>>11426076>Start making 3 or 4 good friends...I'm not the best at telling what counts as a "good" friend compared to a normal one, but lets assume I've got three, one is one of my current roommates, one was but moved away and we stay in contact mainly for TTRPG, and one honestly we don't talk that much anymore but she just contacted me asking for help writing a poem about her dead grandmother to cope with the 1yr anniversary and that sounds pretty intimate so i'm guessing she counts. Maybe she just knows I'm a smart doormat I dunno.
>and hang out with them... They tend to fit into two categories. Pushy about including me, at least as much as they can be and still be polite about it, or someone that doesn't ever call and eventually forgets I exist. I'm actually surprised 2 and 3 haven't yet.
I think category one are trying to help, they correctly recognize I'm lonely, often deeply so, but it's all just so god damn taxing. I'm stuck in this limbo where Peace requires to be with others and be alone but neither recharges enough for the other. I default to perma-alone because its most familiar. Suffering is easier to handle than even more exhaustion, and a loss of time control even though I never do anything with it anyways.
>Also, try to keep a good number of acquaintances....they don't do jack shit for alienation, but as long as I have any friends at all I tend to have plenty of those.
>Eventually, your social circle will expand, and you'll get used to casually interact with others.Expansion hasn't really happened in my experience. Any time I'm not actively putting in effort it's decaying. That's most of my life, really, even ignoring the metabolic issues it's no wonder I'm so tired.
As for ease of casual conversation... if you mean Customer Service voice, yeah its gotten a lot better. Actual conversation hasn't changed a bit outside of intentional and specific steps I've been taking, especially to be more open. certainly not easy or natural.
