Even as a young girl I was very good at making friends. I would seek out interesting people, people unlike me sometimes, and I would talk to them. Looking back, I wanted to learn from them – about their hobbies, their lives, their opinions.
However. There was always someone jealous of me. There are a select few people I remember in my life who would demean me, mock me or, as I began dating, guilt me.
The thing about making friends is that it takes time. And in the instant-gratification/doom-scrolling/over stimulative world that we live in now, that’s difficult to do. Many times have people called me boring because I wasn’t constantly entertaining and in the moment that they see me, maybe I am. Maybe I’m reading a book or playing a farming game. Maybe I’m just meditating. I’m not always spitting out jokes or saying something crazy. But the thing is, those same people will complain when they aren’t invited to the “exciting” parts.
You can’t call me boring then expect me to invite you places.
You need to be patient. That’s a two way street. They need to be patient with you, and you need to be patient with them. You aren’t the center of their world. You are a side character. Possibly even an NPC (perish the thought).
Keeping Friends
When I was young, friendship was all that I had, and it consumed me. I would bend over backwards and flay myself alive just to keep a friend.
Mommy issues.
My family always called me a doormat or spineless when I was a teen because I “let” people… what, take advantage of me? What did I have to take? Time? I was happy to give my time to people who actually valued me, even if they were a little mean to me.
I supposed the thing about me is, after being verbally abused and attacked for 19+ years, some random calling me a bitch online really doesn’t bother me. I will most likely never encounter that person again also, so why would I waste my breath?
Imagine you spend your childhood with a sharp stick jabbing you in the heart over and over. When you grow up, you manage to pull the stick out and while the wound doesn’t heal, it stops hurting. From then on, surface level pain doesn’t hurt so much because you spent 19 years in heartache, and anything is better than that.
Anyway. Eventually I “grew a spine” and my family was surprised to be cut out of my life.
I used to have a friend who would talk down to me a lot, but I kept her as a friend because it’s rare for me to find a female friend that I got along with. She would invite me to play a game, play the game before me, then talk down to me when I didn’t know how to play.
Like… Huh?
I remember one time we played a game together and I was attempting to use a shop. She kept lighting both me and the shop keeper on fire, pushing me out of the shop menu. I asked her to stop multiple times and she just… wouldn’t. That was the beginning of the decline of our friendship.
At some point, she met someone on a video game and let that become her world. She abandoned all her other internet friends and fixated on that game and that person. I would attempt to talk to her and she would shut me down. Eventually we stopped talking. I was happy to let the connection sever.
Back to Making Friends
Listening is one of the best fertilizers for a friendship. Remembering is just behind it. I grew up in a family of 9 siblings, 6 of which I lived with at one time. I spent a LOT of time listening and remembering. The thing about my family was that they did not discuss…. typical? things like kids, school, work. They were always scientific or philosophical and would drone on and on about the most random things. I remember one time I added salt to a pot of boiling water and it set off a TWO AND A HALF HOUR discussion on whether or not adding salt to a pot makes it boil faster.
And forget game nights. If there was a rule book, someone had to be in charge of it. Almost every session we played there was at least one argument about the rules because, “Well THIS word means THIS unless the author means THIS.”
UGH!!!!!!!!!!
I think family game nights is where I first learned to meditate.
Anyway, lol, I’ve never been one to care about kids or family because of this. The idea of talking about a day of answering emails or what extra curricular activities the kids are in kills me, and thus I looked very rude to a lot of families I had dinner with. So when someone starts talking about drama at work or their kids third cavity, my eyes glaze over.
I also used to have a hard time censoring myself for certain situations, mostly family situations. When you’ve spent your life being abused, no one wants to hear about your family, and when you read violent books and play violent games (and speak like you’re a kid learning curse words for the first time), people don’t want to hear about those things.
I remember I described the details of a book I read to a cousin-in-law.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
I looked at him and smiled, “It’s a book about mutant spiders that only impregnate men.” and the look on his face! I don’t think he’s ever asked me that again.
My inability to come up with regular small-talk makes finding like minded friends a challenge for me. I make a lot of sexual or dark jokes and that’s a problem for a good majority of people on the internet (mostly the sexual, the internet is a cess pool for dark humor).
I recently came across a streamer who banned the word ‘crazy’ from his chat because of the use of it being derogatory towards the mentally ill. Imagine him hearing me talk about spider legs coming out of asses or snakes going into buttholes (if ya know ya know, am I right?) or even my own mental illnesses.
I do my best to ask open ended questions now (what keeps you busy?), and I keep the darker jokes to my own house (suicide forest for snails?) Due to my pot smoking I have a horrible memory, so I need a little help when it comes to asking about daily life.
Another aspect of making friends is forgiveness. People make mistakes. They’re human. Put yourself in their shoes.
My life revolves around my discord community and my stream. That’s not a lot. Other people have jobs, families, hobbies, responsibilities. It’s understandable that things get lost in the fray. I don’t take it personally when someone is too tired to hang out or they forget to install a game.
The last thing I’ll talk about (because this is a lot) is honesty.
There was a girl in my community who used to drive me up the wall. We would play Dead by Daylight and ANY time there was a Leatherface, she would disconnect IMMEDIATELY.
This was back when disconnecting left 3 people in the group – no bots. So it was basically a death sentence for the remaining 3. And she would DC
EVERY.
TIME.
So eventually I told her, hey you’re seriously fucking us over because of this. You’ve got to stop or you can’t join us.
The next time we get a Leatherface she gets hooked and SHOUTS at us – literally SHOUTS over the mic – to get her off the hook or she will disconnect. All because she didn’t want to die to a Leatherface.
I cut her off there and didn’t play with her for a long time. Then she starts coming around my stream again and asks to join my lobbies. BUT. She wants to be in voice chat every time and that’s just not my bag. My social battery plummets to empty when someone forces me to talk to them.
Eventually I caved and we did Kill Your Friends with her, her friend, me and two of my friends.
Ugh.
She plays The Spirit – which is a Japanese killer – and puts on her school girl uniform cosmetic. The match starts and all she does is tunnel her friend yelling, “SENPAI, SENPAI, SENPAI!!! NOTICE ME!!!” and other cringey things like that. And she DOMINATED the voice chat with this bullshit so no one else could hear each other.
Cut off! I didn’t tell her she was kind of racist, but I did tell her I won’t be joining voice with her anymore and she hasn’t come by the community since.
CLOSING REMARKS
I’ve talked a lot and I could still say more.
I enjoy talking to people, on my own terms. I enjoy group settings where I can fade into the background and listen in on everybody else.
I wish people wouldn’t guilt me for being good at making friends.
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