But really, how *do* you make friends in a new city?

Oh honey. First of all, I am so very very sorry about your birthday party. That would deeply upset anyone, anyone at all. Happy birthday, and know that while there may not be people in the same room surrounding you with birthday wishes, there are people out here wishing you a wonderful next year. Second of all, making friends as an adult is very very hard. It is. But in your case, I can't help wondering if the problem we all share is being exacerbated by something more - perhaps an anxiety or depression issue? Because as gently as possible, your post has warning signs that are pretty clear: I just pay them rent and lie to them about imaginary parties I might go to when they ask why I'm not going out on weekends. Enough of these lies and they might not ask me to be their roommate anymore... I'm involved in some groups, but I get the distinct impression that people wish I wouldn't go to their events... I'm sorry I ask so many idiotic questions like these... that had an extended segment making fun of people who used the site, and the entire (packed) room found it quite hilarious. I don't want to be one of those people. Just looking at the last one even... you don't want to try something that might result in friends because a bunch of people you'll never see again and are not friends with laughed at it one time? That indicates a truly, truly painful level of self-conciousness and poor self esteem. My heart hurts for you. Your questions are not, by the way, idiotic in the least. They are incredibly common, as many http://www.google.ie/search?ix=heb&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=O'Briens+clontakilty#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=ask+metafilter+making+friends&pbx=1&oq=ask+metafilter+making+friends&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=912425l919488l0l919793l23l19l0l0l0l0l248l2200l10.6.3l19l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=6985811cc01f9710&ix=heb&biw=1280&bih=911 questions indicate. There are a lot of suggestions there for how to make friends, but my concern is that they may not pan out for you the way you hope if you need and don't address some of the underpinning personal work your post makes it sound like you need. So, my round about answers to your questions are the most common Ask answers: therapy, and/or the Feeling Good Handbook. I'm sorry that isn't the direct answer you wanted.

I'm sorry about your birthday party, too. This is not an idiotic question. Making friends as an adult can be damnably hard, for all sorts of people. Here's what immediately came to mind upon reading your question (and looking at your previous questions, which you make reference to, so I hope that's okay.) Name five things that you like. Name five positive qualities you value in others. Name five positive personal qualities that you already possess. And they have to be things you actually like and are actually positive; no cheating with "I like not doing stupid things" or "I like people who don't bullshit me." They must be things you actually like and qualities you actually appreciate in yourself and others. They can be as goofy or as profound as you like: maybe you like collecting vintage bakeware; maybe you like Shakespeare. Maybe you value loyalty and compassion; maybe you value the ability to tap-dance. If you don't want to post them here, that's fine; write them down for yourself. I am suggesting this exercise because the ways in which you frame yourself, your life, and the people around you are almost unrelentingly negative. This is not a criticism; just an observation. (And, quite likely, a symptom of depression, about which more below.) The next observation that usually follows from this is that it's hard for people to want to get to know someone who is negative, and while I think that's generally true, I don't even think that's the most important starting point. Don't start with the outside (other people) looking in (how they relate to you); turn it around so that you start with how you relate to the world and to the people in it. What do you enjoy? What brings you pleasure? Can those pursuits be done in a way that allows you to meet others? What are the best qualities about people you want in your life? What are the best qualities about you that others, in turn, will be glad to have in their life? These are the guideposts to creating meaningful relationships with others -- and, more fundamentally, a meaningful relationship with yourself. I know this isn't some magic shortcut to making friends. Making friends, among adults post-college, can be a sort of mysterious process. In the 20 years (gulp) that I've been out of college, I've made my friends in a wide variety of ways -- through political activism, taking classes, online dating, work, Metafilter meetups, and random conversations with neighbors, among other tactics. And the times I really connected with people in order to create good friendships with them were the times I felt connected to myself. This gets back to the depression thing. I believe you've said previously that you don't have health insurance. Would you consider looking for a therapist in your city that works on a sliding scale? Many community mental health centers have counselors that work on this basis, and who can help you address your depression, which in turn can help you in becoming more open to connecting with others in a way that's mutually rewarding, and with yourself in a way that's more nurturing and loving. I wish you the best.

Everyone is suggesting to cut out the negativity, I am just going to expand a bit with practical advice. Bear with me on the long stories... I once had a friend visiting a city I had just moved to, and she brought along another friend, a girl who had moved there a few months ago from another country. I tried to chat with the other friend, but kept getting negative responses. "What do you do?" "I'm trying to get started in X, but can't find a job." | "How do you like city?" "Well, I don't know anyone, so I haven't really seen much." | "Have any restaurant recommendations?" "No, I have no one to go with." Etc. She didn't ask for my contact info, and I didn't ask for hers... not sure I would have invited her out even if she had, it was just too hard to interact with her. She ended up going back to her country a few months later. On the other hand, I once attended a networking event with a friend in a city where I am already connected and had lots of friends. A guy came up to us and started chatting, he was obviously a little tipsy and awkward, but I was there to meet people so was polite back. "What do you do?" "I'm at company X, I know, I know, I moved here to try to change careers!" | "How do you like the city?" "Well it's more promising than where I came from, what do you think?" | "Have you been exploring?" "Not yet, what areas do you recommend?" He ended up re-approaching us the event was breaking up and joining me and my friend for dinner along with another random person we met there, and I invited him to a party later than week and intro'ed him to a couple of friends of mine with the same professional interests. Both people had a hard time in a new city where they didn't know anyone... and both were honest about it. However, the girl in the first story just complained, whereas the guy in the second story stayed light and tried to turn it into opportunities - even tagged along with our group to the next place, a somewhat risky move but most people won't turn you down in that kind of casual situation. Obviously a lot of this kid of casual networking fails, you don't click with anyone or click with people only to realize you don't click after hanging out once... But it's low stakes and you just need to succeed once or twice to form the nucleus of a friend group. So that's how to be less negative: you can be honest about your problems, but with an undertone of hope and humor. Totally OK to say to your roommates, "No plans, you know of anything that's going on?" Or to acquaintances, "Don't really know anyone here yet, what do the cool kids do on weekends?" Or even, "I was just gonna watch Netflix in my room, maybe I'll actually make some plans for next Saturday." All of these are honest, but they don't sound like complaints, and they leave things open for the other person to invite you to something if they so choose. Most of them won't, but some will! And the rest won't think of you as a downer. Good luck!

There is a lot of great advice here, so I'm going to only hit on a couple of points that I didn't see above. First, when I was in a similar self-consciousness situation, and in a new place, and feeling soooo awkward all the time, it suddenly occurred to me that NOBODY KNEW ME and NOBODY WAS EVER GOING TO SEE ME AGAIN so I might as well just go to anything that sounded even remotely interesting, talk to everyone, and if I made an absolute ass of myself (which I did! I was horrible at small talk at that point in my life!) it didn't matter even a little bit because I would never see any of these people again! (Unless I wanted to.) There is INCREDIBLE power in anonymity. Nobody has any expectations of you, and even if you literally trip and fall on your face while wearing a skirt and the entire room sees your underwear (it happened to me!) nobody's going to remember it was YOU. I am sure there are a few people who were there who now and then think, "Oh, that poor girl who tripped and fell! That was both sad and hilarious!" But it's not like they know it was ME. So I just started going to stuff and doing things, and it turned out I had a fantastic time. People kept commenting I was so brave to go places alone and try things I sucked at (it turns out you CAN play golf 5 yards at a time! Although it does not make you popular!) and fall on my face and go first and so forth, and people really admired me for it. It wasn't so much courage as the power of being anonymous. I'd go try crazy sports I'd always wanted to try (mountain climbing! fencing! social dancing!) and they'd ask for a volunteer to demonstrate on/with and everyone would hang back in fear of looking like an idiot and I'd be like, "Oooh! Pick me! I'm an idiot!" The thing is, I was fearless because I knew it didn't matter what ANY of these people thought of me -- they'd never see me again -- and I had SO MUCH FUN. And I got so many crazy and unusual experiences to talk about. And a lot of people approached me to say, "Wow, I can't believe you went first, you're so brave!" or "Wow, you came alone? Do you want to join our group for the after-event drinks?" Second, say yes to everything. (And someone did say this above.) The most recent time I moved, I made it a policy that whenever I got invited to anything (even this evangelical church's food-and-warm-clothes outreach to the poor that was really way more Jesus-y than I was comfortable with but it was helping the poor so okay), I said yes. Some of the things I went to sucked and made me want to stab my eyes out, but most of the things turned out more interesting than I would have thought. Say yes even to things that are general invitations to the public, not specific invitations to you. "We need volunteers for City Festival." "Yes!" "We need poll watchers for the election." "Yes!" The more places you go and the more things you do, the more likely you are to meet people. I met my first close friends in this town -- I am not even kidding -- in line to vote. It was the 2004 election and lines were long, and the guy three people in front of me said, "Hey, you look familiar, didn't you just move in down the block?" and we got to chatting while waiting and by the time it was our turn to vote we'd agreed to have dinner. Third, I have kids now, and I hate "mom-dating" even more than I hated dating-dating or friend-dating -- making playdates for your kids, getting to know other moms, hoping you hit it off and have mom-friends -- it's awful. I get SO SHY in situations with a bunch of strange moms that I suddenly can barely speak and I come off as standoffish and something I think as rude because I feel so super awkward. I put out the question on my facebook to other moms, how they feel about mom-dating, and to my surprise, EVERYONE hated it and EVERYONE felt too awkward to approach other moms. So now I make a point, even though I hate every second of it, to approach other moms and chat with them, because look, everybody feels like Awkward McAwkwardpants at least some of the time. There's this one mom that I saw frequently who is model-gorgeous and from South American (and, surprise!, actually modeled before she was married!) and I thought, wow, she must be so popular, she's so pretty and has such a pretty accent and such an interesting background. I finally talked to her, and it turned out she was starved for friends because she was self-conscious about her accent and worried people wouldn't like her and self-conscious because she wasn't familiar with local customs ... and all the other moms were intimidated by her because she was so pretty and exotic! And she is awesome and I'm so glad I talked to her! And now we're friends. Almost everyone feels awkward in social situations where they don't know people. You can do a kindness to other people by breaking the ice! Fourth, I have plenty of friends these days (your 30s are much better than your 20s, promise) and the only reason I left the house this weekend was to get lightbulbs. I realize people in their 30s are stereotypically less going-out-oriented than people in their 20s, but really, nobody loves me any less if I stay in the house and read a good book and wear my sweatpants. And just as a tiny aside, whether people "do" adult birthday parties or not is quite variable. Around here adults don't have or throw birthday parties with friends. If I get invited to a birthday party I usually assume they only invited me as a passing thought to their family event, and I wouldn't dream of intruding on a family event. The birthday party thing may be less about you and more about whatever the local norms are about birthday parties for adults.

Play a sport you are good at. There are leagues you can join. Volley ball is easy and really fun. ----- I was going to write, "I'm so sorry, blah blah" - but that's not going to help. You don't need my pity! I have a secret to tell you. EVERYONE is likable, unless you're a sociopath. You don't sound like a sociopath. At all. You're ex doesn't sound so hot, tho, and you SHOULD stop talking to him. You're not giving yourself any credit, and on top of that, you're being really mean to yourself. Step #1: Stop feeling guilty for lying about your social life. YES. Find another way to deflect those questions about how you spend your free time. Lying IS bad for you. But please please forgive yourself here. Step#2: Find a way to like yourself. I get the feeling you are really down on yourself. If you weren't, you wouldn't keep talking to someone who treats you poorly (the ex.) Anyway, it's annoyingly true that no one will like you until you like yourself. ----- I'm going to tell you another secret. In 2005 I was in a completely new city and re-started my life from scratch. I knew nobody. I've never been good at friendship. I'm much better now. Long story there. I spent the majority of a few years completely alone. I didn't trust myself at the time to make good friend choices. I spent that time reading non-fiction books about self-improvement, hiking, meditating, and yoga. The last year of all that I randomly made a personal and private commitment to be helpful any way I could, to anyone who needed help, without being asked, without ever EVER expecting any thank you, no strings attached. I pledged never to do any favor that put me in at a financial disadvantage, but if it was reasonable, I made a pledge to always say, "Yes." Whenever I feel like I am getting off-track in life today, I try to go back to being helpful, monitoring my thoughts to make sure I'm not being unkind to others, even strangers, and just generally put myself out there and practice altruism in the purest sense - just for the act itself as a vote for positivity in the world, not caring at all about the results. You have to not care about the result. ---- You need to perform some powerful Juju to get over this negative programming you have. I hope you try some or all of my suggestions. It's OK to realize you can not go on as you were, it's not OK to keep implementing the same behaviors that got you to this point.

Hey, you're not allowed to be so mean to yourself! Okay, I'm in a similar situation as you are. I moved home after living abroad, leaving my entire social circle oceans and continents away. I have exactly two friends where I live now, and most weekends, unless I make an effort, I'm at home, doing nothing. Although, by nothing I usually mean watching Doctor Who and exercising on my step machine. :) Listen, you're going to make friends. Have you ever made friends before? You have! So you will make friends again. By the way, I love meetup.com because it really forces me to get out of my comfort zone. I try the ones that are geared towards activities that I like (or think I like), such as hiking, or practicing Mandarin, etc. I've met some really great, friendly people through meetup--not sure what is so weird about it that UCB would make a point of mocking it. I do think it is hard to make real friends through meetup, but the important thing is that you need to do things regularly and get to know people slowly. Let your friendships develop organically, it sounds like you suffer from both a combination of overly high expectations and low self-confidence. I am very sympathetic because this is my usual self too. Take care of the low self-confidence first. Stop lying to your roommates. Be honest with them. Invite yourself to events. Making friends after college is like dating after college, it's way harder. But don't worry, this is the case for EVERYONE, especially as you get older. And stop with the negative self-talk! Why not try being a friend to yourself first? Tonight I spontaneously (literally about an hour before it started) went to a swing dancing night. I had no expectations for this. In the past, when I've gone to events like this, my self talk usually sounds like this: "You can't dance. You're unattractive. No one is going to ask you to dance. No one is going to talk to you." etc. Tonight I just shut that bitch up and had a fantastic time. I didn't sit out a single dance unless it was by choice; either I asked guys or guys asked me. It was great, and 24 hours ago I wouldn't have said that I could be that brave. Finally, happy birthday! I'm sorry that your friends suck so much--I've also had people do this and it is awful. But I'm out here in LA, home on a Saturday night, and I am wishing as hard as I can that your next year will overcome its lackluster beginning.

If it feels like we're ganging up on you, just try to imagine that we're a pod of well-meaning dolphins, trying to nudge you towards shore.

Hey. I, like many others in this thread, am hearing a painful degree of self-consciousness that is super familiar to me -- I felt the same when I was in my early twenties. I felt like I had no friends, that people thought I was lame, that everything which came out of my mouth was awkward and embarrassing and cringe-worthy, so on and so forth. Also like many others, I think that this -- this terrible icky squirming cringing feeling you have at being in your own skin; this haunted panicky feeling that everybody is judging you or would be judging you if only they knew the truth -- THIS is what you've got to deal with before you go out looking for friends. You know why? Because you're stuck with you. YOU are the only person you're going to be with every minute from now on until the end of your life. And it SUCKS, then, that you come off as your own enemy, judging yourself WAY more harshly than anyone else does. I mean, take a second to reflect on that: it's really sad, isn't it? You should be your own best ally, your biggest cheerleader, your fondest friend/biggest fan. Instead you're sitting around describing yourself really unkindly to a crowd of strangers, telling us all the things you can't do, the ways other people dislike you and judge you, that you're not date-able, and so on. I get it, because like I said, I was there once. But from a distance of a few years, let me assure you, your future self is shaking her head and saying, "Man, that's so fucked. I was SO much harsher to myself than I needed to be." So. That said, here's my advice, part the first: People like happy people. So, get happy with yourself. That requires being a FRIEND to yourself. Vow to spend the next six months being that friend. This means: taking yourself places that you'd want to take a friend. (The museum. The movies. The library. Spain. Italy. A pub for a glass of wine.) Yes, go alone! (What better or more important company will you ever find than yourself, the person you'll be living with for the rest of your life?) If you like spending time alone at home on a Friday night -- LET YOURSELF; stop worrying about other people judging you. (Really, would a friend judge you for hanging out at home on a Friday? No real friend would.) For a couple of months, try to live as though nobody is looking at you. And then start challenging yourself to smile at anyone who DOES look at you. (It's really hard at first. If they don't smile back, you may feel stung. Get over it. Push onward. It starts to work magic after a while.) My advice, part the second: If you can see a therapist, do. A spot of Xanax might help you to relax in social situations (I suspect your supposed "creepiness" is in fact social anxiety). If you need to easy your way into it, I Nth the advice to read some books about cognitive behavioral therapy, like Feeling Good. My advice, part the third: This is not a race. You will find friends eventually. In the meantime, you're lucky that you have hobbies to keep you entertained. To that end, I suggest you may want to try to live alone for a while so you feel less judged/watched, and freer to do exactly as you wish and hang out by yourself as often as you like. This is a part of getting happy with yourself. Make it possible, create a space, in which you CAN feel good about following your natural tendencies.

"I'm sorry if I hurt people, and I'm sorry if people think I thought I shot down." I think what tel3path was trying to do was give you some insight into some of what you are doing that might make people uncomfortable with being your friend in real life and how you might change those patterns. I'm going to quickly review this thread for you in a way that I hope will help make sense of this for you. Please understand that this is not an attack or a call for you to apologize for anything. It's meant to empower you to make some changes which may improve your life. You started out the thread by asking a reasonable question which a lot of people can relate to. In the process, you threw in some gratuitous put-downs of yourself, some unneccessary apologies, and some restrictions on possible answers which may not have been ideal. You received a ton of encouragement, sympathy, happy birthday wishes, offers to talk, offers of help, people explaining that they had been through the same sort of experiences, practical advice which fit the restrictions you had laid out, and more practical advice which encouraged you to re-think the restrictions you had laid out. You responded by focusing on the one (quickly deleted) asshole comment and by explaining why you didn't think some of the advice would work for you. You didn't acknowledge any of the positive comments until you were repeatedly pressed on the issue and even then you seemed puzzled as to how or why you should react to them. You didn't respond in any way to most of the practical advice that was offered as an answer to your question. Instead, you put yourself down some more and apologized for no apparent reason and said that you thought you should close the thread. If this is the way you respond to people in real life (and I strongly suspect it may be), then you will make a lot of people uncomfortable being around you and you will have a hard time making friends. The good news is you can change these patterns of behavior. You can start right here in this thread if you like. It's actually much easier in an online conversation like this because you can take your time to think about what to say and you can come back to the conversation when you realize that you could have done something better. Maybe it still doesn't make sense to you how you could do things differently. To help out, I'll start you off with some dos and don'ts. 1) Don't put yourself down. 2) Don't apologize for existing or having problems or questions. (Of course, you should still apologize when you've done something to hurt somebody, but that doesn't seem to be a major problem for you here.) 3) When people offer you encouragement or compliments or birthday wishes, do express your thanks. 4) When you need support and someone offers to talk or to help out, do take them up on it. If you don't choose to take them up on it, express your appreciation for the offer anyway. 5) When you ask for advice and someone offers it, do carefully think about it and see if there's a way you can apply that advice. If the advice doesn't make sense to you, ask some follow-up questions until you really understand it. Whether you choose to follow it or not, say thanks to the person who took the time to answer your question. 6) If you feel stuck in a situation where you are miserable and you don't see a way out and people suggest that you have a fundamental mistake in your assumptions about your available options, do open your mind enough to ask "what if" they are right? You don't necessarily have to believe them - just consider the possibility of the "what if". 7) When people tell you that they've been through what you're going through - ask them about it. Show an interest. 8) When people offer you encouragement or compliments or birthday wishes or tangible help or a chance to talk or practical answers to a question you asked, say to yourself - "Wow, someone really cares and wants me to feel better. That's cool." Go ahead and try these steps - in this thread or in the next online conversation you participate it. If you practice in a safe environment like this, it will become easier in the real-time pressure of real life. If you can make these changes in real life, you will find it a lot easier to start accumulating friends. Good luck!