Why is it so hard to make new friends?

Have you ever lost friends due to depression? How do you make new friends after losing friends to depression?

I previously had a best friend many years ago but we ended up falling out because she couldn't understand why I chose to withdraw from people during my depression episodes. And she would also place lots of demands on me during that time, she would constantly made me feel guilty about how I kept "vanishing" from her life, she says that without me around she no longer has anyone to listen to her problems anymore, and she also wants me to inform her in advance whenever my depression episode is about to occur. Having to tackle my own depression and having to meet her demands at the same time, I finally couldn't take it anymore and mentally break down and we ended up falling out with each other. And btw, my depression at that time is really bad, that depression episode had caused me to drop out of college and my life is never the same again.

It's been 5 years and my best friend has moved on with her life and replace me with another best friend but I am yet to find another best friend, or even a friend. I have tried volunteering, tried taking up classes, and even tried joining some meetup groups, and I still couldn't make any new friends. I have considered patching up that friendship too, but I think I won't be able to handle it if our friendship isn't as close as before. To me, she is still my closest friend, but to her, I'm no longer her closest friend anymore. I'm afraid that patching back this friendship with her would only end up worsening my depression.

I guess the only solution for me now is to look for new friends. But why is it so hard to make new friends? It's like, everybody has formed their inner circle since childhood and they aren't open to having new people in their inner circle.

I don't have anything really useful to add except to let you know that you're not alone. I had a similar experience when my depression got really bad in high school, lost my best friend and basically lost all friendships after I had to drop out.

After that, almost all the friends I made were through the few relationships that had survived. I did start college, so that put me in a physical environment where there were more opportunities to make friends. The older we get, the harder it is to make friends in general, even without adding depression into the mix.

In the 12 years that passed between dropping out of hs and today, I've managed to make a handful of friends and one new best friend. I met her around year 4 but it wasn't until year 6 or so that I really knew she was my bestie

My hunch is that you're right about not trying to repair that old friendship. I tried to after a couple of years and it just made me feel worse.

One thing that happened to me that might be interesting to you... I lost all those friendships before everyone was on Facebook, and after I finally got on FB, I spent about 8 years "hiding" from those lost friends. When I stopped hiding, I had three different kinds of experiences: 1, like with my former best friend, I tried to reconnect and they didn't seem the least bit interested, and that hurt; 2, I didn't exactly go out of my way to reconnect, and neither did they, neutral; 3, people that I didn't expect to have any interest in reconnecting were actually *enthusiastic* about having me in their life again. There were only a couple instances of that last one, but I think they helped heal some wounds that I had been carrying around ever since hs.

The feeling of isolation and rejection is hard. I guess it's just a numbers game, and the more opportunities you give yourself, as you were doing with classes and volunteering, the more likely you are to connect with someone. That being said, I know that I have had far less luck making friends when I'm in a "doom and gloom" period. I don't know if it's negative energy repelling people, or my own negativity creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it became much easier after I started taking my meds again after a hiatus of several years, for example.

You know what's good at forging friendships quickly, though? Shared struggle. My first few years of college when it was just general classes, I basically made no friends. The last couple years, when it was just a couple dozen of us all going through the same brutal advanced chemistry classes, is when I made almost all the friends I have now. I think of it like "being in the army together".

So, sorry about the rambling novel of a response. Big hugs and please feel free to write

sleepybeanie13 wrote:I don't have anything really useful to add except to let you know that you're not alone. I had a similar experience when my depression got really bad in high school, lost my best friend and basically lost all friendships after I had to drop out.

After that, almost all the friends I made were through the few relationships that had survived. I did start college, so that put me in a physical environment where there were more opportunities to make friends. The older we get, the harder it is to make friends in general, even without adding depression into the mix.

In the 12 years that passed between dropping out of hs and today, I've managed to make a handful of friends and one new best friend. I met her around year 4 but it wasn't until year 6 or so that I really knew she was my bestie

My hunch is that you're right about not trying to repair that old friendship. I tried to after a couple of years and it just made me feel worse.

One thing that happened to me that might be interesting to you... I lost all those friendships before everyone was on Facebook, and after I finally got on FB, I spent about 8 years "hiding" from those lost friends. When I stopped hiding, I had three different kinds of experiences: 1, like with my former best friend, I tried to reconnect and they didn't seem the least bit interested, and that hurt; 2, I didn't exactly go out of my way to reconnect, and neither did they, neutral; 3, people that I didn't expect to have any interest in reconnecting were actually *enthusiastic* about having me in their life again. There were only a couple instances of that last one, but I think they helped heal some wounds that I had been carrying around ever since hs.

The feeling of isolation and rejection is hard. I guess it's just a numbers game, and the more opportunities you give yourself, as you were doing with classes and volunteering, the more likely you are to connect with someone. That being said, I know that I have had far less luck making friends when I'm in a "doom and gloom" period. I don't know if it's negative energy repelling people, or my own negativity creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it became much easier after I started taking my meds again after a hiatus of several years, for example.

You know what's good at forging friendships quickly, though? Shared struggle. My first few years of college when it was just general classes, I basically made no friends. The last couple years, when it was just a couple dozen of us all going through the same brutal advanced chemistry classes, is when I made almost all the friends I have now. I think of it like "being in the army together".

So, sorry about the rambling novel of a response. Big hugs and please feel free to write

hey sleepy, thank you for the reply, this post is really helpful. I like how you mentioned that forging friendships is about shared challenges. This is so true for me in my past friendships. I noticed how most friendships tend to remain at the acquaintance stage, especially friendships that are based on similar interests or similar proximity, these friendships tend to fade off over time, but it's shared challenges that managed to deepen a friendship and managed to be long-lasting. My friendship with my ex-best friend is pretty much based on shared challenges, both of us have been bullied and ostracized in school and we ended up relying on each other. I really hope that I can have this type of friendship again in future.

Friendships are very important to me because I don't really have a good relationship with my family and my friends are like the family that I never had. My family doesn't understand my depression and they often think I'm just being lazy. Like a few days ago, I've been let go from my job after working there for only 4 days as my depression affected my memory and slows down my memory and I also find myself lacking motivation at work and this kind of affected my job performance I guess, and my boss ended up letting me go because according to him he needs someone to learn things fast but I learn things too slowly. I was already feeling really down over it and my mom started berating me non-stop for losing my job. She kept thinking that I'm being lazy,
and she kept thinking that I haven't tried hard enough. She even shoved a magazine article in front of me and tell me to read that article, that article is about how this girl with attitude problems got let go of her job and how she managed to keep her job via changing her attitude. My mom told me to read that article because she says I'm very similar to that girl.
She is actually comparing me with a person without mental illness.
The girl in that article doesn't have any mental illness, and she mainly lost her job due to her own behavioral issues, whereas I lost my job due to mental illness, and here my mom is trying to compare me with that girl and telling me that if I want to keep my job in future I need to change my own behavior just like what that girl who doesn't have any mental illness did.
So you can see why I clashed so much with my family, and why I prefer to spend my energy on forging friendships instead and creating the family that I never had.