It's sad how many men don't have friends outside of family and dates.
If that's you, please get friends. If you don't know how, find a hobby where you're likely to interact with other people, and interact with them. Even if it's just smalltalk, that's a start.
Friends don't have to be in the same age range, but generally you have more in common with people your own age because you've all had similar experiences in terms of going through the same history and pop culture. I'm in my mid-40s. If I'm in an antique store or flea market with a 20-year-old and I point out an Atari 2600 Missile Command cartridge, they likely won't know what it is. If I show it to people my age, it brings up memories and suddenly we can talk about how we used to play our Ataris.
Yeah my best friend is 20 years older than me. It worked out because we basically have the exact same interests or at least close enough we can talk about things we like and have an engaging conversation.
K so what if you have a crazy busy job and no free time because family. What then. Working hard to keep the family afloat has to be number one - then it’s sleep and victuals and stuff.
If this is real, there are some things I can suggest, but I can't guarantee a solution because this is an absurd situation. You might try looking into government aid programs, looking for a better paying job with fewer hours, or if you're not a single parent with young kids only, asking someone else in the family to pull some weight too. And if you can't get out of the no-free-time situation, try making friends with coworkers.
If this isn't real, then why is that your response to general advice? Seems kinda like if someone recommends walking for exercise and you say "What if I'm paralyzed from the waist down?"
I used to have a good friend but he shot himself a few years ago. It takes a long time for me to make proper friends.
Lemmy is actually pretty chill. It’s been nice just chatting with people here. Less toxic than another place I won’t mention.
Also: You can do the hobbies online if you do not want to keep it IRL. My longest standing friend I met over at an online forum like 13 or so years ago. I also met a few people I still hang with every now and then via minecraft servers.
It's difficult to get friends when you're a dude. There's the never ending suspicion you get from your wife.
Sure, it's crazy behavior, but as a man, you can't really argue it, since society is generally on the side of women being suspicious (and dare I say it, insecure). Eventually it gets cleared up when she checks your phone, calls your friends, follows along during your guy nights, etc.
But the fact that it happens at all is just exhausting and generally guys don't wanna deal with that.
The fact that it happens at all, is some rom-com higschooler mentality that I refuse to put up with. There have been a fuckton of women that tried that bullshit with me. If you're going to play highschool games, you don't deserve a man. You deserve a little boy, as you're clearly a little girl/boy/other sexuality, but you still are in highschool and don't have the ability to fulfill an actual adult in your relationship. I've had far too many try to date me.
If you want a relationship that is based in reality, I'm down. I've yet to meet a woman that actually wants a relationship based in reality. Kinda sucks for me since I don't like guys. Especially since I've been hit on by multiple guys that would have been great for me, if they'd been women.
There's the never ending suspicion you get from your wife.
That's not normal and healthy. I don't have that issue with my wife, and I'm not aware of any friends that do either. I mean if my friends and I had a habit of going to strip clubs or something... yeah, that's going to make the misses insecure. But if you don't have a history of behavior that has earned her suspicion, I'd be looking at couple's therapy to get past that.
I have been in a relationship with someone like that. It was miserable not being trusted and having arguments about her baseless suspicions. In my case I eventually realized she was projecting.
You really do want to gather a good group of friends in your youth, it gets more difficult in adulthood
I'm part of three different groups since late teens, but since working full time I have only made maybe 3 new friends (not counting comings and goings from the groups)
It's nice being in a beer brewing friend group, the beer just gets better and better as budgets improve
After being with a good woman, I'd tell your woman to get therapy or get a new man. Good, healthy women do not do this shit. It's one thing to ask your husband where they're going and when they expect to return, it's another to check his phone, call his friends, stalk him... that's unhealthy as fuck. Goes both ways to, leave your wife's shit alone. If you can't trust each other, what's the point?
My wife doesn't do this, so it's all good. But I have friends who need to deal with this. I am not gonna tell them how to live their life.
But that's not the point I was trying to make. I was trying to say that society is much more accepting of women doing this than men. Somehow this is kind of "acceptable" for women to be this controlling, especially in my society.
My wife has never been suspicious of me having friends. She wishes I had friends. All of my friends live at least a 70-minute drive away. I've lived in this town for over 10 years and I've never made any friends. I'm kind of introverted, which doesn't help, but no one is interested in getting to know me.