Number of friends IRL?

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Sadly, zero; none of my two colleagues are nothing but my parents, and I had never made any friends when I used yo be a student, because my mother implicitly taught me making friends is nothing but awkward and evil and I accidentally believed her attitudes. Help.

[Different]

Sadly, zero; none of my two colleagues are nothing but my parents, and I had never made any friends when I used yo be a student, because my mother implicitly taught me making friends is nothing but awkward and evil and I accidentally believed her attitudes. Help.

I'm assuming you're in the 20s', so here's my word of advice for you. Go out in the real world and attend events where they have many social gatherings. Even if you don't talk to anyone, you need to at least get used to being around people more often because eventually someone will talk to you. From there, you'll run into someone who shares the same issues as you do, then eventually it'll teach you that making friends isn't so bad after all.

The problem revolves around who you associate yourself with. If you have a good judge of character, then 95% of the time you can tell whether this person is malicious or not. I think a lot of people often become traumatized by what their parents/guardians have constantly instilled in their minds as a child, then they grow up developing a deep hatred for something.

Unfortunately, parents are not always right. So, in this situation you'd be better off experiencing life to see what the outcomes are. But, the last thing (as a 20 something year old man) that you wanna do is grow up old and lonely because you'll have a bunch of regrets that'll harm you in the long run. So go out in the real world and make yourself available for others to talk to at events before it's too late.

You're still young, so you got plenty of time, kid. Also, never be mean to someone or give off an unfriendly vibe because then no one will talk to you. The same way you decided to reach out to us here... I want you to do that IRL. Watch some TEDTalks too. That really helped me out.

[Mia]

I don't need friends, they disappoint me

[Camer the Dragon]

A few, mostly from old school (recently made an effort to see 'em more especially before I move)

[Lego-man945]

I've found that just talking to people either you work with or go to school with can eventually lead to friendships. Just be open to talking to people.

[LCPD]

I want to say I probably have around 40 friends, 15 people that Im close with and about 4-5 in the inner circle. I have met a lot of people through Work, Pokemon Go mostly. Its how it helped me know my neighbors in the new town I live in.

[.....|::|::::|...]

I'm assuming you're in the 20s', so here's my word of advice for you. Go out in the real world and attend events where they have many social gatherings. Even if you don't talk to anyone, you need to at least get used to being around people more often because eventually someone will talk to you. From there, you'll run into someone who shares the same issues as you do, then eventually it'll teach you that making friends isn't so bad after all.

The problem revolves around who you associate yourself with. If you have a good judge of character, then 95% of the time you can tell whether this person is malicious or not. I think a lot of people often become traumatized by what their parents/guardians have constantly instilled in their minds as a child, then they grow up developing a deep hatred for something.

Unfortunately, parents are not always right. So, in this situation you'd be better off experiencing life to see what the outcomes are. But, the last thing (as a 20 something year old man) that you wanna do is grow up old and lonely because you'll have a bunch of regrets that'll harm you in the long run. So go out in the real world and make yourself available for others to talk to at events before it's too late.

You're still young, so you got plenty of time, kid. Also, never be mean to someone or give off an unfriendly vibe because then no one will talk to you. The same way you decided to reach out to us here... I want you to do that IRL. Watch some TEDTalks too. That really helped me out.

I have no ideas what events there are in the first place; I had no ideas how I supposed to look for.

[dotime]

0 Irl, I used to have some friends in school but they're all grown up now and probably completely forgotten me. So I'm forever alone

[Different]

I have no ideas what events there are in the first place; I had no ideas how I supposed to look for.

Visit some places that are local near you. Surely there are events in your hometown somewhere. You could even go online to see if there are nearby events.

[Delphinoid_]

For pretty much my entire life I had no friends, and was convinced I didn't really want or need them due to pressure from my family / their weird attitudes (sounds similar to your situation maybe). My very first friend was someone I met on the original JV through the game Futurism. He's been my best friend for about 10 years now, and we met IRL for the first time earlier this year (in Japan actually).

Recently I started making specifically IRL rather than online friends for the first time. As a research student I think it's easier to make friends, since your cohort is typically very small and everyone has no choice but to get to know the few people they're constantly around. I've gotten to know a few international students from China who are some of the nicest people I've ever met.

Here is what I would say about making friends, IRL or otherwise. The most important thing is to be yourself. This is overused advice that I hated once upon a time. After all, how can I "be myself" if I don't know who I am? And how can this advice realistically enable anything in my life to change? Allow me to explain what I mean precisely.

The only thing that matters in a friendship is whether or not the people involved like each other for who they really are and genuinely appreciate each other's company. How can you meet such people? I think the best way is to put yourself in situations that you want to be in. People who think similarly to you and that have similar values will want to put themselves in these kinds of situations too, and so in this way I think you'll eventually be able to find like-minded people. An important observation to make here is that "being yourself" is in fact independent from knowing "what kind of person you are" (which, depending on your philosophy, is an impossible task anyway)! By doing what you really want to do, you can guarantee that you'll be presenting the most genuine version of yourself, which I think is both necessary and sufficient for making authentic, lasting friendships.

For example, I of course met my best friend via Futurism, and I've also made some friends playing online games competitively (who I have also been able to meet IRL). My interest in ACG led me to learn Japanese and visit Japan; I was able to meet some wonderful people both in my Japanese classes and even in Japan as well!

Conversely, when I've been dishonest towards myself and pushed myself to be in situations that I haven't really wanted to be in, I've only found dissonance with the people I've met. Talking to people in these situations typically feels like I'm forcing myself to be around aliens, and it just makes me feel really uncomfortable.

With all of this being said, I would say that there are two main issues with this approach. The first is that sometimes it can be hard to do the things you would ideally want to do. Maybe you lack confidence or are shy, for instance. This is something that needs to be worked on over time by slowly pushing yourself to try new things and move out of your comfort zone. It does get better, but it never gets easy. The second issue is that in general it can just be really difficult making friends as someone who isn't super outgoing. And that's not because there's anything wrong with being introverted; it's just because if you feel more comfortable being around fewer people, then you naturally have fewer opportunities to make friends. But I think this isn't such a big deal; making friends will be slower, but not impossible.

Anyway, I would be happy to try to be friends if you want, because I think you seem very relatable. Next time I visit Japan we can maybe meet up as well if you like, I think that could be cool.

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Obtw I am 24