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Outgrowing my friends? Losing friends?

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  • April 21, 2016 at 6:52 pm #102433
    dom
    Participant

    I feel as though I have outgrown my friends. I feel sad because I have lots of nice memories with them and I know they are good people. They can sometimes be not very nice people though. I know deep down they are good but they can sometimes be very mean, selfish, and judgmental. They gossip a LOT and this makes it hard for me to be around them. I do not think like them anymore. I have a different viewing of the world now and I’m actually very happy about it. I have evolved and began a journey to discover who I really am. I am finally confident in myself and love myself and want to be the greatest version of myself after years of being very depressed and negative all the time. I am okay with being alone and don’t get very lonely. But I still would enjoy having friends. I would like new friends who try to understand me. Friends who are supportive of my journey and care about my well being as much as I care about theirs. This makes it very hard for me to distance myself from my current friends. I can’t connect with them anymore. We have nothing in common and all they talk about is what other people are wearing or getting “fucked up”. I don’t drink anymore and this also makes it hard for me when I am around them. They don’t really do much other than party or talk trash on people. When I suggest we go on picnics or go outside or basically do anything that doesn’t involve their usual activities they aren’t interested. I used to be like them but I just am not anymore. I have little to talk about with them because I don’t care to engage in their gossiping or negativity. They way I think of it in my head is “we just aren’t on the same wavelength anymore”. I feel as if I have taken a different path in life and I hope they one day love themselves enough to change their ways and live a life not filled with negativity. I don’t want to burn any bridges with them and I don’t know how to make friends. I am quite shy until I get to know a person well. I have had these friend almost my whole life and I don’t really know how to go about making new friends or where to find them. All I really have is the people at my high school but I have found that most of them are the same as my friends. I’m not saying they are immature in a way of grown up mature (old age, a job, kids, a house) I would say they are immature in a way of emotional maturity. They just don’t really get me and I find it hard to be myself around them for this reason. I would really like friends who are the same as me. Friends who care about things. Friends who are supportive and don’t make fun of me for things I care about. Basically, I know I need knew friends but I am having doubts that I will be able to find people like myself and thus being friendless forever. I would love to share my journey with likeminded friends.
    My questions are-
    How do I go about making new friends?
    Where would I find friends like me?
    Am I doing the wrong thing by trying to make new friends?
    Am I being judgemental by not wanting to be around my old friends?
    Is it better to have no friends at all than to have friends who are unsupportive and maybe even toxic to your growth?
    much love- Dom

    April 22, 2016 at 6:57 am #102445
    Joe
    Participant

    Dom

    It’s okay to outgrow friends – you deserve to be surrounded by people who understand and appreciate you for who you are. Life is too short to spend time with people you really don’t enjoy spending time with. You shouldn’t have to feel guilty about this. Friendships should be a two-way street about support and bringing people up, not keeping them down.

    I’ve had some really crummy friends over the years, and this year I came to the end of a one-sided, very toxic friendship. I soon realised that we just didn’t gel together any more. It’s okay to be friends with somebody who holds different aspirations in life but the toxic friendship I mentioned didn’t seem to understand this – he wanted to stay stuck in the past, he was too critical of the fact I wanted to make more of an effort to become healthy and he would bad-mouth me to my other friend about this. I’ve learned not to spend too much time with people who are too critical of other people and those who gossip and talk about people behind their back – they will only drag you down into their drama and into their level.

    As for making new friends – what are your interests and hobbies? Could you make friends from volunteering for some community or charity project? You could also check out meetup – I believe it’s a site where a group of people with the same interests arrange meet-ups and other fun stuff like that (I haven’t checked it out yet).

    April 22, 2016 at 9:22 am #102447
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Dom:

    We, human beings, are animals, and not solo type animals, but herd animals. We need to belong to a group, starting with our family group and extending later to a group of friends. You have been one in a herd, this group of friends. The group engaged each other with heavy gossip as means of staying together, as the condition to stay in the group/ herd. You don’t like that condition anymore (and I agree that it is unhealthy to gossip and to be exposed to ongoing gossip) but you … didn’t outgrow your need to belong to a group. And you never will as a social/ herd animal that you are (that we all are).

    It is possible that a few people in that group don’t like gossiping themselves but they are afraid to be kicked out of the group if they don’t participate in gossip. Nobody wants to be kicked out of the herd without having another herd, at the least, waiting.

    You are already looking for a new herd with different rules, and don’t know where and how to find a new group to belong to. I have another suggestion to go with it: make your feelings known clearly within this existing group, clearly and not in a judgmental, condemning way. After all, there might be someone there who already doesn’t like the gossiping and would prefer another condition to stay in the group, another glue to hold everyone together.

    So let them all know you don’t like to gossip and instead, let them know what you do want to talk about, be specific. Say; for example, I would like to talk about X.

    Basically, this way, you are starting a new herd within the old herd. Maybe someone will join you by talking about X. A herd of 2 may be enough to hold you over until you find more people with similar values.

    anita

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