Fluffybunny: Have you considered trying to hang out more with these acquaintances? It doesn't sound like an awkward meeting to me; it sounds like a foot in the door to a social network. Just force yourself to do it and focus on accomplishing a new goal, always: Start with being able to comment on things and laugh at jokes. Basic interaction. Then work on actual conversation and body language. Just keep working at it. If I can do it, so can you.
Caesium said:
It is too late. Life will pass people like us by, and we're going to be lonely forever. We may just as well have never existed.
That's kind of a cop-out. An easy way to blame the world for your problems and unwittingly settle in to the murky, deceitful comfort of loneliness and anguish. I know this because I said similar things when I was 16-19; I'm too different to ever have friends, no one will ever like me, I'll always be a loner, etc.
Until I said 'no more'.
My family moved up to Idaho from California, so obviously I came with them being dependent at the time. The cards could not possibly have been stacked more against me:
-I had crippling shyness and self loathing; cried myself to sleep at night, etc.
-I knew -nobody- up here in Nowhere, Idaho.
-The only thing Idahoans hate more than anti-gun people is Californians. I mean, I can't really blame them, California sucks. But the point still stands against me.
It sort of played in to my career plans anyway, but it's something anybody can pretty much do: I joined a volunteer organization of people with the same interest as me. In my case it was a volunteer fire district, which stacked another card against me: Fire people are the -exact opposite- of shy and timid. They weren't mean to me at all, but for the first year I really wasn't part of the group because I simply had no social presence. I hardly talked, even.
It was hard going but over the course of a year -a bitter, painful, frustrating year-, I busted through my shell and realized "Wow, why would I ever think like that? I would have been lonely forever and never achieved my career goals."
They're all a good bit older than me, but I now have a fair network of friends amongst the most unlikely people ever. Did I have to change? Yes. I had to learn to communicate, socialize, make small talk and express myself after many years of isolation, and a lifetime of being ostracized in school before that. I learned to laugh and tell a joke, learned to talk about how I've been. But I did it, and so can anyone else who is motivated to do so. Find your niche. Go to your newspapers, your local craigslist, or better yet try
www.meetup.com (ITS FREE! Unless you start a group of your own) for groups of people with similar interests. But find some people to hang out with and dammit, just do it. You'll be shy and quiet at first, but keep at it and you'll **** sure figure it out. Ask questions. Laugh at jokes. Watch how others communicate and interact, and you can ease in to it. Soon you too will have a network of friends, and from there, the possibilities are endless.
I never thought I could possibly be 'one of the guys'. I mean, I don't even drink beer or go to bars.
I'm still making progress. It's a long road. My next obstacle is to be able to actually date women, or go to my grave having at least tried, because I'd feel pretty shitty if my last dying thought was "Gee, I wish I hadn't wallowed in self pity my whole life."
Sorry if I sound critical Caesium, but you can't let yourself get sucked in to that pit. Life hasn't passed us by till we're dead and rotting. It's just a matter of finding the right spot to hop on the train.
