Help I'm in my late 20s and have no friends. What even are my options at this point?

[Spite]

I've pretty much been practically friendless my entire life. I have no social life. I never hangout with anyone. I'm always alone. I'm autistic, depressed, crippled with social anxiety and have been for as long as I can remember. I hardly relate to anyone and trying to socialise with people is agonising. I'm such an incredibly awkward, embarrassing mess. I can barely look at people in the eyes and I trip over my words and panic whenever I have to interact with someone, like at my job for example.

I'm not "cool" and never have been. I've always been a loser. I'm extremely quiet and introverted. Everyone around me in my day-to-day life is so loud, outgoing and extroverted and it makes me very uncomfortable. Even my family is like this and I'm the odd one out. I've never fit in anywhere. I feel like I don't belong anywhere and I was never meant for this world. I feel so... so alien, so robotic compared to almost everybody else, like... my mind, my personality, and the way I think makes me feel like I am from an entirely different dimension or something. I don't know what the hell I am. I sometimes don't even feel like I'm human.

I've always wished I could belong in a friend group. I've always wanted to go watch a movie with friends. Go on a road trip with friends. Go bowling with friends. I've never been able to experience anything like that ever. It's humiliating and I have missed out on so much in life. I get very upset when I see other people my age and younger living their lives to the fullest and hanging out with their friends because it serves as a stark reminder of everything I have missed out on.

I'm 27, starting to push towards 30 now. It feels like the older I'm getting it's becoming more and more impossible to try to make and keep friends. This is getting weirder the older I'm getting, too.

I've tried everything. I've tried joining social groups. I've tried going out places and meeting people. Nothing has ever worked. I'm at the point now where I really either have to seriously fight for this and give it my all, or I need to accept my fate, surrender and somehow find peace with the fact that I was probably destined to go through life as a friendless outcast. It's so incredibly painful, though.

I hate my situation and going through life without friends is horrible. I truly feel like my life isn't even worth living.

 

[owarikigan]

i feel the same despite it contradicting my general disdain for people. i've always been really desperate for a group that will still keep me around even if i'm offputting, not being very interesting nor talkative but to just feel appreciated and wanted would be nice. i wish i could give some advice but i know it's nowhere near as easy as it seems. personally i find the slightest bit of comfort knowing there are a lot of people out there in the same spot, and maybe once every two years while playing a game or posting on socials someone reaches out in my experience and i'll get adopted by some extrovert but it's very rare and hasn't occurred in quite some time. i play multiplayer games and look at forums often but i observe / lurk just to fill the innate need for people around. i dont know if such things will aid you but it at least alleviates the mental distress for a bit imo

 

[RosebyAnyName]

I'm in the same spot, also in my late 20s. I'm an introvert but made an effort to be more extroverted to meet people, and they all leave in the end anyways. I've realized that there really are only two options to the "no friends" problem: either settle or give up.

There's always going to be other people looking to make new friends, but that doesn't mean you need to be authentic with them if your only goal is having friends without the emotional connection. This can even be reasonable if you only want to "make friends" for networking or for work. If you beat yourself down and put yourself away as much as possible, chances are you will eventually find people who will accept the fake version of you. Faking it increases how many people you will get to meet much more compared to being authentic, but you sacrifice that authentic connection.

If the authentic connection is what you want and you just can't seem to find it no matter what, then your only other options are keep looking or giving up. When you give up, you realize first that nobody will ever love your true 100% authentic self, but also that you aren't willing to settle even a small amount because it's exhausting and unrewarding. You realize that your alleged "perfect person" will still only care about you if you settle on certain things, since nobody will ever be a perfect match, and you realize that real connection is a lie for everyone, not just you. Or, for the people who continue to believe that true connection is possible, they accept that there's probably something innately wrong with them that entirely restricts them from entering the realm of true connection with others.

 

[CatOfImpulse]

I was in a similar boat for my early 20s and felt especially down during college, where I really felt I was 'missing out' on some pivotal social experience. I did end up finding somewhat meaningful connections with kind coworkers and the occasional check in from estranged old childhood friends, but most of my 'emotional connection' comes from friendships I formed online. Whilst I understand this isn't enough for everyone, it became authentic enough for me. Joining online communities about my interests and slowly getting to know others around me was what kept me going.

 

[emptyshells]

I can relate. I have severe D.I.D. I say severe, because every person I have interacted with IRL has clocked that there is something "wrong" with me. Disclosing my illness never works, people think I'm some sort of serial killer or animal abuser or something. In reality I just have a very blank expression & speak flatly & quietly. I'm desperate to connect, but deeply terrified of others because I know what they're capable of. And I come across worse, because I'm stiffly formal / polite and overbearing kind whilst still being "hollow", so people assume that I'm ill intentioned even when I'm trying my hardest.

My life lacks meaningful connections, and I don't feel like I got the chance to ever become a human being like everyone else. Robot, maybe, or an alien, perhaps, or some sort of fae creature, like a changeling, or maybe I really am a monster, like some hideous rotting zombie or lurks-in-the-shadows vampire. Maybe I'm already dead, and everyone else can tell, and it puts them off. I don't know. Nothing works, because the problem is me. No changes, new approaches, or structured settings help, because I'm just not a person like everyone else.

The only thing I've ever wanted was a group of people to spend time with. As a very small child, my earliest memories are of fantasizing about a group of people I belong with who care about me. Over the years it narrowed down into a fantasy of at least just one. Now I don't dream of anything, because it just reminds me how lonely I am.

 

[Deepdense]

Try finding a discord channel or something similar. It's much easier to express yourself online than in person. It can help you learn to be more out going.

 

[Kanoh]

For me, meeting people and actually getting to know them happened only on it's own, like naturally with no intent. Every time I intentionally tried to meet people and find a friend it failed miserably.

 

[X-sanguinate86]

All I can say is...I think you've come to the right place :(.

But if you don't want to give up yet you might find like-minded people somewhere on the internet and maybe find a friend. Maybe there is a niche out there for people similar to you.

 

[magsx1]

I'm heading to my 30's too. I'm going to keep pushing this like a broken record but I've only ever felt shame about things like this because social media made me feel like not having some sort of established friend group meant that I was some freak with a serious issue. Removing that has helped me. Maybe your surroundings/environment is affecting how you feel about the matter? It's only been five days since I've deleted all my social media and cut off toxic friends and taking frequent walks that I'm realising that I seriously do not need to find "my people" or "friends" to live my life.

I am lonely around others. Never by myself.

 

[Spite]

I appreciate the replies to this thread. I've read them all and taken a fair bit into consideration. I'm thinking of resigning and accepting my fate... and that sounds like a bad thing but it doesn't have to be all bad. I'll just have to try and play the cards that I was dealt and make the most out of this life. I cope by keeping myself distracted through making art and discovering/listening to music. Sometimes playing video games helps as well. I may never have friends, but there are other ways I can find happiness and fulfilment in this life even if said happiness ends up just being a fleeting feeling that I feel once in a blue moon. I'd rather feel any semblance of happiness, even if minuscule, than feel total misery, or feel nothing at all.

 

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

Well what kind of person are you? (and I don't mean by self depreciating yourself as a description) I have accepted the fact that I may never have more than 1-2 friends personally

 

[Spite]

Well what kind of person are you? (and I don't mean by self depreciating yourself as a description) I have accepted the fact that I may never have more than 1-2 friends personally

Hmm... I'm extremely introverted, shy, quiet and meek. I'd say I'm very sensitive and very in touch with my feelings and emotions. I'm somewhat of an "old soul". I'm kind of old fashioned and have a penchant for things that I think most people my age aren't into at all, things like libraries, Victorian architecture, gothic things, strange animals (mostly birds), and listening to esoteric music.

 

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

Hmm... I'm extremely introverted, shy, quiet and meek. I'd say I'm very sensitive and very in touch with my feelings and emotions. I'm somewhat of an "old soul". I'm kind of old fashioned and have a penchant for things that I think most people my age aren't into at all, things like libraries, Victorian architecture, gothic things, strange animals (mostly birds), and listening to esoteric music.

I'm kind of like that too, well the first part, I don't really have interest for gothic or victorian architecture but I can appreciate it like every other architecture.

Well if it makes you feel better I'm not really the type of person to be able to make friends with people my age either.

I'm in my early 20's. I'm vegan so there goes about 3/4 of the population, I see the horrors of the other industries like holywood, the pornography industry, social media. How it grooms people, how it turns people against each other and how it makes each and every one of us view one another as commodities; there goes the other rest of the people.

I'm more of a person that doesn't really care about themselves and cares more about others, I care outwards while I don't give a shit about inwards, something which is bizzare in our current society, prolly one of the reasons why I wanna CTB in the first place. It's not bad to be caring to other people but when you get born in a place and time like this, it's pretty much a slow death sentence.

People can't get anything out of me so why would they ever befriend me is what I've noticed. I'm also trans in eastern europe so that's also something that cooks me for free. I'm also aro ace if that counts for anything, so even if there was that allure to befriend me so they can fuck a trans chick, they can't actually. Not that it would've been a true friendship or anything like that just saying that it makes me even more "useless" than I already was.