since we moved here 3 years ago to meet people. Husband is always gone for work. It’s incredibly lonely since I only have my long distance friends to visit.

I'm like this too. I've just lived here long enough that I've slowly, slowly developed a few very close friendships over time. It takes a lot of repeat interactions for me.

Anonymous wrote:I was always very good at making and maintaining friends but that has changed in the past decade. Part of that is DC - so many transient people here, so much busyness... Part is my workplace. I was targeted by a queen bee soon after starting and that person poisoned a lot of people against me. More than once, I thought someone was a friend and later found out the we’re talking about me behind my back. It has made me much more protective and insecure.

We need to do a spin off thread on how to get some honey out of these beehives everyone keeps talking about!

Anonymous wrote:I make "friendly acquaintances" very easily - I'm easy-going, friendly, genuinely interested in most people I meet, and can carry a conversation. But I suck at the follow-through, and therefore suck at turning friendly acquaintances into actual friends.

I used to be this way, i actually had to tone down the friendliness because I didn’t want to be hurtful because of my flaws. Now I tell people that I’m horrible at follow through but if they reach out I will remember and it is never too late. That makes it easy when I finally get a chance to reach out even months later.

I met a young lady at the wharf that worked as a crew member on one of the yachts. She was young and very sweet, we had one conversation, and have texted through the past two years with encouragement and random things here or there. Nothing huge but is a genuine connection. It is more of a mentoring type of dynamic given our age difference but for me that was something I always struggled with.

Social media and the digital age makes it easier to stay connected now than it did before, which is helpful for the follow up even if it is long overdue.

Anonymous wrote:I think this is what has helped me:

Having a genuine interest in other people
Being positive and lighthearted. Like to have fun and want others to have fun as well
Being generous and unselfish
Try to find something in common with others
Treating everyone the same and as an equal no better or worse

Ah- this is what struck me reading this. The genuine interest in other people. Around here, so many people want larla or larlo with the right friend- then you have the parent who sizes you up and doesn't want to either be with you or that larlo or larla would not do well. Then you have the friends who can't control who their kids want to be friends with and try to control that situation (had a mom who knows my kids are beasties but doesn't want my kid who plays baseball well to be with her kid who is baseball 24/7.. and even lies to me about what her kids do to I guess avoid telling me he this?)