Why is it hard to find good friends

Hi every one,I have lived in a small town that was a mill town.
I have lived here for 10 years now, and I have to say I dont have any friends.
Is it just me! or is it that bad, in the real world.
I had to do jury duty the other day and during the two days of the trial, I had met this nice lady.
She is married and has two kids and there grown and left home she is a home maker.
Anyway we hit it off great, we talk about a lot of things I told her that i was gay and I have a partner and we been together for 14 years. I told her that we didn't have any friends.
The woman told me she had no problems with gay people and neither did her husband.
Anyway after the trial, I was walking her to her car and she said to me, why dont we exchange phone numbers, I wrote down my phone number and gave it to her
she wrote her number down but didnt give it to me yet, she was holding it in her hand.
Then I told her a story how my partner and I had to clean up a bad drug problem
in front of our house some years back I told her we used video camras and recorded the crimes, and had the people who where selling drugs arrested and so on, but we did get these drug dealers off of our street.
As i was telling this story I notice the woman acted like she was looking for something in her car then I notice the phone number that was in her hand was gone.
I barely took my eyes off of her, we where about to part our ways when I ask her,
you didnt give me your phone number.
She said yes I did you must have lost it! I told her that I didnt get the pice of paper, I even recheck my pockets but I didnt have it.
I thought she was acting a little strange over the phone number. So I said no big deal, just rewrite it down again and give it to me She did, then we said our good byes and we parted. Well today I call her phone number and guess what! its no good.
I feel hurt I just dont know what I did!
I'll get over it, but I must have struck a nerve when I was talking about cleaning up the drugs. Now I wonder if she or a member in her faimly had a drug problem
and thought I was a threat I just dont know, and I will never know now!
Now I am still with out a friend.
So I thought I would share this.
What I want to know is this is it hard for everyone to meet people and to make
friends or is it just me!! or is it that we dont trust people any more and want nothing to do with anyone.

[edit on 30-6-2006 by cashlink]

this sounds fake to me i dont know why

Originally posted by Swatman
this sounds fake to me i dont know why

what my post or cashlink's?

cashlinks post im talking about

swatman I have no idear what you are talking about .
What do you mean?

im saying, your story seems too fake.. i mean you tell her all this stuff like the drug thing and you hardly know her. If it is true, however, dont worry about her, if she was turned off by your story, then you dont need someone like her in your life as a friend... try some bars

I figerd what you ment Swatman.
My post is for real, this really happened to me.

Thank you Swatman for your post.
been to the bars that the last place you will find a friend.

Maybe you are to open, us humans take innocence and vulnerability.

Well least you found out it was a dud number instead of waiting around for her to call. Think of the positive.

Maybe you struck a nerve maybe she just wanted to go home and was saying thanks for today but this is it... sorta thing. ((which i think is very rude))

You don't need friends to survive. You need yourself. You shouldn't be looking for friends, friends fall in your lap and then you can never get rid, like a birthmark.

It seems you desperately want someone you can confide it, but you need to ensure they are trust worthy.

All friends you need to feel they will be there for you till your dying day. But people can easy change. So choose careful.

Be yourself and people will class you as a friend for you and your honesty, but asses them so you know you can trust them with your life.

This is my advice i hope it helps.

Oni x x

Thank you Onixx for your post I really like what you had to say.
Yes, your post dose helps.

what about my posts...I helped too...

Originally posted by surrender_dorothy
you do know that you have a friend in jesus don't you?

I am jesus.

... no your not, I'm Jesus.

But I forgive you.


I would not worry about seeking friends out Cashlink, you may leave yourself vulnerable to people taking advantage of your openess and friendliness.

Are you even sure the people in the town where you live would make suitable friends? Do you share common interests with them? Do you feel a mutual comfort in their company?

You'd probably find you would make more friends travelling outside of the community you live and meet more people that way.

yea no worries, it seems that some people in the world never give a care about feelings of other people and then they always are thinking of themselves, so mind your own feelings but always rememeber people first, and soon enough you can find friends somewhere some how.....

Originally posted by Creeping Jesus

Originally posted by surrender_dorothy
you do know that you have a friend in jesus don't you?

I am jesus.

... no your not, I'm Jesus.

But I forgive you.


I would not worry about seeking friends out Cashlink, you may leave yourself vulnerable to people taking advantage of your openess and friendliness.

Are you even sure the people in the town where you live would make suitable friends? Do you share common interests with them? Do you feel a mutual comfort in their company?

You'd probably find you would make more friends travelling outside of the community you live and meet more people that way.

I belive you are right, the people that live in my neighborhood, are whats left of the old mill workers. The mills have been closed for over 10 years now.
The education level is very low here. To give you an idear how bad it is here, the biggest money makeing store here is WalMart! We have a lot of renters in our neighborhood, they come and go no one stays long. I haven't found anyone
that has any interest in anything around here.

Originally posted by surrender_dorothy
what about my posts...I helped too...

Yes your post has help and thank you for posting.

try the internet, some people find the best of friends on the internet, just be careful of the fakes.

there will be some people who will love you for what you are, these are some of the best friends, just make sure they influence you to become a better person, not a worse one.

try looking for friends with similar interest, some parents and child do not like each other but they can still bond when they talk about their common interest.

Cashlink,

I know the sort of thing you're posting about. I knew it was true the second I read that.

I've driven people away (particularly females, even with no sexual tension present) with some innocuous story that set of their alarm bells.

My wife calls that syndrome "too close to fast."

She says that anyone, particularly a male, who self-reveals too much info too quickly, is frequently a predator of some kind that women are trained by hard experience to be wary of.

It is probably less what you said, than how much detail you were giving about your life; she may have felt like you expected her to self-reveal to the same level, and that she was not ready, and felt embarrased for holding back.

(my wife is sitting here, and agreed with what I just wrote).

I think it's less a pronouncement on whether or not you are an acceptable friend, than it is about how socially nervous the preson was.

I suspect that, like me, you are quite a conversationalist.

That can intimidate some people.

Try not to take it personally, and practice making sure that you don't "monopolize" the conversation. Not that you are, but that would be my problem if this had happened to me.

Just a suggestion, meant to help.

.

dr_strangecraft I really like what you wrote. I believe you have me pegged right.
Your right, I am quite the conversationalist ,some time never know when to shut up! its funny though I am in my late 40s and I didn't know about woman like that just goes to show me, I still learn something new every day.
I will take your advice and " TRY" not to reveal to much. lol

I'll tell you something else frau Dr. says, every time we are walking in to a dinner party:


"Remember, dear; everyone loves a good listener"


Meaning that everyone else feels the same way you have mentioned in this thread; that it's hard to find friends. The thing which most people instinctively look for is someone who will listen to them as they reveal bits of their own lives.

If you seem a bit quiet and intriguing, yet still connected with the conversation, people will start talking with you to try and figure out what your deal is.

Applying this to dinner parties, Frau Dr. says "don't label yourself." Avoid describing yourself as "I'm a ( political / religious / sexual choice / hobbyist )" because it takes the fun out of people figuring you out.

For instance. If, when offered some ors d'ouvres, I say "No thanks, I'm a Vegan," then the host feels awkward, and people who have a negative stereotype of vegans will put me in that pigeon-hole and leave me there.

If I say, "Thank you, but I'm not eating meat products this evening" then someone will ask why? For religious or nutritional reasons? And then I can tell them about WHY I'm a vegan, which is more interesting anyway.

And then when I have a psychological NEED to self-reveal, I can come on ATS and tell you that I'm actually a commited Carnivore, and I just told them I don't eat meat because the hors douvres were just bits of oscar meyer boloney smeared with cream cheese on a ritz cracker. . . .


Speaking of which, cashlink,

I'm curious how many social events you go to. That's the best way to meet interesting people. Especially volunteering for civic organizations. I served on a library board, which in and of itself was pretty lame (other than saving our local library), but it got me regular tickets to the symphony.

Art openings, Theatre openings, concert pre-parties, even church groups . . .

When I met Frau Dr., she was a "friend of the ____ and ______ Museum" in our city. She was always being invited to the opening of some exhibit. She'd steer us by there, load us up on complementary champaigne, and then take a cab to the symphony or some private party or whatever. The thing was, we met a group of people doing exactly the same thing. Very "sex and the city."

She was a member of a museum ($50 a year), A museum in a nearby city ($30 a year) and a "patroness of the symphony" ($65 a year). Sounds like a lot of money, but it gets you in to about one "pre-something party" a month. Which is enough to keep you and your companion in champaigne and hors d'ouvres all year, and meeting exciting new people.

You can even do that if you live in a rural area. If you live within a 2 hour drive of a mid-size city, you can still do this sort of think once a month, and meet some kewl people.

We're having a fourth of July party tonight, and I've been smoking the Brisket since Sunday. We've invited several other couples, because you can see the fireworks over town from the little hillock in our back yard. . . . what time can we expect y'all?