I, personally, grew up with a giant lack of self-confidence. After I turned 25, along with quarantine to truly understand myself, I feel I have gained more confidence/self-worth.
My field is technology, but most of all my friends are not “engineers” and I have felt I have been missing out on some key bonds that are preventing me from sharing my knowledge to grow with them in a mutually beneficial way. I felt most of my friends were of the business kind that “always had an idea” and had a pocket engineer to talk to.
But, recently the past 2 years I have been more “mature” saying no to things or starting to give low-level, instead of high-level, overviews about certain topics. I felt it was in-fact hurting my career, to not talk in-depth so I began to join discords and build up my social vernacular observing/conversing with engineers online. But, whenever an in-real life discussion would start with a topic that I had researched, I would always make sure to “correct it” in case fake observations are brought up and/or decisions were made based on them.
Lately, though I have felt I have lost bonds with almost all of my in real life friends. And I can’t tell if, I am the *sshole, or if I have just “grown?”. I have felt that I was always aware of how I shared my “side of the story” and/or reasoning behind my decisions respectfully. But, I just can’t get it out of my head that I am in the wrong in some way.
My SO struggles with this too. I just get by with only one or two people I’d call friends and that works for me. I don’t need a lot.
But my SO struggles with friends in much the same way. They are always the one to reach out to the friends and ask to schedule things and plan in advance but it’s never the friends reaching out to do the same. I consider those not real friends - they’re friends out of convenience because it gives them something to do sometimes instead of actually caring.
So maybe keep track of things like this and see if your friends are actually friends and they care about you or because they get bored and occasionally want things to do.
It seems to me to be pretty normal as you age to distance yourself from others. Especially if you’re in a relationship and/or have a career or job you’re passionate about which it appears you care a lot for your field. Those two things alone will eat up the majority of your time. Throw in friends with that who also may have relationships and jobs etc that eat up all their time too. So naturally it’s difficult to plan things and people fall apart. Totally normal.
Yeah, the biggest challenge lately was understanding if the friendships were for an other’s “convenience.” It’s also hard to communicate with friends, if not tech focused, how much mental energy it takes do some tasks or implement something. So it’s hard to communicate clearly that I can’t do certain things or go to certain events, because my focus will be affected and in turn my quality of work. It always comes out as being a scapegoat and/or probably “bad at their job”.
not sure if I’m understanding correctly, but you’re telling your friends that you can’t do xyz because your work will be affected? when it comes to friendships in general, if you’re constantly turning down invites for whatever reason, then it just comes off as you don’t want to do anything with that person. at least that’s how I would feel - and then eventually I would stop trying hang out.
also if I had a friend that only talked about one individual subject (tech or otherwise) and I felt like I couldn’t have just normal conversations with them, I don’t know how much effort I’d be willing to put into talking to them. I love talking about games or shows I like with friends, but that’s just a small portion of what we’d talk about
i don’t know if any of that helps, but that’s how I would feel going off of what I understood you to be saying
Yeah all of that is right. I think I also hate giving context, but also expect friends to see things from my perspective and understand where I am coming from. All in all it simply has always been a communication issue with incorrect expectations on my part. But, this definitely helps! This comment and most of the thread made me realize, since I don’t have friends that align with my passions, I don’t get that irl release, in turn forcing it into all conversations. So that second point about the individual subject really fits.
ahhh I’m glad I wasn’t making some wrong assumptions. totally understand how lacking the context probably means people aren’t fully understanding here in the comments. but like you said, might just be the people you’re currently friends with have drifted far enough out of your interest spheres that everything feels forced for you now. I hope you find people you can closer relate to and have plenty of fun conversations in the future. it sucks to feel lonely when you’re surrounded by people
Yeah sounds like your current “friends” just don’t get how mentally exhausting some things can be for you.
I have some coworkers that commiserate and talk about technical work junk and usually that is enough to get it out of my system & with actual friends we usually don’t talk about work and just shoot the shit and relax and enjoy NOT being at work together.
Good luck getting your stuff figured out my friend!
Yeah this entire thread made me realize, I am literally getting it out of my system and not having that outlet. The stuff leaks into friendships and being unable to “shoot the shit”.
Friends grow apart, it happens. Making friends gets more and more difficult.
You can decide how much effort you want to maintain relationships, and how much you invest in new ones.
It looks like you started a journey of self improvement this process can last a lifetime. At some point I discovered that people are really interesting and diverse, especially as they grow older
I think there is a celebrity book “How to talk to anyone” that would be helpful. TL;DR - interview people
Yeah, it truly feels a new chapter has started in my life. And I really like it, because it’s for the first time I am feeling that I am shaping my personality on my own, while taking in advice from others/literature and not just wearing masks constantly (But, hard to tell if I am going about it correctly). I will check that book out!
A few things:
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It is common for people to change in their late 20’s. Goals change, people change. It is fine that you are closer with a different group of people.
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You can be friends with people in different industries; you just need to find some sort of common ground. If you can’t find any common ground, then it is common for friendships to drift apart.
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A lot of people don’t like being corrected. I get that you want things to be right, but it can be an insufferable personality trait in friendships while it is necessary in your profession. You have to learn when it is ok to let incorrect things go if it won’t hurt anyone.
Yeah, I see that third point clearly. I have never been good in dividing my personality between work and social. One would always be the same in the other.
A lot of people are bad at it, so don’t take it as a personal failing.
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Everyone’s life and experience are different.
In general I would say this is a common experience around this age, at least in western cultures.
However I think there is no rule to life, friends depend on a lot of things, from both sides, so they can change throughout your life. It is up to you to try and foster the ones you want.
I never aligned it to being a common thing in western cultures. That’s pretty insightful. Oddly though, recently I have been romanticizing the notion of living for a year in my parent’s home country, hearing anecdotally, watching videos of content creators from there, how the culture/people in that part of the word is more familial.
There are always things people have in common. More-so today with the accessibility to media provided by the internet. That said being a friend to someone isn’t about checking a bingo card of similar interests. It’s about listening to their experiences and being interested.
What do people watch on tv, what are they listening to, where have they vacationed recently, did you hear about xyz happening in the news.
Kids. People with kids talk about their kids.Some of that might overlap with your experiences, some of it won’t, it doesn’t need to. You just need to shoot the shit, hear what they’ve been up to, say what you’ve been up to, and enjoy doing it. Maybe do an activity of somekind while your at it, maybe just eat dinner.
The age range is just when people get busy with life and have less free time to actually do things. So they have less to talk about. Work becomes their lives. That changes eventually, wait another five year period. You get settled in your career and your focus shifts more towards what’s going on in your actual life.
You should look up ‘speech communities’. It’s a linguistic anthropology thing. Essentially boils down to ‘people talk differently and about different things depending who they’re talking to and where’. In your case you want a group of work friends to talk about work topics with, separate from your group of childhood friends, who you can talk about non-work topics with.
Yeah, I think I easily get too hung up in controlling my environment to match that “bingo card”. Thinking its a recipe for growth. Or having a “negative” version of the bingo card and if even one of those clicks with something a friend said, I start to distance or start to “correct/change” it to be removed from the bingo card at least (well more so in a way to share my view of that point and hoping for a different outlook). I will take a look at the
speech communitiessuggestion.
If your lucky, your childhood friends will follow a similar career path as yourself. Observing siblings and acquaintances, the ones that seem to have maintained friendships from school to older ages are only the ones that ended up having similar careers in particular sectors that allowed them to remain near their childhood homes.
Personally I took a fully different path and moved thousands of miles away for work. After a few years there simply was little in common to discuss with friends even after I moved much closer. I certainly envy my old friends that stayed together. While the decisions I made have been very successful and rewarding, it came at a cost. Making new real friends when older is pretty difficult and you have to put a great deal of effort into it.
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I was 13 when COVID started, and after, I felt the same thing. I felt more mature, got into tech, lost some friends and gained new ones.
I’d say my teenage years were my butterfly years, but really it’s different for everyone. Maybe COVID was the common factor that did it, at least for me and perhaps for you too?
You’re talking like you’re not still a teen, your teenage years have been the only years you’ve been able to change.
Were? Wouldn’t it be are?
