Friends first or relationship first?

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I sent a pm to XFilesGeek to lock this. I am sorry but I couldn't find anything helpful in the posts here. They just made me more hopeless and depressed.

You asked if it would be better to be friends with someone, or start off in a relationship with them, and you got a lot of yes's, no's, and it depends answers, along with a lot of extra information.

The short answer is, it can happen either way, depending on the person. If you want to take it slow and start out as friends, take Angry's advice, and keep a little bit of distance from them (like a casual friendship).

I honestly think suicide is going to be the solution for me. I visualized doing it back when the depression was beginning to hit me.

Good stuff. I look at that kind of thing as an investment. It doesn’t make sense to keep putting yourself into someone who has no benefit to offer in return. At a certain point, you have to decide whether it makes sense to be involved at that level in their life and maybe choose to look elsewhere.

What will eventually happen is that the person you are putting capital into (meaning time, gifts, etc., whatever) will recognize a void in his or her life and will seek you out to fill it.

And if they don’t, good riddance. But you hope that you’ve done that person some good by being a part of her life and that hopefully your life has at the very least been enhanced through the experience. Regardless of whether a lasting relationship forms, the good you do will ALWAYS come back to you in a positive way.

I'm really curious Mark what kind of answers you were expecting. You say you couldn't find anything helpful but what would have been helpful to you?

Is it even possible to learn how to make new friends even if you missed out on the psychosocial moratorium in your developmental years as well as learning the dating game?

It most certainly is possible.

And don’t get so caught up in the Erickson stages. They don’t necessarily follow a strict order, and sometime people revert repeat stages several times over a period of decades.

You’re stuck in identity vs. role confusion. Who are you? Who CAN or should you be? I would ask: what do you like or enjoy doing? And just go with it. There, problem solved.

How to make friends? Easy. Actually care about people and work to make their lives better. Work to make them feel important. Which means you’re going to have to be less concerned about other interests that don’t involve others but also be willing to bring people into your own circle of interests when you need their help.

Relationships: same thing.

Locked by request.