What's the glue that makes people stick?

In short, I think it is the same thing which makes relationships work: - caring for and loving other people - caring for and loving yourself in equal parts. You sound like you do a lot of the former, but perhaps not enough of the latter. If you do not love yourself and nurture your own confidence and self-esteem, you may come across in friendships and relationships as over-keen, needy, or dependent. Giving a lot of yourself is a lovely thing to do, but it must be balanced out by a healthy amount of self-reliance and self-confidence in order to be seen as "normal" by people seeking a friendship with you. Therapy will help you to improve how you nurture yourself, and in turn your friendships. But also remember that friendships are, again, like relationships in that there are many potentials out there but only a few who will really stick. I have made a number of my closer friends in the last two years of my life. Sometimes it takes time to figure out who you are, and that can delay the process - be patient, and don't worry if not many of them "stick". And keep on working on being happy in yourself - to paraphrase Wayne's World, if you build yourself, the friends will come :)

I think that unless you are a person who is especially attractive - either physically or mentally - a lot of it is just a combination of luck and circumstances. I think of myself as a reasonably nice guy. I can be sociable. I have my faults, god knows, but I'm aware of them and I know how to rein them in. But the fact is that I just don't seem to keep friends (barring maybe three exceptions). I'm in my early fifties and I've lost more friends than I can count. They've come and gone. When I was married I had more friends than I'd ever had in my life, but after my wife left me they pretty much all disappeared. I concluded from that they were really my ex-wife's friends, not mine. It didn't seem that way at the time, but the results speak for themselves, as it were. I know this: those maybe three friends I have who have stuck with me through the fat and the lean years have been those I didn't try to make. They've been those I didn't actively try to cultivate. They've just been people I was lucky to meet, and hit it off with. I suspect it's a bit like lovers. You can go to all the dating sites you like; you can read all the "How to meet and impress men/women" books you like, but unless you get lucky and your life happens to intersect with that soul mate, you're going to have to settle for less. Which is fine, as far as it goes. Never lose sight of that. You may not find the soul mate or the lifelong friend. That happens. Therapy isn't going to change that. Just be yourself, think about other people's feelings, listen to other people... but above all, be yourself. You cannot have a true friend unless they know the real you. Right?

k8t started off right. Social capital is the foundation, that is, trading value-for-value with another person and working to keep a positive balance with them. That may sound harsh and clinical in our Disney/romance/feelings-based society but the hard facts are that we do these calculations in our head without even thinking about it. For example, somebody calls up and asks for help moving next weekend. Your brain does some quick math to see if that friend has any capital to draw on for such a big favor. If your friend has been asking for lots of favors but returning none your brain will flag the account as "Overdrawn". He may be slightly overdrawn at the moment but has a history of repaying with interest, so it could be a good investment. Or not! Sometimes we go against the advice of the social banker in our heads but we then get angry about doing the favor. Also, the types of "payments" to the accounts of other must be in a form the other person values. Think of it like a birthday present in that way. If I give a friend my prized stuffed skunk (not a real example!) but my friend hates both skunks and stuffed animals then the gift isn't valued by the recipient. In the same way, I have to understand what types of social transactions are valued by my friends in order to make deposits in my accounts with them. So social "account" balance is how we determine whether or not another person is "worth" being connected to. Now, for the people with whom we have positive-to-neutral balances, squeeze in a modicum of adrenaline as the bonding agent. Shared experiences where adrenaline is a factor helps create a sense of bonding. Doesn't have to be death-defying events (probably best not, right?) but small doses of adrenaline. This heightens the experience plus helps burn it into the old memory banks. When good friends get together and retell old stories they aren't about sitting in the basement playing video games but about when exciting things happened, intentionally or otherwise.

I agree with bunderful's answer. I'll expand on it just a little bit to say that 1) a lot of people get frustrated and move on when they try to offer us help and we don't take it, and 2) try to be accepting if someone you otherwise genuinely like does not accept your help for something (in these examples, "help" means advice on life issues, not like giving someone a ride to the airport or something). To add anecdata - the people I consider my closest friends, who I don't even talk to all that often, are people I've met through support groups. They know all my stuff and I know theirs, and we hang out sometimes because we genuinely enjoy each other's company. My more frequent "hang out" friends are ones who are interested in the same things I am interested in right now; I have gym/workout friends, mom/playdate friends, and couples/gamenight friends, for instance. Lastly, I learned a while back not to treat every social situation as an opportunity to meet my New Best Friend, but rather as an opportunity to meet some nice people and have a nice time out. If I met someone I got along with, I learned to take things slow and not overwhelm them with "Let's Be Friends!!"

Growing up I had no support from my family, siblings that were far beyond the definition of cruelty & a parent who did not protect me or even pretty much acknowledge my existence. THIS is worth exploring either on your own (reading up on dysfunctional family dynamics and the long-term effects thereof) or with a therapist (for guidance, and to have someone insightful enough to help you gauge your own recovery). It's no coincidence that you're now a depressed adult (yeah, gonna label you at the moment, sorry). Your earliest experiences of being "loved" was constant feedback that NOT ONLY are you not even worth acknowledging, but the fact that you even exist warrants TORTURE. This is not trivial. It is very real and it is very damaging, especially for an adult who has never gotten the hardcore clear message to the contrary. So as far as a family bond I really don't have any- maybe this is something others can sense? Possibly I don't have the gene/capacity or ever learned how to forge a lasting bond with other people? It's not so much of a genetic defect as the fact that you were not socialized properly from an early age in how to nurture -- both others and yourself. This is not your fault in any way -- it just is what it is. You probably are charming and witty and awesome to be around, and certainly people are drawn to your strength and underdog-developed abilities, BUT they don't know what to make of you BEYOND that -- where your undernourished self STILL exists, waiting to be nurtured. It's paradoxical how you can be so captivating and yet so unresponsive at the core. You said it yourself -- you get bored easy. You're searching and searching for a real human connection, and yet you haven't found the reassurance that it even exists in anyone yet. It's rare when I find someone I really want to be around & really like & connect with, which feels kinda isolating but I guess that's just the way I am. & when I do find someone I really like & feel a strong bond/connection with, they seem to wither off, even though they tell me they feel a deep connection with me & a kindred spirit feeling & really nice things like that, all without being asked & just said when we're not even talking about anything remotely on that subject. Other people who have been neglected as severely as you were can empathize, even if they don't consciously understand what it is about you that makes them so comfortable. It might even unnerve them because they can't understand for themselves (and hence, they wither away). They have their own issues to sort out. Maybe they don't know how to talk about them yet. Maybe they're afraid that you'll think they're crazy. Maybe they can't admit their own truth yet. Either way, clearly you DO have the ability to connect with some people, even if it's not an ability you can master yet. The great news is that you can STILL learn the skills that your family of origin failed to teach you. This is exactly where therapy (one-on-one or group) can help you. Don't downplay or minimize how damaging neglect and routine torture can have on a child, INCLUDING YOURSELF back when you were a child. It's like you went to music class for YEARS watching other people play instruments, but never having an instrument of your own. Now you have the chance to play, but don't even know how to properly begin. Worse yet, you know how to hang out in a band but no one understands how you can be there and NOT know how to play. It's going to be frustrating because that's a lot of time wasted when you could have been developing your own talent, but it's NOT TOO LATE TO LEARN. Don't believe for one minute that you're meant to be alone. Dysfunction is NOT destiny, so take the reins and re-write your own. Good luck!

There were a couple of things you said that sound very familiar. Have you ever heard the term "Highly Sensitive Person"? If you haven't, at least google the term and take a self test to see if you might be one of the 15-20% of the population with a different nervous system that causes some of the issues you are talking about. If you find that you are one, it's a remarkable discovery, when for so long you've felt so different than other people, that suddenly you find that your behaviors are somewhat predictable. Once you accept and honor this trait, a whole new world opens up.

Here's my take on it: you say you want to keep things light and positive, you only see people for a short time and you have a complicated background family-wise which I bet you don't talk about much with acquaintances. So for these reasons people are only really seeing a surface you, an image you are presenting briefly and not your true self. So they react to you like a surface acquaintance/work colleague. Also of course what everyone else said about stages of life and where you live all all that too. I've met most of my good friends from spending extended amounts of time together- through meetup ski trips, share-house type things. That might not be your style but you need to see people repeatedly, at school, at work, to form common bonds to form friendships. Just meeting for coffee or dinner maintains relationships but is not enough to form them. Oh god, I am going to give you the cliched advice in summation: you have to be yourself (not just the peppy positive part of yourself) and you have to have a shared interest or bond that causes you to spend time together. Could be rock-climbing club, could be being cubicle neighbors, could be anything. Good luck and yeah the older you are the harder it is to make and keep friends, that's a fact. (IMO!)

Hiya. Others have addressed some concerns above--you might be a little down on yourself, you might be accidentally presenting an unappealing image due to being down on yourself, that kind of thing--but I wanted to address one of your core questions. What makes people stick? There's an awesome scene in 'Madea Goes to Jail' that explains things pretty well: "Some people are meant to come into your life for a lifetime, some for only a season and you got to know which is which. And you're always messing up when you mix those seasonal people up with lifetime expectations. I put everybody that comes into my life in the category of a tree. Some people are like leaves on a tree. When the wind blows, they're over there... wind blow that way they over here... they're unstable. When the seasons change they wither and die, they're gone. That's alright. Most people are like that, they're not there to do anything but take from the tree and give shade every now and then. That's all they can do. But don't get mad at people like that, that's who they are. That's all they were put on this earth to be. A leaf. Some people are like a branch on that tree. You have to be careful with those branches too, cause they'll fool you. They'll make you think they're a good friend and they're real strong but the minute you step out there on them, they'll break and leave you high and dry. But if you find 2 or 3 people in your life that's like the roots at the bottom of that tree you are blessed. Those are the kind of people that aren't going nowhere. They aren't worried about being seen, nobody has to know that they know you, they don't have to know what they're doing for you but if those roots weren't there, that tree couldn't live. A tree could have a hundred million branches but it only takes a few roots down at the bottom to make sure that tree gets everything it needs. When you get some roots, hold on to them but the rest of it... just let it go. Let folks go." So long as you understand that sometimes a friend you thought was a branch--or worse, a root--is in fact a leaf, you can learn to be ok with that. Sometimes you meet someone in school and when you graduate, you both move on. Your shared bond is over. Sometimes you meet someone as parents of new babies and you guys stick for years and then you have an argument and it all falls apart. Your bond is broken beyond repair. Things happen to even the longest-lived of friendships. I think what people are saying above is partially right; there's always a need that you mutually meet in each other and that's why you stay friends. If that need is met by someone or something else, or if life changes you and you can't meet that need any longer, the friendship changes. It happens, that's ok, and sometimes you end up in a friend lull because of it. What you might want to address, through therapy or other means, is what happens if you've never had a long term friendship (long term, to me, means five or more years). That doesn't indicate anything wrong with you--we've certainly had posts on AskMetafilter before where people asked why it wasn't happening for them either--but if it's troubling you, address it! Therapy or volunteering. Both give you perspective. Not coincidentally, both also increase your chances of meeting good friends.

I would like to reinforce the importance of ASKING too. Telling people your problems or asking people for help with moving etc. can begin intimacy. It lets other people know it's okay for them to ask for help, tell you about a shitty week, etc. Don't be afraid to be vulnerable yourself.