Do people find me boring or am I missing something?
This has been gnawing at me for a while now. I (29M) just recently moved to a new country for work and making friends has been an immense struggle.
I apologise in advance, this is going to get a bit ranty. I am trying to get a very specific personal experience across.
All my attempts to make friends with my coworkers have been duds to say the least. I make the effort to attend events with other expats and even international students around my age. While I've managed to get to know some people and be involved in some friend groups, I still find myself in the fringes most of the time.
Here's what I mean. I meet people or join a group. We make plans and meet up to hang out and do stuff. Then after a while I just start to realise that everyone else seems to be getting along better with each other and I'm just kind of on the outside. They text each other more often outside of the group chat or they make plans with each other outside the group. Which I don't mind, people are free to do as they please. The part that bothers me is that I never seem to get that energy coming my way. I try to initiate DM chats with some of the people in these groups that I feel like I clique with, but it usually doesn't go anywhere and fizzles out the moment I stop making an effort.
I never get anyone trying to initiate anything with me. Outside my family and a few friends from back home, if I stopped texting anyone, my notifications would go silent because I'm usually the one trying to initiate stuff. Deep down something tells me friendships shouldn't be this much effort or feel this way. It's honestly disheartening to know that most of these "friendships" I've made are not reciprocal. Yet I also have this dreadful feeling that if I stop making the effort then I would have nothing either, like no one is going to go out of their way to reach out and make friends with me. I also know this is not a common experience with everyone around me, my "friends" have people text them uninitiated, seemingly all the time, sometimes people from the same group.
With the first group I just figured they knew each other longer than they knew me so I did not think much of it. The second group was practically brought together through me and yet the same thing happened. Naturally I started to wonder, "am I not interesting enough for people to want get to know me?" "Their DMs with other people seem so active and lively than their DMs with me, am I boring? If so what am I not doing right?" "Is this a race or cultural thing?" (I'm usually the only person of African descent in these groups since I'm living and working in Europe). I'm really trying to stay positive, but the dread keeps building up inside like I'm just not able to connect with people for some reason and the worst thing is I don't even know why.