In Need of a Social Life

[JoeBlo4441]

I am a 24-year-old male and currently in graudate school. During the past few weeks I've come to realize that I lack quality friends in my life, whether because I don't relate much to the friends that I do have, or I don't really feel that close bond that I think really good friends should have between one another. More than anything else though, I feel like my friends are holding me back from being the person I want to be (and am capable of being), and serve as a barrier for maintaining my internal status quo.

 

I think part of the reason for this is because of the way I was raised as a child. My parents are not social at all. They basically work 9-5 jobs and then go home and keep to themselves (including weekends), so I never learned to be social by watching my parents. In hindsight, my mother was also very critical and controlling and it is only now that I find that I am beginning to make my own decisions and learn how to accept myself, without any kind of parenal influence such as thinking "What will my parents think?" or "What would my parents do?"

 

Add to this the fact that my parents instilled in me a worker's-like mentality and placed so much emphasis on academic acheievement as a precursor to financial stability in the form of post-college employment, that I feel that I have neglected other areas of my life; basically, I do not have a balanced life, and am only now beginning to work on this aspect of myself.

 

I think my background has led me to become friends with people whom I don't really relate to, but instead, to people that like me (accept me) as a person, who don't really bother me, yet I could care less if I hang out with them or not. I feel as though I'm settling for average (not in a judgmental sense) friends in the sense that there are people out there with whom I'm much more compatible with.

 

My current set of friends also tend to be laid back, but low-energy, lazy people who (although reasonably successful as professionals) don't seem to have a any life long goals. I have also realized that the girls that I have been involved with in the past share the same characteristic - they have been girls that initially pursued me whom I was not interested in, and then I eventually caved in their pursuits.

 

These relationships have also been unsatisfactory to me. Plus, I have never been able to work up the courage to pursue girls that I myself have decided I am interested in. Thus, it seems like the underlying similarity among all of my relationships with people is that my friends and social circle is chosing me, instead of me going out and looking for the friends that I want.

 

My theory is that it will take a tremendous abount of internal resolve, introspection, self-acceptance, and a certain type of "reaching out to the world" to build a flourishing social life and meet the types of people that add substance to my life and make me feel good about myself. However, at my age, I'm starting to wonder if I will ever get to that point, as it seems that people in their 20's really start to solidify their life-long relationships, get married, and move into an entirely different phase of life. I feel that if I don't fix this problem soon, I'll be left on the side of the road indefinitely.

 

Ultimately, I have always felt that I capable of being a much better and more acomplished person, and am far from maximizing my potential as a human being. I think I need to shed myself of any lingering critical "parental influence" that is left over from my childhood, and also shed myself of any influence from my current set of friends. (I think my friends somehow sense that I am capable of much more and I think they try to keep me down to their level by being critical of new and interesting hobbies and people that I try to incorporate into my life. Again, I don't mean this in a condescending way, but I feel that my goal of maximizing my potential as a person is incompatible with my friends' mentality of just being satisfied with how their current lives are.)

 

I feel that the time is ideal for me to start to develop enriching personal relationships. I will be graduating soon. I will be debt-free and be very financially secure (six-figure salary), in one of the biggest cities in the world. I am fit and good-looking (I've done some modelling during the past year), and I am generally a likeable person and I treat others with respect, and have a genuine care for others in general.

 

I feel that given all this, I simply need to develop the charisma and the courage to go out and meet the people and develop the relationships that will make my life happier. One problem is that I have never had to make friends outside of school, and I'm not even sure how to go about doing this. I'm not very good at striking up conversation with strangers. However, given the fact that I will be in a huge city, the situation really is ideal for me to start meeting people that will end up being my best friends.

 

Any suggestions on where I go from here and build my social circle?