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Influence

T

thejuice

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
I've not had an IRL social circle in a long time now, friends from school and college was the last time. In the past when I've found that when there's one person in a group I don't like, it's no use saying to the others I don't like them.

This is because I have low influence/ value to the group and my perspective is usually abnormal, so they're not going to listen to me. Perhaps because the group has one thought leader and the rest follow. The weight of your opinion is proportional to your social status. I've often not realised my opinion is not wanted.

If the group leader is bullying you, then it's finished. What I've usually done is just moved on. I think that's probably why I've ended up not having a social circle. 😁
 
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Social groups don’t work for me. One good friend is all I ever want. Lucily, I married my best friend and like magic I don’t really have any other friends.
 
I gave up on the idea of a friend "group" when I was a teenager, I can't play the henpecking order game. I had a lot of friends most of my life but never a group of friends, all individuals or couples. In that respect I probably had a far wider social circle than the people that tend to stick to their own clicky little group.
 
I could see myself having the odd friend, probably based on a mutual interest. Like this morning I had someone come over to teach me guitar with mates rates as I know him from an open mic. Could be a friendship. The age gap doesn't bother me.

It's when you add a third person it becomes complicated.
 
It's very difficult for me to understand how people interact in friend groups and even harder to imagine myself being part of one. It can be fascinating, but only from afar as an observer. There may be some value in learning how to interact with a group (for example, in a professional situation), but surely not for fun.

The closest I got to being part of a friend group was about 27 years ago when I was on a volleyball team in school. The structure and purpose of playing a sport together was comfortable, but things like the bus rides to matches and after-match pizza was quite awful.
 
Rodafina said:
It's very difficult for me to understand how people interact in friend groups and even harder to imagine myself being part of one. It can be fascinating, but only from afar as an observer. There may be some value in learning how to interact with a group (for example, in a professional situation), but surely not for fun.

The closest I got to being part of a friend group was about 27 years ago when I was on a volleyball team in school. The structure and purpose of playing a sport together was comfortable, but things like the bus rides to matches and after-match pizza was quite awful.
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I tried team sports, but I can barely stand going to lunch with a group of friends at work (even when the boss is buying and I’m on the clock)
 
It requires so much energy to have more than one friend, and then it means that I just can't give all my attention to one friend and need to jump in between some. It was fine for me when I was a kid, but I just can't do it anymore. So yeah friend groups are fun in theory, but in practice I just can't allow myself to have them.
 
I guess I made my own circle of friends - 4 kids who are now grown and it's a great group to be part of. lol
 
Friend group don't get me started on that crap. I never truly had one and I never will. Many times in my adulthood nevermind my late teenager young adulthood they were completely lonely I thought I finally made "true friends" only for them to all slowly alienate me one by one or kick me out of the entire group when I hit rock bottom hard. Everytime which now I trust no one not even my family because they are dysfunctional narcissistic insulting jerks.
 
Rodafina said:
The closest I got to being part of a friend group was about 27 years ago when I was on a volleyball team in school. The structure and purpose of playing a sport together was comfortable, but things like the bus rides to matches and after-match pizza was quite awful.
Click to expand...

I didn't like sports or the social aspect. In hindsight it was a good thing for my health but I wanted to be anywhere but being beaten up on a cold, wet, windy sports field for the weekend. I liked home matches a bit more because they had donuts after 😄
 
Lacking acceptance by others when younger taught me to be accepting. That led me into a group of friends I have had for over 40 years. Just last Sunday we went with two friends who have eclectic musical tastes to attend a concert by Alison Brown and had a great time with them.
 
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