I'm Back to WP! Here's Why...

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Hello again WP community. I have decided to come out of retirement and to sum it up, here is why in one sentence.

I am well liked, have made great strides socially but still have no clue how to make a friend my own age

Since I was last here on WP in the fall I have joined two running groups and five meetup.com groups. To say it's been positive would be an understatement. I have met some great people and am very well liked in those groups. I am running into the usual problem: they are all 40+ and it's hard to closely relate to someone that age but overall they are great people who accept me for who I am.

I dated a woman my own age over the summer who was practically my clone. While I believe she is NT, I later found out from former classmates of hers that it's downright eerie how her childhood and mine were almost identical. She is surrounded by people with ADHD (and made me realize I have some ADHD traits) and I adopted many of her friends. I thought things were going well until they slowly distanced themselves. I still consider them casual friends, but I rarely see them anymore. I could not understand why until one posted a message on my Facebook page. I was proud of a recent accomplishment and one of this woman's friends wrote a long message (publicly) about how egotistical and arrogant I was in that post. Ironically enough it was almost word for word the same message that caused me to leave WP in the first place! To say I was blown away and shocked by that accusation is the ultimate understatement: might as well accused me of being the Zodiac killer!

I quickly had a number of people tell this person off (I deleted the post because my supporters were quite vicious ) and personally contacted me to tell me how she is out to lunch and there is no possible way to read my post as egotistical or arrogant, just as someone genuinely happy at an accomplishment. Of course, all the people who contacted me were in the 35+ category. I have to say it would be much easier if everyone thought I was a grade A A-hole: at least then I could know what to work on.

What further puzzles me is that I met her ex-boyfriend at a Christmas party and we got along great. He is obviously severely ADHD (emphasis on the "H") and very likely Aspie as I have never seen someone so obsessed with music. He even went on and on about useless facts about every record he owned (and it was a monstrous collection). He even has a stereotypical Aspie career and would not be totally surprised if he was a WP member. Even though he is older he looks and acts like a college student. For some reason, he has no shortage of friends who accept his quirks yet want nothing to do with me. I don't get it, we are very similar personality wise just that I am slightly more 'normal' and less geeky than him yet they won't give me the time of day. On the plus side I have to admit he is so refreshing to deal with as he is straightforward, a very warm host and doesn't BS around even if he lacks a bit of empathy. I could tell within seconds he was trustworthy and nothing has made me doubt that instinct.

I'm not trying to be too negative here. Sure it's great to meet new people but I desire deep, meaningful friendships. I have tried and tried to understand why and simply cannot understand why people my own age (and ONLY people my own age) seem to be repulsed by me. I suppose it's great that I can finally pick up on when woman are interested in sleeping with me, but I don't want casual sex. I seek deep, meaningful relationships: romantic or platonic. My supporters tell me to just "be myself" but it's to hard to not think of this quote by Lisa Simpson:

"being myself didn't work, being someone else didn't work, maybe I am just not meant to have friends."

I have spent far too much time trying to hide who I was thanks to severe childhood bullying and don't want to go down that path but I will admit: I love socializing and interacting with people and the loneliness is something I want to change. I just want to have someone roughly my own age or a little younger (being a very late bloomer) who accepts me for who I am. I am a well liked (at least by children and the 35+ crowd) caring, thoughtful, loyal person who would do anything to help someone in need and that's what makes it so hard to deal with.

Last edited by GiantHockeyFan on 20 Jan 2015, 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Welcome back GiantHockeyFan!!

Good for you. Meet-up can be a very positive experience - I too have found a group that suits me very well and is a big positive in my life. Picking the right group is the key, a process of trial and error sometimes.

Hey, What's up Giant Hockey Fan! The Rangers and the Islanders are really killing the league!

You have to get the Maple Leafs to the Stanley Cup again!

Meeting younger people is very difficult for me also. I think that the 25-35 age range is probably one of the most difficult, because most people are getting married and having kids around that time in their lives, so there aren't as many people out there to meet.

Ugh. I am an Oiler fan and enjoy the company of Leafs fans Actually flew out to Edmonton to see a couple of games live and they somehow won both of them! I will eventually make it to NYC.

HEY GHF!! ! It's good to see you again.