How do you balance enjoying what you do with having friends?
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it gets reshaped into something I don’t want
It is bizarre that this happens so regularly to you. Could you go into detail, like at least 3 examples of this? What's going on?
HUGE CONFOUNDING VARIABLE
I am diagnosed with OCD,
That being said I still assert that the changes made are sevear enough that anyone would agree that two plans are not similar:
I summarized a list of ideas for things to do in this comment but this list is a subset of a much larger more specific list (I don't want to share) so let's keep using it.
There was a time where I had no idea if I did or did not like any of these activities and wanted to find out if I did and it did not make sense to me to do these activities alone when I can ask friends to come with me because any friend can text me "why didn't you invite me I would have liked to come":
- Luxury spas => hang out in a cold basement with candles and facemasks and phone playing
- Guided tours => their average opinion of the concept was negative, I didn't have the energy to go do that by myself so I just didn't
- Bar standing => we got older I thought we should try more mature things, they disagreed
- Board games => this was the only plan that stuck, problem is I'm a goal oriented person by nature, even video games don't intrest me as much as writing code does. I used to be a senior redstone developer in minecraft
- Movies => I don't really have much free time to discover movies I like enough that I my friends would like too, I mean I'll find movies that I like but there's no guarentee that it would be something they like. So when they want to watch a movie (usually at home) they'd default pick the most popular one and when I offer an alternative I get shot down. I watched the MCU series and I don't like it. I don't hate it but I wished I had watched other movies
- Shopping => my friends are either broke or paying nyc rent. I guess the world sucks too much anyways and shopping as a friends thing is gone anyways
- Museum standing => my whole body hurts if I stand for >40 mins... I timed it... after 15mins I start walking funny... after 30mins I struggle to hold my head up..... if I get dehydrated I loose the ability to banter or be funny. I slowly decay into an unpleasent person and there's nothing I can do about it
In summary:
me: "Hey let's do anything"
most of the friends I had: "Come to my apartment"
I know I'm not blowing this out of proportions. I'm alittle more sensitive then the average person and I can compensate for that but what do I do if my limits perclude me from doing things with friends.
inb4 "it sounds like your friends are lame" what are normal people such that they are not like the friends I've had??
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I find friends who enjoy the things I like to do??
How tho... like if you leave a comment like this then it's obvious to you therefore you know then what is it that you know that you can do to "find friends who enjoy the things I like to do"?
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Everything sounds normal, although maybe a little sad, about all of that. In fact, it sounds like a great plan! Again, sad to do alone, but not necessarily. And you may even find those new friends doing exactly the things you like to do. Good luck to you, and enjoy your time.
the last few year's haven't been easy... things have gotten good enough that I want to make them better
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I don't have any shared hobbies or interests with any of my friends (and very few with my wife!) besides going somewhere, putting things in our mouths and yapping the day/night away. Idk, it never felt weird to me, but I might just be a bit of a boring guy since I mostly like reading, talking (IRL and online) and playing single-player videogames so it all fits for me?
going somewhere, putting things in our mouths and yapping the day/night away
I fucking hate that this is all that I have. I am so dry and 2 dimentional, I'm litterally just
[ Gay, Linux ]. I'm searching so fucking hard for more -
HUGE CONFOUNDING VARIABLE
I am diagnosed with OCD,
That being said I still assert that the changes made are sevear enough that anyone would agree that two plans are not similar:
I summarized a list of ideas for things to do in this comment but this list is a subset of a much larger more specific list (I don't want to share) so let's keep using it.
There was a time where I had no idea if I did or did not like any of these activities and wanted to find out if I did and it did not make sense to me to do these activities alone when I can ask friends to come with me because any friend can text me "why didn't you invite me I would have liked to come":
- Luxury spas => hang out in a cold basement with candles and facemasks and phone playing
- Guided tours => their average opinion of the concept was negative, I didn't have the energy to go do that by myself so I just didn't
- Bar standing => we got older I thought we should try more mature things, they disagreed
- Board games => this was the only plan that stuck, problem is I'm a goal oriented person by nature, even video games don't intrest me as much as writing code does. I used to be a senior redstone developer in minecraft
- Movies => I don't really have much free time to discover movies I like enough that I my friends would like too, I mean I'll find movies that I like but there's no guarentee that it would be something they like. So when they want to watch a movie (usually at home) they'd default pick the most popular one and when I offer an alternative I get shot down. I watched the MCU series and I don't like it. I don't hate it but I wished I had watched other movies
- Shopping => my friends are either broke or paying nyc rent. I guess the world sucks too much anyways and shopping as a friends thing is gone anyways
- Museum standing => my whole body hurts if I stand for >40 mins... I timed it... after 15mins I start walking funny... after 30mins I struggle to hold my head up..... if I get dehydrated I loose the ability to banter or be funny. I slowly decay into an unpleasent person and there's nothing I can do about it
In summary:
me: "Hey let's do anything"
most of the friends I had: "Come to my apartment"
I know I'm not blowing this out of proportions. I'm alittle more sensitive then the average person and I can compensate for that but what do I do if my limits perclude me from doing things with friends.
inb4 "it sounds like your friends are lame" what are normal people such that they are not like the friends I've had??
Apologies in advance if you are disabled, but if you can't stand for 40 minutes+ then I think the first thing to work on is your endurance. Even if it doesn't lead to more hang time with your friends, it will be rewarding for you and probably mitigate the chance of early death.
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I am mostly unsure about what you consider friendship. From your description, they are a (big?) group of people that you meet once or twice a year and when you do you don’t enjoy it. At most, I would consider them acquaintances.
Try looking for connections in groups that tailor towards what you like. Join meetups and such on topics of your interest and try to scout for interesting people in there.
they are a (big?) 2 group of people that you meet once or twice a year and when you do you don’t enjoy it
That is what it has been recently. Prior to that it has been gigantic groups of which I belonged to a subset of 2~6 outcasted people who usually represented 90% of my awareness of the rest of the group.
I know why I was an outcast for most of my youth, I've fixed that.
At most, I would consider them acquaintances.
That's the thing, those two were the people who I feel like I had the deepest connection with ever. They were there when most of my support circle went away and I think I even had a crush on one of them. But the thing is that I realized that my relationship with the one I had a crush on was completely my own projection who I objectivly know very little about and the other one was a semi transactional relationship. Was any of it ever real?
Join meetups
The meetup app has gone downhill hard in NYC, I've just about given up on it
such on topics of your interest and try to scout for interesting people in there
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It would be helpful to have an example (or more) of what you suggested and what ended up happening.
Other people have good advice, but I'm wondering if you are planning things which are a bit niche, or if your friends have strange interests, or if you find it difficult to enjoy normal activities.
There are lots of activities that people do that I'm not that interested in, but I'll go along anyway and still have a good time - it wouldn't be my first choice, and I'd be annoyed if my plans always got taken over in favour of them, but I wouldn't be "visibly miserable" doing something like this: for example, one time we ended up going out for "electric shuffle" (just shuffleboard which is electronically scored) which is pretty expensive for what it is, but whatever. The main attraction is being with friends and interacting, anyway.
I remember one time I planned a cycling trip and everyone I invited ended up doing something else (I can't remember what, but I remember distinctly it being something they could have done on any weekend). I was a bit miserable at that but still had a good time on my own.
Listed some of it in this comment: https://programming.dev/post/37296315/19332878
but I’m wondering if you are planning things which are a bit niche
There was variaty. I strived to recommend varying levels of specificity in the plans, anywhere from requiring tickets to just going to the park bc I'm sick of being inside.
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Apologies in advance if you are disabled, but if you can't stand for 40 minutes+ then I think the first thing to work on is your endurance. Even if it doesn't lead to more hang time with your friends, it will be rewarding for you and probably mitigate the chance of early death.
but if you can’t stand for 40 minutes+ then I think the first thing to work on is your endurance
I am not disabled, there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to stand for 40 mins, or do 10 pushups, or lift myself over a wall, or carry someone my exact weight a distance of idk 60m???? Why shoudn't I beable to do these things?? Ok, thank you for helping me type this
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My friends and I dont really share any hobbies or cross over interests. All the things im deeply interested in I have to do by myself or share with anonymous people on the internet.
Drinks at home/Movies/Online or Inperson gaming/camping/road trip/swimming/going out for food/airsoft/painball
There isnt much to do in my city. Nice nature is all we got.
There isnt much to do in my city
Could I ask for reference which city you're based in? Or local municipality within what ever legal system governs the place you live in? Whatever you're comfortable with
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but if you can’t stand for 40 minutes+ then I think the first thing to work on is your endurance
I am not disabled, there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to stand for 40 mins, or do 10 pushups, or lift myself over a wall, or carry someone my exact weight a distance of idk 60m???? Why shoudn't I beable to do these things?? Ok, thank you for helping me type this
wrote last edited by [email protected]Everything but that last one is within your reach. I weigh 180 pounds but there is no chance I could carry someone the same weight 60 meters, and I consider myself in decent shape.
I just did some work with a tool that weighs 70 pounds and i can barely lift it into a truck.
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Everything but that last one is within your reach. I weigh 180 pounds but there is no chance I could carry someone the same weight 60 meters, and I consider myself in decent shape.
I just did some work with a tool that weighs 70 pounds and i can barely lift it into a truck.
Thanks for the reference point, I weigh about the same so I guess I don't have to be able to carry a person
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There isnt much to do in my city
Could I ask for reference which city you're based in? Or local municipality within what ever legal system governs the place you live in? Whatever you're comfortable with
Auckland City
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Apologies in advance if you are disabled, but if you can't stand for 40 minutes+ then I think the first thing to work on is your endurance. Even if it doesn't lead to more hang time with your friends, it will be rewarding for you and probably mitigate the chance of early death.
the first thing to work on is your endurance.
Incorrect: the very first thing to investigate is the shoes that @[email protected] wears. Correct footwear is a game-changer in one's ability to stay on one's feet for hours. 40 min doesn't sound like just a standing issue, but rather that his insoles may not be contouring where his feet actually apply pressure. Some stores make custom insoles just for this purpose. There are also numerous shoe brands out there that look good but feel bad to wear. I would ask what brand of shoes he's wearing.
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HUGE CONFOUNDING VARIABLE
I am diagnosed with OCD,
That being said I still assert that the changes made are sevear enough that anyone would agree that two plans are not similar:
I summarized a list of ideas for things to do in this comment but this list is a subset of a much larger more specific list (I don't want to share) so let's keep using it.
There was a time where I had no idea if I did or did not like any of these activities and wanted to find out if I did and it did not make sense to me to do these activities alone when I can ask friends to come with me because any friend can text me "why didn't you invite me I would have liked to come":
- Luxury spas => hang out in a cold basement with candles and facemasks and phone playing
- Guided tours => their average opinion of the concept was negative, I didn't have the energy to go do that by myself so I just didn't
- Bar standing => we got older I thought we should try more mature things, they disagreed
- Board games => this was the only plan that stuck, problem is I'm a goal oriented person by nature, even video games don't intrest me as much as writing code does. I used to be a senior redstone developer in minecraft
- Movies => I don't really have much free time to discover movies I like enough that I my friends would like too, I mean I'll find movies that I like but there's no guarentee that it would be something they like. So when they want to watch a movie (usually at home) they'd default pick the most popular one and when I offer an alternative I get shot down. I watched the MCU series and I don't like it. I don't hate it but I wished I had watched other movies
- Shopping => my friends are either broke or paying nyc rent. I guess the world sucks too much anyways and shopping as a friends thing is gone anyways
- Museum standing => my whole body hurts if I stand for >40 mins... I timed it... after 15mins I start walking funny... after 30mins I struggle to hold my head up..... if I get dehydrated I loose the ability to banter or be funny. I slowly decay into an unpleasent person and there's nothing I can do about it
In summary:
me: "Hey let's do anything"
most of the friends I had: "Come to my apartment"
I know I'm not blowing this out of proportions. I'm alittle more sensitive then the average person and I can compensate for that but what do I do if my limits perclude me from doing things with friends.
inb4 "it sounds like your friends are lame" what are normal people such that they are not like the friends I've had??
wrote last edited by [email protected]what are normal people such that they are not like the friends I've had??
It does not matter if you have OCD or not; these people seem to consistently not care about your suggestions. If I tell my friends, "I really wanna play Space Base," then we make it happen.
These people sound like the type who would not check up on you if you just suddenly stopped responding, and those are not friends. I would try to make new friends elsewhere... Sorry!
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I’ve noticed a pattern in my friendships that I’m struggling with, and I’d love to hear other people’s perspectives.
Whenever I suggest something I genuinely want to do with friends, the plans always get changed around — often to fit schedules or budgets — until they no longer resemble what I originally suggested. By the time we meet up, I usually don’t enjoy the activity itself, though I still value being with my friends.
This cycle tends to repeat:
I suggest something → it gets reshaped into something I don’t want → we meet up but I’m bored/miserable → then we don’t talk for 6–12 months until someone breaks the silence.
Recently, I’ve made a change: I started doing the things I enjoy on my own, without waiting for friends. For the first time, I’ve actually been happy doing what I love — but it also means I’m doing them alone.
Part of why I’m trying this is because I’ve lost friends in the past from being visibly miserable all the time when I adapted to things I didn’t actually like. Honestly, it feels like for most of my life I never really chose my friends — I just adapted to the people around me. Now, I’d really like to choose friends who genuinely align with what I enjoy.
So here’s my question: Is it wrong to want to choose my friends? How do you balance doing what makes you happy with maintaining friendships, especially if your happiness and your current friend group don’t line up?
Any thoughts, advice, or personal experiences would be really helpful.
::: spoiler ai disclaimer
I'm going through a lot and instead of just dumping my feelings here I thought it would make more sense to have Chatgpt handle it.Here's the source chat but if you want to cite my words I'd prefer you just cite my post instead.
Regardless I stand behind Chatgpt's output as my own words and am accountable for it as though I wrote it.
:::If you really like sex they can both be the same thing.
Not even joking. My time spent pursuing polyamory was one of the most fulfilling and socially active times in my life.
But it required a Herculean amount of effort and there were times I though my dick my fall off.
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the first thing to work on is your endurance.
Incorrect: the very first thing to investigate is the shoes that @[email protected] wears. Correct footwear is a game-changer in one's ability to stay on one's feet for hours. 40 min doesn't sound like just a standing issue, but rather that his insoles may not be contouring where his feet actually apply pressure. Some stores make custom insoles just for this purpose. There are also numerous shoe brands out there that look good but feel bad to wear. I would ask what brand of shoes he's wearing.
wrote last edited by [email protected]
I bought these 3 weeks ago bc my chiropractor recommended, the Atrex insoles are also really nice. I've been walking better and maybe I can stand for >1 hr now ¯\(ツ)/¯
Edit: meant to write "chiropractor" instead of therapist
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I’ve noticed a pattern in my friendships that I’m struggling with, and I’d love to hear other people’s perspectives.
Whenever I suggest something I genuinely want to do with friends, the plans always get changed around — often to fit schedules or budgets — until they no longer resemble what I originally suggested. By the time we meet up, I usually don’t enjoy the activity itself, though I still value being with my friends.
This cycle tends to repeat:
I suggest something → it gets reshaped into something I don’t want → we meet up but I’m bored/miserable → then we don’t talk for 6–12 months until someone breaks the silence.
Recently, I’ve made a change: I started doing the things I enjoy on my own, without waiting for friends. For the first time, I’ve actually been happy doing what I love — but it also means I’m doing them alone.
Part of why I’m trying this is because I’ve lost friends in the past from being visibly miserable all the time when I adapted to things I didn’t actually like. Honestly, it feels like for most of my life I never really chose my friends — I just adapted to the people around me. Now, I’d really like to choose friends who genuinely align with what I enjoy.
So here’s my question: Is it wrong to want to choose my friends? How do you balance doing what makes you happy with maintaining friendships, especially if your happiness and your current friend group don’t line up?
Any thoughts, advice, or personal experiences would be really helpful.
::: spoiler ai disclaimer
I'm going through a lot and instead of just dumping my feelings here I thought it would make more sense to have Chatgpt handle it.Here's the source chat but if you want to cite my words I'd prefer you just cite my post instead.
Regardless I stand behind Chatgpt's output as my own words and am accountable for it as though I wrote it.
:::Yeah this is why I hate making plans, no one else puts in any effort into finding things to do or they don't want to pay for anything and then every outing becomes sitting in a bar shooting shit or going to a movie that either I don't care for or the others don't, I usually just do things by myself these days and I enjoy it a lot more, maybe someday I'll find friends with common interest I actually want to hang out with, for now I've become very comfortable being by myself
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You could try “I’m going to do this thing on this day. If you would like to join me, I’ll be there at this time. Let me know if you’re coming by (RSVP date) so that I can book you a spot/plate/room: it will be $this much.” And then make your plans and do them anyway.
I thought alot about doing this but I cannot wrap my head around how to actually do that? Like ok I'm gonna try to express some of my mental blocks I have right now:
- I feel rude, I feel like I'm bragging to my friends that I'm doing stuff I know they just won't do
- If I did this then I'd have to plan for the real possibility of doing an activity alone, that's gonna bias me towards doing things that might be less social than if I was picking things to do at random
- If I do this than how do I know if I'm being too inflexible when my friends want to make changes? In the past year I tried litterally letting go of everything and just going with the flow for a year straight and I made friends who deep down I don't think I like, while doing things that were objectivily painful (that is a seperate thing I'm working on I need to excersise more lol). There has to be some sort of goal/point/reason to hanging out with friends and if that is nothing more or less than "I feel good when I'm with my friends" then what do I do when I don't feel good? Do I change what it takes for me to feel good or do I change my friends?
Wow tying that last bullet point really coalesed what I wanted to ask in this post, thank you
It isn't rude to tell people that you're doing an activity and that you're open to having company.
As for being inflexible, you're doing an activity and inviting people, not finding something to do with people. If they want to do something else, plan to do that a different day, because you've already made plans.
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I bought these 3 weeks ago bc my chiropractor recommended, the Atrex insoles are also really nice. I've been walking better and maybe I can stand for >1 hr now ¯\(ツ)/¯
Edit: meant to write "chiropractor" instead of therapist
wrote last edited by [email protected]Interesting, thanks, so New Balance 9060 + Aetrex insoles; I may follow suit myself! By the way, you dropped this:
\(to properly type out that emoticon in markdown, you must use\\\instead of\, since one alone will act as an "escape character" instead of a literal character to be printed). -
Listed some of it in this comment: https://programming.dev/post/37296315/19332878
but I’m wondering if you are planning things which are a bit niche
There was variaty. I strived to recommend varying levels of specificity in the plans, anywhere from requiring tickets to just going to the park bc I'm sick of being inside.
It does sound like a good variety and not overly niche. I host a film night and we rotate who picks the film with the idea of bringing a mixture of ideas. It works a lot better than all trying to agree on something IMO.
I think your difficulty standing could be something to work on. Standing isn't comfortable for anyone, but I think most people can stand comfortably for longer than you describe, so perhaps you can build up your strength, or perhaps you have a mild disability and would benefit from something to lean on. That might open up some of the opportunities you talk about.
I see a connection between several of the things you said that your friends don't want to do expensive stuff. That is a common source of difficulty in friend groups, but there are lots of ideas for cheap or free days out - I'd start with walking. It's also something that, for me at least, is something I'm very happy to do by myself and be alone with my thoughts, so I can always say, "I'm going for a walk around X on Y, anyone want to come with? I can pick you up at Z" or whatever.
