Depression

Daidraco is still right, though. Online buddies are fine and all, but they are not a valid substitute for RL friends. Even as an asocial autistic weirdo, I have made the effort to make some RL friends.

Koushirou said:

I even mentioned I'm not really sure what I want. Just someone checking in on me on occasion without me having to prompt first, I guess? Like, it's no secret to them that I'm struggling and feeling shitty. Would at least hope my family would be capable of doing that. And yeah, Khane's basically right, all my friends are just people I talk to online and have just sort of accumulated over the years. I haven't had friends in person since elementary school; one of the reasons I feel like something's just wrong with me. I tried getting out and around in college and joining clubs, etc. but still wasn't able to make any. Didn't really make any beyond regular acquaintances when I'd go to the game store to play magic. I seem to do fine making friends online. I've just always assumed it's my looks since that's the biggest difference I can think of between the online and the real. Honestly, I don't find myself having any desire to try and get out more and the idea of it just scares me at this point; I've been burned far too many times and I don't think I can handle it anymore.

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Khane is being an asshole but he's not wrong, and MOST people don't have close friends when they are working adults. Single people who socialize outside a lot? Yea sure probably. Married working people with kids? Who has time for that shit.

Making and keeping friends is a process and its work. They're all complicated people. They all have their flaws and they're all going to have those periods where they piss you off. You shouldn't have to chase friends, but sometimes you do. And sometimes they chase you. But especially as an adult, what usually happens is the people who want to be your friends you perceive as losers, and the people you want to be friends with perceive YOU as the loser. So you're chasing people who don't want you while the people chasing you, you don't want. It's a pretty vicious cycle.

Having friends as an adult doesn't just happen. It's a process and it takes a long time and it's something you have to really want to do. If you're waiting for the friends to beat down your door and be like "Hey I want to be your friend, stop being grumpy!" you're going to be waiting a long time.

Koushirou said:

This is actually a concern I have: that I'd put in effort into making friends just to realize that I don't like them and now I'm stuck with them.

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It’s easy to ditch people. It’s actually smart to keep cultivating friends all the time so you can filter out people and not be lonely. It’s easy to stop seeing people, it’s hard to start. Focus on the starting.

Koushirou said:

The stopping seeing people just seems difficult to me. I don't want to have to deal with conflict or hurt feelings or whatever else. I don't like having to be mean to people potentially.

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Be busier. Play different games. Friendships are like plants, most require regular upkeep or they will fade away naturally. You aren't being mean if you let them fade.

Control said:

While it's true that having no friends and having friends can both be problems, problems get a lot easier to fix when you focus on one at a time.
If "no friends" is the biggest problem today, then focus on fixing that. "Too many friends" is a problem Future Koushi can worry about.

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Also the pain or guilt of stopping talking to someone thats annoying is easier to deal with then the pain of being alone or lonely. There's always new people to meet. Generally you'll want to cultivate friends in your activities, whatever you do in your time, and then figure out which ones of those activity friends can cross over into a general friend. Not many can.

Koushirou said:

It's tough when all the activities I enjoy are just online or solo hobbies. I mean, there was MtG, but that was always something I did together with the husband, never by myself. Overall, I'm a pretty boring person and just don't really deviate from the stuff I already enjoy. Yeah, occasionally I might try something on the side that seems fun, but I'm always ready to go right back to my usual entertainment. Even new games I've had to actually force myself into trying because I'd rather just be playing whatever I'm already playing. I'm not even sure what other hobbies or activities I would go try. I think I wanted to do a cake decorating class once? I've thought about maybe going back to school for meteorology, but the idea of moving across the country for a good program, spending a shitload of money and racking up 4 more years of student loans just to restart my career past 40 doing...idk, something weather related sounds like a pretty stupid idea. And even if I did get out there and try to meet people, there's still the entirely possible outcome of just never finding people who want to be friends with me. And every time that happens, it's just another piece of evidence showing my lack of worth to anyone else, so it's not without the risk of just making me feel even worse than I already do and making the next attempt that much harder.

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Once the dust settles and you are either in a new job or back with your parents or both, however it all works out with the divorce, start looking into new hobbies. Bowling leagues, volunteering at the animal shelter or old people shelter, book clubs, gyms, whatever. You have interests and hobbies outside of gaming. Just google groups near you for that hobby. Go do stuff. Talk to the other people doing that stuff. Next job you get, start talking to your coworkers. I have a few friends I meet every few months and we go get breakfvast and shoot the shit. If they didn't have families and responsibilities we would meet up more often. Work friends that became rl friends.

Depression for me always seems to stim from people and not from solitude. I grew up mostly keeping to myself, constantly just reading, or wondering alone in the woods by my house. Being alone is what refreshes me normally, lets me more easily get in tune with myself and work shit out in my head without the pressure or expectations of others. That pressure and expectations from others is usually what leads to me getting down bad to begin with. I socialize very well, make friends far to easily, but I hate social pressure and group think bullshit. It wears me down over time and I find myself needing to take a long walk in the woods, or a day kayaking by myself to decompress and clear my head. My wife and daughter are probably the only two people on this planet I can be around near constantly, and even then, sometimes I've just got to get away for a bit, so I can be me and only me for at least a little while.

Koushirou with your ex husbands impending move out being near completion, now is when you need to be the most on your toes. The finality of situations like this makes people do crazy shit and sometimes lose their minds. The second he is out, change the locks, or maybe even arrange a trip to see your family for a night or two. My youngest brother was murdered under similar circumstances because the ex of the woman he was seeing hit a wall when it all finally became "real". The biggest survivors guilt after his death for me has always been that a few months before it all happened, I had a talk with him about staying frosty around the guy. He assured me that they had talked it all out and he had the guys blessing, and I told him you never know what someone like that might do if they walk in on the wrong thing or how they'd feel down the road. They went through the divorce and it wasn't until they settled custody on the two kids that the shitfuck went off the deep end. I know it sounds crazy, but just be careful.