Friendless

[fastcar]

Alright, I am mainly writing this because I just wanna know if there is anybody in the same boat as me, or anybody who has been in the boat, and how they handled it.
So a little background: it is my senior year in high school, and I am planning on going to college and med school. My highshool experience so far has been not so ideal. My freshman year, I had a clique that I would always hang out with and we would do everything together. They started getting into drugs and hanging out with people that I didn't want others to associate me with. So I slowly left the pack. Ever since then, I haven't really had a real friend. I view myself as being socially awkward and find it hard to just talk to people. I have had two "long term" girlfriends (like a year) who I spent all my time with to kind of make up for the lack of best friend. Just recently, I broke up with my gf because she "was only dating me because her mom wanted her to", and have felt very alone. I am a 17 year old teenager who has never been to a party, tried alcohol or smoked weed. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing not to, but I feel like I am missing out from all the stories I overhear. At the beginning of the school year, my family took in a boy from a different state to give him a better opportunity. He is one year younger than me (junior) so i have been helping him adjust a lot. He is always on the phone talking to his friends who are actually planning a road trip to pick him up for a dance(they live 11 hours away). I always catch myself being full of envy towards him(and basically anyone else with friends) and I'm tired of it. I want to be a 'social butterfly" and make fun memories and lifelong friends. I just don't know how to, and I'm afraid it's too late.

Sorry I got a little carried away there, I have just been holding all of this in for a long time and acting like I'm fine and needed to get this out. Thanks for reading.

[ChrisTJ]

You are certainly not alone, I think a lot of us feel like we don't have any friends or not as many friends as we'd like. Although I have a few friends, I sometimes feel a little excluded as I don't have the same interests as many girls in my school. Many girls like sports and I'm not sporty at all. We can't really talk about music or TV as I don't watch TV that much or listen to any or the popular music. The best advice is try and find a few people you have something in common with and try and talk to them, I know it's hard. It's better to have a few friends that you get on with and have stuff in common with than to try and have loads of friends and not have time for all of them. Don't get down because you're not the centre of the social scene, sometimes just a few good friends you are close to is as good as anything :)

[Pulp501]

I didn't have any friends for a long time. In 9th grade, I made a friend who I hung out with, then in 10th grade, we got in a fight and I was back to being alone for the whole year. That year, I basically just never did anything. At school, I tried to at least talk to people, and keep myself from being a total outcast. Having no friends doesn't mean you have to be some weirdo everyone hates. I've since become friends with my friend from freshman year again, and made a few more friends through her.

[Snydergate]

I am 19 and I have lost all my great childhood friends for the same reasons you lost your clique. I have about a handful of friends now, that I see every once in a while. But not very often, I mostly spend time alone in my house. But I am a loner so I tend to like being alone for often than not, but I really do wish I had more friends, I am in college and I usually make a friend or two in class every semester or so, but we never see each other again afterward. I don't honestly know what to do about the situation either.

[Cognizant]

See my issue is with communication. I have a considerable amount of friends at school, get along with most people, and am pretty well known and while not in the popular group at school, I'd say most people approve of what they see in me. The problem is I have a disconnect with how I communicate with my friends. I've noticed that I'm always a bit awkward or have trouble making conversation with people alone or in a group. It's not that I'm intimidated by them, I just sometimes don't know what to say, and/or don't understand what makes them laugh. I rarely initiate conversations with people who I don't consider a good friend, and I'm usually just the listener in group conversations (or if I do comment, it's just something small). I don't really get involved in school events and I have never once been to a legit party at any of my years in high school (by that I mean the ones with like 100 people, loud music, drinks, etc)

I do feel bad about it, and I think it stems down to the fact that I'm scared people will disapprove of me - whether it be that they don't find my joke funny, or I'd share a certain aspect about me and they'd disapprove. So, I usually keep my mouth shut. However, if we have more in common, the more I tend to open up. So maybe you could try joining a club at your school, because y'all have at least one thing in common that you could start to build a friendship upon!

[JamesSuperBoy]

I hope college and med school will offer you opportunities to have friends but for sure school can be just groups and gangs sort.

[TheN3rdyOutcast]

I;ve been friendless many times before, usually, I pick an extracurricular class (something like Art, Home Ec, Keyboarding...) and find a group of friends whose conversation I find interesting, I sit with them, silent at first and then I slowly contribute to the conversation and they get to know me, soon, I've earned a seat at their table and I consider the whole group friends, who in turn introduce me to their friends and I've joined a whole social web.