I need to get out and make more friends.

[Metalhead]

I had two close local friends who hung out with me on a weekly basis. One of them is now dead, and the other one has been taking care of his mother who just had a kidney transplant. No friends are hanging with me these days. Of course, I also have my close friends in Michigan, but that is too far to commute.

Should I wallow in self pity and self defeating behavior?

Forget that noise, I shall be saying.

I need to get out more because people are not going to just show up at my doorstep.

 

[Aspychata]

Didn't realize you had lost two friends. I still text daily with a close friend in another state. Sad l can't see her. We get along well.

 

[tree]

 

[stevens]

Should I wallow in self pity and self defeating behavior?

Hopefully that's not the only remaining option. I'm not so sure myself. After I retired, my world kept shrinking. It's not for lack of effort. Volunteering was like going back to high school (don't work for free, I decided). At least the social part was predictably non-functional. And then my former colleagues disappeared, despite my ongoing efforts. That's unfortunate, because my long-term work was also associated with my special interest, so it was especially difficult. I'm down to one regular contact that has historical context.

I've been in a few autism support groups. That is one has been a promising avenue, but for people my age they are difficult to find.

I'm always amazed at "normie" people who have friend groups that go back decades.

 

[Judge]

I gave up the last person I truly called a friend. We both were contemplating moving away, but deaths in our families dictated for one of us to leave the state and the other to remain there. And I was the one to leave, primarily for economical reasons. Couldn't make my capital stretch in California as I could in Nevada, or other places.

It was my choice to slowly stop communicating by email. I gave up on romance a few years before that, so looking back it doesn't surprise me that I gave up a last friend as well. Though had we lived in close proximity I think we'd still have been good friends. Maybe even business partners. But he had a wife and family to consider at that point as well. I didn't.

Work and other circumstances have always intervened to end with the few good friendships I had as an adult. All I have left is a tenuous relationship between my brother and a second cousin.

And yet on a day-to-day basis, for the most part I'm ok with it all. Go figure.

 

[Lemon Zing]

Same here. I am tired of forums and whatnot.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

Same here. I am tired of forums and whatnot.

At least these forums are safer and much nicer. I can't say that for actual people outside.

 

[Aspychata]

There are a lot more cliques of people in workplaces, l pick up on this a lot these days. I think groups of people can be abusive and sadistic, it's just that nobody talks about it. Look at all the random attacks on the homeless, and so on. I try to be open-minded, but l have seen alot in my life-time. And this can happen at any socioeconomic level, or any place, nonprofit, for profit, state or federal office. So it may not be you, just a sign of the times. I actually met really nice people in California. Florida has been the complete opposite for me.

 

[Masaniello]

It's good you have identified the problem and are willing to take action.