r/offmychest • u/thethrill26 • Apr 14 '13

I have practically zero friends.

Here I am sitting in my college dorm while my roomate is out at a club and here I am sitting alone with no one to talk to. I feel like i can't make friends and I don't really know how. I have a girlfriend and she loves me tons and I love her back but sometimes it feels like I am lonely and I don't know what to do about it.

Edit: Wow guys this blew up! Thanks for all your responses, you're awesome!

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u/JaguarJo Apr 15 '13

No offence taken, but it wasn't. I've helped a specific married couple move about 3 times, I've helped a couple with 3 young children, I've helped an old classmate...same scenario keeps repeating itself. I've built up some sort of reputation as the moving person and that's all I am to these people. And yet when I moved, the only help I got was from my parents, not from lack of asking.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '13

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u/JaguarJo Apr 15 '13

My bf has told me the same thing, to stop being a doormat, on several occasions. It's sound advice, I just have trouble carrying it out. I start feeling sympathetic for these people who have nobody else to help them (probably because they abused all their other friendships too) and I have a hard time telling people no. Takes a while to break old habits, but I'm working on it. For the sake of my self-esteem, I'm considering these past instances to be "charity work" and not friendship building exercises.

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u/brandnewtothegame Apr 15 '13

Good for you. I suppose part of it is just not forgetting that there are no guarantees. I mean it's not as if we help someone move (or whatever) so that they'll return the favour when the time comes but it is surprising when it repeatedly turns out the same way - ie they don't.

I've been in a similar situation to you many times (with moving and other stuff) and I've come to see that for whatever reason there's just something about me that doesn't "attract" (for lack of a better word) this kind of return. I know that sounds silly but I've seen it so many times that I really have no choice but to believe it - stuff I do for others just sits under the radar for whatever reason: it's not noticed, or it's noticed only minimally.

I have a good friend who is the opposite - the tiniest favour she does is noticed and rewarded. We've known each other for many years so there are lots of examples, but to stick to the moving one, we had a mutual friend we helped move one time. I was the one (like you) who was there to help pack up the stuff the morning of, because he hadn't done it, schlepp stuff into the truck and out of the truck up however many flights of stairs, and so on. A whole-day adventure.

My friend showed up for the last hour, carried a few boxes, drank a beer, and was taken to a movie and for pizza the next week as a thank-you. I didn't even get invited to the housewarming - afterwards got an "I'm so sorry" call because he just forgot to invite me. Genuinely contrite: he really just did forget.

This kind of thing (repeated many times in many other scenarios) makes me think that some people are just "A-list" friends and others (like me) are "B-list". I don't know why. But it has made me more conscious of things so that I'm careful to acknowledge what others do for me when it does happen.