Stole it off of reddit
Two weeks ago, I saw the loner at the table of an event. Went to go talk to them because they were alone for a while.
In less than 10 minutes, they made a offensive joke that would have insulted half the people here, and complained about their living situation unprompted.
The guy made a comment about women and minorities about if I was just trying to meet a DEI quota.
He said this to me, a person of color, at a tech event where according to the census, 60% of Engineers are white.
Maybe he is a want to be racist. Not actually racist enough to avoid you but racist enough to make nasty jokes.
IDK man, the people with no or few friends tend to be weird but not really bad in any meaningful way: socially awkward, shy, odd interests, neurodivergent etc. Difficult to get to know, plain and simple. People with a lot of friends are often worse people, manipulative and/or have a transactional attitude to relationships
Idk man, the people with no friends and the people with a lot of friends and even the people with a middle amount of friends seem to follow a standard distribution of personalities.
Some awkward people and some charismatic people just suck. Some awkward people and some charismatic people are awesome. But most of all, people are just kinda shades of in-between.
The people with no or few friends tend to be weird but not really bad in any meaningful way: socially awkward, shy, odd interests, neurodivergent etc. Difficult to get to know, plain and simple.
*Raises hand*
When I was in high school there was only one kid with no friends and he was racist
There were probably others with no friends who just had social anxiety. You probably didn’t notice because they just blended into the background and didn’t stand out much.
Yeah I’d like to think I’m not a bad person. I just have intense social anxiety. The only way I’ve made friends are when chatty people tend to talk to me and invite me to things. I’ve always appreciated when people do this, but then I just don’t retain the friendship when I or they have moved across the country or when we’ve moved into different life stages (ex: graduating from high school or college or changing jobs). I’m fortunate enough to have a friend now who is just nice and talks to me. Prior to that I didn’t have anyone for a while outside of my online friends. Some of us are really just terrified of other human beings is all.
Part of this is that I have always an intense paranoia of appearing too clingy, so I never invite anyone else out to do things. Notice how one of the commenters said they broke off a friendship because the other person was too clingy. Well I just break it off first by never engaging because I don’t want them to think I’m too clingy or weird. Even now with the one friend I have I fear that I text too much or bother them too much or things like that. I try to limit myself and leave them alone but I never know where the line is between never speaking and between speaking too much.
So I just chill alone I guess.
Hey some of us are autists that somehow evaded a diagnosis and therefore any kind of supportive treatment or therapy. We’re doing our best OK?
I tried to befriend a friendless dude in college. Found out he was friendless because he went around asking women what their “cunt diameter” was. Even women professors!
How did he not get kicked out for that? If not for sexual harassment, at least for failing to get IRB approval!
I used to be the guy that knew everyone, introducing my friends to others, and others to others.
These days, I have maybe 2 friends.
The good friends I once had believe everything they see on Facebook.
I just couldn’t anymore.
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. Probably childhood abandonment, abuse, and neglect.
My poor mom tried, she really did. She was abandoned, abused, and neglected too. A lot of things that would have seemed absurd to a healthy person were normal for her so she tolerated a lot and expected a lot. She suffered so much as a kid that whatever idea she had about family, she was sticking to.
I have no close friends and I LOVE it that way. I wish I didn’t.
Being alone is my favorite way to be. I can’t move in any direction in life because of it. Fortunately my wife wants me to be a stay at home dad. She isn’t crippled like I am and she loves me anyway, thank goodness.
You are at least fortunate enough to have the type of love only your wife could give.
Everyone is broken in some way.
Some want to break others because of it. Some want to comfort the broken.
Your life is yours to live. You have someone who, it sounds, respects that. That’s more than many could ever wish to have.