Topic : Difficulty Forming Friendships

I am seeing a Personal Trainer at the moment and getting my life togethor, but its bringing up new issues and it's effecting my exercise, It's driving me mad right now, that I dont have any friends. I'm feeling very insecure about how I look, although that is going to change, i'm getting my hair done and going to go shopping, any tips on making friends though? My poor personal trainer, i'm getting happy and now that he's the only 'friend' I got, i talk to him and talk and talk and talk.... then I feel like a moron because I just dont shut up.... I'm going to go to a Kickboxing club to make some friends.... any tips? I need some friends!!!!

Best thing to do is focus outward.  Instead of talking about you, ask people about themselves.  Show an interest in them.  What are your interests?  Join activities that you are interested in because others that join will have the same interest.  There's your common ground to start a conversation.  The kickbox class sounds like a good place to start.  Be cheerful around people.  Good luck!

This is my first time posting, I am a mother of 2 boys and married about 8 years you can say and i guess ever sents i left highschool i lost contact with my friends and now l live in a new town and i have tried to go to a womans gym and talked to some and when it closed down that was about it i guess i am a nice person and funny and silly my friends have said and good listener but finding someone to talk to other than my mother or sister is another thing i just want someone i can hang out with sometimes other than my kids,don't get me wrong i love them but sometimes i would like to have someone to chat with and watch lifetime with my husband isn't really into lifetime for woman and we do talk and we are close but i would like a converstation with aanother one kinda like me lol......i sit at home all day wash cloths and do dishes and work out then i just get ummm frustrated and wish i new what all happen to all the friends i had in high school all went.But most of them i have heard moved away in another country or have past away from things they shouldn't done and that just maked me sad. well i dont know what else to say ...later girls  

It does make it hard to make friends wihen for most of my life the ones that I liked and started to make friends with have died in some accident or disaster.. Home life when growing up didn't help.   

  

I still continue to talk to people and help them if they need something, but I can't share how I'm feeling.   

  

Here I am an adult and I blush if a guy talks to me.   

This is a big one for me.  When I was in the third grade a girl I'd been friends with died suddenly.  She'd moved away the year before and we had promised to write and visit each other for sleep-overs.  Then they announced in class she'd died of an embolism.  I was devastated.  In high school I was friendly with some girls who turned on me after I began dating the friend of one of their boyfriends.  I was very private with the relationship and I think that irritated her.  It was a mess and ended destroying the relationship with him as well as them.  Then in college I had a dear, special friend which ended up eroding four years later for various reasons.  This was shortly after the betrayal of friendship with a guy my last year in college which I repressed because of the nature of the betrayal. Anyway, I recently discovered she passed away leaving a young son and husband.  I was devastated.  It brought all the feelings of the loss of the friendship to the surface which I had never allowed myself to grieve.    I do not mean to say I didn't have superficial acquaintances but nothing really connected.  I cannot trust, as hard as I try.  I've always been alone in a world full of people.  I so want to change this... to not have that ever present suspicious nature lurking underneath the surface.  I think sometimes that is easier on paper, in this format than in real life.  Can anyone relate??  I am a single mom with a grown son and do not want to always travel alone.  I do not know if it is too late for me.  Even in my family because of abuse issues and stuff I was the odd duck or felt like I was.

I may be out of line a bit but perhaps in addition to getting the outside fit and together you need to work on the inside too.  I am trying to do this too, though not as active on the outside stuff.  I have all the tools but am just not doing it.  Dr. Phil's book "Self Matters" is really a great resource for finding what makes you tick and not tick, actually.  I have found that you can learn more by listening  than talking... don't judge, don't assume... just listen.  My problem is I am a sounding board for everyone else and noone seems to be there for me.  Kind of like the character in "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter", if you ever read or saw the movie.  I think it is because I am not assertive.. forceful enough in making myself heard but don't quite know how to change that.  I try but maybe I'm too polite to interrupt others when they talk, cut in/over or just assert myself with "Hey, I listened to you.  Can you give me a turn."  Who knows.

 i have just moved to a new state and im finding hard to make new friends because im so shy, any ideas on how to get past the shyness problem

I had a friend that just moved and she now has a lot of friends.  She actually searched for people in blogs/myspace in her area.  Women who had children and her common interests.  It worked out well for her because she could "screen" them first in e-mail.  Good luck!

I can understand how you are feeling. I see alot of people in my daily life.I am a realtor as well as working in my brothers restaurant, I probally  come in contact with 800-1000 people a week and yet I am so shy that if it werent for work I probally wouldnt talk to anyone. I have always wished that I was an outgoing person and when I am at work, I know this sounds weird but, I just pretend that I am. I force myself to make conversation with people. Of course both of my jobs are based on makeing conversation with people I dont know so if I didnt I wouldnt be very good at either of them.Maybe if you get involved with a charity that will help bring you out of your shell, its always been easier for me to do things for other people than to do them for myself. Good luck to you.