How to connect?

Hi. I've seen posts here that pertain to making friends and after reading through them, I've realized I don't really understand why people pursue friendship, what befriending someone entails, or what I would want out of a friendship. I understand having a cordial relationship and being able to have conversations with another person as the foundation for being friends with them. I understand there is a core appeal to having friends that can offer advice, company, and the like. However, I don't know what it means to connect with someone, or how to. I must have had some sort of connection to someone at some point enough to identify what it feels like. It seems really pleasant when I imagine it. I try to have friends but I feel like it's kind of difficult to maintain and I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of our interactions even though I'm fond of them as people, think they are fun to learn about, and have shared interests with them. I don't understand why it is inordinately difficult for me to do this when everyone else has friends. It feels like I have to force myself to do it and I feel like it shouldn't be unpleasant. I would just say my primary issue is I just feel lonely and I am worried I am doomed to feel this way no matter what. I have some innate need for connection, but even when I am afforded the opportunity to interact with people who are exactly the sort of people I would like to befriend and I am able to relate to, I just can't feel how I ought to feel towards them. I should feel positively but I just don't feel anything. I am posting this here because I don't really know where else I could. I am sorry if this isn't as coherently written as it should be, or if this has already been talked about. I don't know what exactly I am looking for besides input from other people, perhaps even from someone in the same situation. This has been bothering me more than usual lately and I am trying to remain positive about it. I love all of you.

you have to stop playing it safe and get vulnerable, share your deepest most repressed scary feelings with your friends and take the risk of alienating them or making them uncomfortable and then maybe they will get vulnerable back at you with all their deepest insecurities and then you will find companionship in ways you never thought possible and learn things about yourself and actually build something through your dialogue instead of just having a series of superficial interchanges about what video games or anime or you like.

>>97469 The issue is that even though I'm an open book and let someone know all they want to, and even though I know them rather thoroughly also, I still feel isolated and like there's a barrier between us. I feel like even if we know each other as much as it's possible to, it's just not enough.

>>97487 It might not be a you problem, the entire world is kind of in a rut right now, technofascist billionaires have taken over and watered down all human communication into curated monetized superficial parasocial social media bullshit and everyone has soul sucking meaningless jobs that leave them too psychologically drained in their free time to do anything except scroll and shop and like comment and subscribe.

>or if this has already been talked about I really like what this lainon had to say, I think it should help. With my experience of relationships, I think quite the same.

>>97467 This might be a missmatch between your personal expectations of what an interaction is supposed to feel like and the actual resulting perception of it. Because what you describe sounds like dissapointment. So maybe investigate what it is that you want and also why you think you want it. Because expectations really are driving our expectations otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who didn't tire any effort to get that job or promotion, to get that expensive car or trip, to have that one sexual experience they always dreamed of, only to then end up unhappy if they do actually achieve it. It just wasn't what they imagined. And the further you are away from it the greater can be that discrepancy. Maybe the answer to your question could be in spending some time with yourself first to understand what it is that you seek in others. And maybe you might just want to get out of your head during those times you're around others and kinda just vibe with the here and now, you dig? >>97469 But it's a risk, you present a gamble no matter how good the odds are. It's per definition. >>97498 Wow, you sound really smart. Surely it's exclusively external factors. >>97500 There is of course that purely pragmatic approach to having friends and acquaintances, as we're a social animal geared towards a survival in a tribe. But then the element that is gluing the actual interaction and reciprocity together is one which, pragmatically funny enough, dismisses all of that in order for it to be "genuine". It's where possibly this schism comes from and you might have to see both of these aspects simultaneously instead of just one way or the other. Does that make sense?

>>97467 I've given up on the idea of friendships. Just keep doing social hobby things, keep building positive social status in groups, keep inviting people out when you feel connection and have free time to do fun things, keep getting rejected and moving on or whatever ... Where all just coping with the void anyhow doesn't matter just enjoy the process while you can life is too short and all attachments and ego will eventually disappear when your brain dies

>>97498 Dont forget the part where some people are doing delivery just to barely make it by alongside the job

>>97467 humans are social animals. /thread >It seems really pleasant when I imagine it. cuz u have a very perverse sense of "friendship" if ur suffering do some drugs maybe, but u wont be able to escape it. its the absolute state of human existence love u 2, m8. dont trust ur feelings too much

I've also given up on the whole pursuit of friendship. Honestly, after that I felt like people started coming towards me more easily, I guess because I didn't care what people thought so much I was more outgoing and interesting, didn't take social situations seriously. But I don't want to bother at all anymore, other people have only been disappointing.

it depends... shared / mutual interest and experience, doing things together you and the other individual seek to pursue without affecting each other in a negative way, doing that over a long period of time, eventually experiencing the other persons self in a jungian sense after eventually merging personae?/getting used to and or dropping most normative entities tend to attach the friendship label merely in order to gain favors experienced early, inviting as much as possible kids from school etc to parties to get as much presents as possible, this merged into acces to information or exclusive advanteges, i.e. parents enable kids to acces car/pool/vacations etc. and later into "connections" / business related etc. all materialistic "friends" they keep using this word but to them apparently it means a different thing. e.g. ghosted all "friends" as they turned out to be bad influence, addictions, destructive behavior, exploitation as mental/psychological trash can etc. no mutual returns. e.g. one can get so far without the need for others, but due to complexity of society eventually is going to be dependent on others. simply from this inevitable cause arises the need for mutual acquaintances, hence why i post this now. being here and this alive the mutual interest criteria should be generally checked. in order to maintain the supportive layer of networking i would suggest to put this combined effort into a suitable format, also, due to the (assumed but with high likelihood existing) commonality of the need to be alone for extended periods of time, a potential approach to me would be the continuation of the map. (there used to be a web based map into which one could enter themselves with approximate location and methods of contact) outside networking seems to be more of a emergency network, but this might be actually useful. i assume the amount of hesitancy and doubt regarding will be/is above average so i am trying to think of alternatives that are not annoying and feel like a burden.

>>97664 i am convinced true friendship, if it exists at all, can only be built over time, if it is a compatible match inbetween the personae / archetypes of the individuals in the first place and does not contain some hidden and overplayed incompatibilities. i am thinking about some way to be able to fix this core problem of interactions between humans but keep hitting a wall at the eventuality of humans simply being not genuine, and beyond there lies the uncertainty of actually mentally ill, malicious or otherwise posessed malignant individuals who intentionally provide false information and therefor invalidate the concept of being truthful when answering the initial questionnaire whose purpose it is to determine the individual characteristics, compatibilities, and shared motivation/common topics of interest... i thought of adding a vetting process, beginning with a trusted set of individual participants on a invite only basis, and allowing further additions only after a vote has passed, in addition to another layer with a ranking system, where after each booked interaction, the partaking entities could rate the other entity based on matching empiric data in comparrison to the presented profile/persona, this should allow for malicious entities to be weeded out naturally. however this would not prevent initial potential damages caused by these bad faith actors, so that still remains a problem why i have not yet realized anything in that regard. which probably brings my to the topic of this thread and which seems to reveal to myself the underlying motivation for me to post this reply. however out of spite i refuse to give in. maybe i will come up with something to add a prophylactic measure so that damages from malicious actors in this matchmaking/networking portal/tool could be prevented and make it happen.

>>97498 i got to know a few humans that managed to disconnect largely and were able to sustain themselves and others due to the network they had built, sure they were not using modern / new cars and ammenities but they were living relatively free, nomad lifestyle between surfing on the beaches of portugal, doing eco stuff, living in rural central europe working on a farm of acquaintances, and in different circus gigs, labor in exchange for food, shelter and fuel, however also sometimes doing basic labor should the opportunity arise in order to get society money for purchases of advanced goods, such as (dumb)phone credits, surfboard, car repair etc. i am pretty sure such a society can be built from people that do not disconnect from society like those i outlined before, however the biggest hurdle here seems to be anonymity and compartmentalization of the individual, i would like to start a makerspace or something similar in my area, even if i had to host it in my private space but there is simply no platform to ping like minded and most of all compatible entities, so due to that i keep lurking, most of the time, as this is the exception that breaks that habit.