When Apathy And Indifference Hinder Your Ability To Make Friends
When people struggle to make friends sometimes knowledge, skill, or logistical barriers get in the way. They don't know the general steps to build a social life. They need more practice at making friendly small talk. Maybe they live in a small town where not much is going on, and don't have a car to get anywhere else.
At other times people are hampered by unpleasant emotions. The most common by far is anxiety, and all the fears, worries, and insecurities that go with it. Another is feeling hopeless and pessimistic about whether they can form any meaningful relationships.
Every so often someone will be blocked by feelings of apathy, indifference, and boredom. They do go out and meet people, but don't feel interested in any of them, at least not for long. They find the process of attending events around town to look for potential friends dull and tiresome. They'll be at a social gathering and feel flat and checked out, and have very little desire to chat to or learn more about anyone. They may start to hang out with someone, but not feel very excited about it. They generally feel like they're going through the motions.
They may have had this mindset from the very start, or began with more enthusiasm, but became worn out and detached after not having much luck in their search.
I wrote another article about when trying to make friends starts to feel like a chore. There's some overlap with this one, but the headspace I'm covering here goes deeper. It's not just that you've driven to one too many inconveniently located drop-in classes to try to meet someone, and it's all beginning to feel like a grind. I'm talking about a more all-pervading sense of, "Meh, I just don't care about any of this" when you're around people, when you have opportunities to connect with them, but you can't be bothered.
If you feel this way, here are some reasons it may be happening:
You truly haven't met anyone who's a good match for you
I think if you feel apathetic and indifferent about every person you meet, and every social activity you take part in, something else is likely going on. However, it's possible your personality, interests, and values are really unique, and you simply haven't come across someone who's compatible with you at all the places you've looked so far. Your feelings of indifference to what you've seen up until now are a reasonable reaction.
If you're not actively going out to try to meet new people, and are just working with the prospects that naturally come to you through work or school, you may not be in an environment with anyone who's your type. If you are taking steps to put yourself out there, you might be going to generic, default social spots like bars or dance classes where you're not likely to have much in common with the typical person who shows up. I realize it's not always simple to find your crowd, but once you have met them you may feel some actual eagerness to get to know them.
You're going after a type of friend or social life you don't actually want deep down
It's easy for lonely people to unwittingly absorb messages from their family, peers, and society that tell them which kind of social life it's correct or desirable to have. For example, if you're a young adult you may have grown up being told that you should spend their twenties partying with a big group of casual buddies. If you don't have a social life, and just want to feel less sad and isolated, when you try to make friends you can unthinkingly default to trying to find a bunch of people to go drinking with.
If you don't actually care about that kind of thing you may feel apathetic about everyone you meet, and everything they do, in that general scene. Your true social style may be to have one or two really close, intimate friends, and spend time with them in ways that have nothing to do with drinking or clubbing. However, if you're out of touch with your true needs you may keep trying to force yourself to have a Standard Issue social life, and beat yourself up for not feeling pumped up about it. Taking some time to reflect on what you truly want could point you in the right direction.
Your surface level feelings of apathy are a defense mechanism against deeper fears of rejection
If we want something, but going after it also scares us, our minds can try to protect us from our fears by convincing ourselves we don't actually care about it. Many people want a social life, but they're afraid of humiliation and rejection, and all the painful emotions that come with it.
For some their "I don't really want this" unconscious defense takes the form of being really judgmental and critical, and feeling no one is good enough to be their friend. Others may act off putting and drive everyone away, then tell themselves they didn't want to hang out with them to begin with, the classic "I'll reject you before you can reject me first." Another group spares themselves from having to face rejection with subtler feelings of apathy and indifference. Someone can't hurt you if you can't even be bothered to take a chance on them.
Apathy and indifference aren't exactly pleasant feelings, but they're relatively tolerable. They feel like a flat, dull lack of emotion, rather than intense and uncomfortable. Your unconscious mind may prefer you experience apathy rather than the much more difficult feelings that go with embarrassing yourself or being turned down. It thinks you simply couldn't handle that, and sees keeping you in a bored, indifferent fog as an acceptable trade off.
Your social apathy may be part of a broader reaction to the painful things you've been through
When someone's had a tough childhood, or experienced enough trauma or tragedy as an adult, they can develop a pervading sense of apathy toward the world. In some cases it's an adaptive response. They've repeatedly learned that life doesn't go their way. They can't be hurt or disappointed even more in the future if they don't care about or go after anything. Again, it's not nice to feel so indifferent and checked out, but it's better than the alternative of believing something good will finally happen, then being absolutely crushed when your hopes are dashed yet again.
At times this attitude comes with obvious feelings of depression or angry pessimism, but not aways. Sometimes a person's life has been so difficult, and they feel so many horrible, unbearable emotions in response, that their mind cuts them off from most of their feelings to block out the pain. Instead they feel flat and disconnected. This general emotional dissociation can feel like apathy and indifference in their day to day awareness.
Whatever the underlying mechanism, the result is they feel unenthusiastic toward every aspect of their life - their career, their hobbies, their family - and their social life is no different.
This generalized feeling of apathy can even set in even when someone hasn't had a blatantly horrible upbringing. They may have gone through quieter, less noticeable challenges that still left them with a deep sense that things weren't going to work out, and that it's better just not to care. For example, they may have had parents who were stable and caring for the most part, but had really high standards and quietly undermined their confidence. It can be harder to get to the bottom of things in these cases, but it can be done.
I realize this short article can't go into detail about how to untangle and heal the baggage behind the deeper, broader reasons for feeling apathetic and indifferent, but hopefully even getting a better sense of what may be going on behind it can give you a place to start.
