Low quality social life

What steps do you think will help you develop a better social life?

 

I wish you all the best. I'm on the autistic spectrum so I know how difficult it can be to make friends, before I went to church I was a complete mess friendwise. Perhaps it still is, I don't really hang out with too many people just occasionally at home doing nothing really. Im content with the way things are, have never really been a social butterfly but it is nice to get out of the house once in a while.

 

Start slow.
You can set 2 days out of 7 in a week to go out. This way you will not get tired and you will slowly start coming out of your shell.

You can find better friends. Join a reading club or something. Ideas are limitless. A quick Google search will give you tens of different ideas.

 

The key is to keep your circle small and tight. My dad told me a long time ago that one of the best things he has done is to keep the number of his real friends less than the 10 fingers on his hand. I didn't really understand that until recent years. You don't need a whole bunch of friends or have to want everyone to be your friend. But if that's the type of person you are, go for it! Just learn how to filter out people who are actually compatible, but challenge you (in a good way), and those who are low quality and don't provide any benefit in your life and vice-versa. Having a few close friends is all I really need and what most people probably need.

Along with this, having only a few close friends that can make you happy and push you forward in life gives you a lot more time to focus internally on what you need out of life to be happy and to succeed. What's better for someone struggling in life: having a million friends and being at a low point in life or a few great friends who push you forward at a low point in life? I think the choice is pretty clear.

I came across this channel "SPIRITUAL So" not too long ago. And I really like this video in particular because it helps get my point across effectively. It's actually the video that came to mind as I read through your post.

 

I think i’m going to a similar situation. At the same time that I wanna make new friends, I don’t. It’s really confusing. I have just a few friends, but they are not really close to me. It’s just some people that i made friendships at work, or in college.
It’s really hard to go out with them, because I lost contacts with some of them after changing work, and they just hang with their other friends.
I really wanna make them closer friends, but every time I think Im the only one calling up to them, they never look for me. Just one, but we only exchange massegers. By the way i’m really shy, and anxious, so that difficult things.
My goal is to make new friends with girls, I think I don’t have any. :/

 

Okay, so you wish to start going out of your comfort zone and finding new friends? That's good.
And you want to be a better person and do things that are more fulfilling and beneficial for yourself? Absolutely wonderful!

And I'm sure that drinking and going to parties less often is a great way to get the energy required to accomplish these things. That and a certain level of good old self-discipline.

However the question about wether or not you should cut out your current friendships, in which partying is usually involved, is the question I'll try to answer.

First of all to me it seems like you blame your friends for your hedonistic lifestyle and thus for the fact that your life has been going a downhill. Stop that. Right now. The first rule of having power over your own life is to take responsibility for your actions. Did they drag you to the parties against your own will? Did they force you to drink? No, you did that to yourself. Whatever your reasonings might have been at the time, it was all you. Accept that and then we can move on.

It appears to be that you don't have anything against your friends as people, but rather the fact that you end up drinking and partying with them. You need to ask yourself if you would like to have them around in your life if you didn't have to ruin your own life for it to happen. If your answe is no, you can stop reading this and just forget about those friends. What good are friends if you don't really want them in your life? If the answer is yes, that should be your first and foremost goal.

Now the part about not ruining your life is easy. We agreed a couple of moments ago that you were the one responsible for your life all along. Now we are going to use the power you gain from taking responsibility. You will decide that no matter what happens, you wont drink and party any more than you have deemed healthy and good for yourself. Wether you want to go total absolutist or just drink less is up to your own judgement. Nevertheless you'll decide what your personal boundaries are and then stick to them no matter what happens.

The part about keeping those things might be a little bit more tricky, because you don't have absolute control over that. You need to decide if you're okay with just partying with them less often or partying with them without getting drunk yourself. If you decide to go one of these routes, your friends will propably tease you about it, but as long as they can accept your life choices and you can take the teasing with humor, you should be okay. If these solutions don't fit your higher goals, you'll need something else to do with these friends in order to keep them in your life. The tough part is that you are going to need to be the one to initiate something that you could do together. This is where we return to what we talked about earlier. You are directly responsible for shit that goes on in your life. You can't just wait and see if someone else just happens to conveniently fill all your wishes for you. Come up with something fun to do and suggest it to your friends. You can tell them that you're tired of just drinking every time you meet or you can leave that out and try to be more discreet about that if you want to. It's possible that they just don't understand that they could have fun without alcohol and in that case you'll have to accept that maybe you weren't meant to be anymore, but on the other hand you could find a new way to have great time with these them and your friendsip could develop a lot.

But hey, that's just my two cents on the matter. You don't always need to cut losers off your life in order to develop. Sometimes you can take those losers with you on your way to greatness.

 

One thing I've realised is that even people whom sometimes id feel were bad for me ( always negative or downer) have their days to shine. Also, how I perceive others and connect with them is often a reflection of how I'm feeling. Though its often a good rule of thumb to limit or avoid people who don't bring positives into your life, there are still benefits. Sometimes any interaction is good.

 

I think in order to figure out wether you're being paranoid or if your will isn't yet strong enough to take the bad influences, you should at least try balancing your life between keeping these friends and developing yourself. You can't know what your boundaries and weaknesses are if you always shy away from danger.

Alternatively you could have a break from these friends. Try to be without them for a while and get used to your new lifegoals. When you feel your will is stronger and you're sure that this way of life is what you want, you can try to meet with your friends and see if they'll drag you right back down or if you'll be strong enough to stand your ground.

You might notice in either case that your friends are just so much against your new way of life that you can't take it or you might be suprised: they might be really supportive or try to do join you on your way to greatness or you might be able to resist the temptation to give in. Nevertheless you'll know you at least tried to fight for your friends and give them a chance instead of abandoning them. And that's important, because friendship is a pretty great thing, the importance of which you can't really comprehend before you have been close to losing it against your will or had to live without it.

 

I feel ya man. Im in my 2nd half of 30s and its been a lonely road. Since I cut out all the toxic lazy people (like you just describe you mingle with) its even more lonely, but I couldnt get back to those kind of void relationships. They are fake. People often talk behind their backs, and all of them feeling the same as you - ''how do I get out from here'' hehe well you need to become the change you want to see in others. Just stop drinking. Its pointless and it poisons your body. But its not a guarantee you will meet a tons of healthy friends. It all takes a lot of time. At least for me. I am only now slowly VERY slowly starting to meet here and there some people of better quality just like the universe is still uncertain which way I have chosen for the future me.