Question 2: Fear of Potential Friends' Friends

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Pseudolonewolf's avatar
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I meant to do one of these question journal things every day, but I've been falling behind with everything lately and haven't managed to get through all the responses to the previous one! Sorry about that; I'm trying to get through comments when I can. Days are just not long enough to do all that I want and need to do, annoyingly!

Still, something's very much on my mind at the moment and I thought I'd write one of these based on that.

So the question this time is:





Do you worry about approaching new people because they've already got an established social circle, and you're worried about 'intruding' or having to 'compete' with their better friends?





I suppose this question might not mean much to many people? I don't know how often people go out of their way to contact others in general; maybe most people just stick with the social group they have and get on with their interests and stuff without ever feeling the need for new people.

Since I don't really have anyone, though, I'm constantly on the lookout for new people who I might have a chance to connect with (or, in some distant future, even develop a romantic relationship with)... but I'm often put off by the feeling that they already have a bunch of other people in their life, so I'd just be barging in, unwelcome, or that I'd 'not mean anything to them'.

It's particularly strong if the person mentions their friends directly... like in a 'my best buddies!' list a person's userpage here on deviantART, or "I made this for/with my friend [whoever]!" bit in the description of an artwork.

I suppose it's largely because I love the idea of receiving undivided attention, to the point of being the only person in someone's life... or at least the most meaningful. It's been a constant dream - or perhaps delusion! - of mine since as long as I can remember... The idea of us giving up everything and focusing entirely on eachother. I know from past experiences that it's not really practical or wise to do that... but it's not like I can just flip a mental switch and turn the desire off either.

Another part of it is the fear of having to actually interact with the person's other friends... What if you don't even like them? I for one would find it difficult to watch as someone I really did like was having more fun with someone I didn't like than they were with me... I don't know; maybe I'm just unfairly selfish! I certainly struggle a lot with jealousy...

But yes! Fear of the fact that someone you're interested in being friends with already has a ton of other friends. Can you relate to this in any way at all?!? OR AM I JUST STRANGE??!1

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Feraligate's avatar
This I can understand this to a point. Though this happens to me more to people I'm already friends with.

I'm not really a social person, and unlike many, I don't really tend towards wanting to be social (changes online, it's weird, guess it's just the safety of privacy?) It's not because I don't like mingling with people, but it's more of a 'yeah, you won't like me so I'll spare you the torture' kind of thinking. I do enjoy talking to the few that I talk to, though, and that brought up another problem with me and being social - I don't like mingling in large groups. Even more so if it involves even one of my friends' friends.

I'm okay with class activities, but there's -always- this one person in class I tend not to have a good relationship with (because screw ups or mentally thinking you did screw up) and solely because I focus on that one person, I tend to hold back on speaking up, try to think my words through before saying anything. This makes a giant lag between what people say and what I would, so I basically get kicked out of the conversation overtime. This gets even worse with even more people I don't have much relation to, and sometimes I just find myself dropping out of the group and then going back in when it's smaller. Because a one-on-one conversation generally bores the other person and I don't know why, I prefer a comfortable number of 2 to 4 people. Any more and word-lag comes back.

I also found that I do it just as often online as I do in real life, majorly during roleplay when I am most often interacting with strangers, and it happens a lot.

I basically over-think 1) ruining an image to a friend's friend, 2) that I screwed up and no one will accept me, and 3) I generally just over-think a lot.