[onnimonni]

I feel for you. People are flaky and relationships rarely work in both ways.

I felt lonely year ago and I messaged over 160 people and met over 100.

When departing with them I tried to say to all of them that: ”It was nice to meet you. If you liked it as well can you arrange it next time? If you didnt like it and I was annoying you please message me later on how I could have been better.”

Less than 10% of the 100 people did reach back to me but they are very wonderful folks and I’m happy with their company.

Finding great friends needs you to be explicit on what you want and also having enough social stamina to endure through this.

Be willing to let go of the friends who are just passengers in your relationships and rarely show up without doing anything in return. Life is short and theres opportunity cost in each moment.

[npodbielski]

> ”It was nice to meet you. If you liked it as well can you arrange it next time? If you didnt like it and I was annoying you please message me later on how I could have been better.”

Sounds like email you get from retailer after online purchase asking to rate a product.

[onnimonni]

I agree :D. It's my best formulation to be explicit so far. How would you say it in more natural way to still achieve the same end result?

Most people are clueless and will never do anything in return if you're implicitly expecting them to behave in certain manner.

[closewith]

> I agree :D. It's my best formulation to be explicit so far. How would you say it in more natural way to still achieve the same end result?

I think you can't ask it, at least not without self-selecting yourself out of further contact from the majority of people.

> Most people are clueless and will never do anything in return if you're implicitly expecting them to behave in certain manner.

This is somewhat dismissive and maybe warrants some self-reflection. Most people broadcast their feelings extremely visibly and will have expected you to have understood their feelings without having to explicitly explain them to you.

[stuxnet79]

Relationships, healthy ones anyway, are a two way street & need to be nurtured. Like OP I realized over time that most people are lazy and expect a lot out of their relationships without putting any effort in. I like the way OP put it as them being "passive" passengers in the whole relationship journey. It can make for some very exhausting interactions if the bulk of your relationships are like this.

There is a cultural aspect to this. In my opinion American culture because it is so individualistic and market-driven encourages transactional, superficial relationships.

OP's approach might not be palatable to everyone but really any tactic that allows you to filter these people out is going to lead to more satisfying relationships. Just my 2 cents.

[closewith]

> It can make for some very exhausting interactions if the bulk of your relationships are like this.

Yes, agreed, and they weren't friendships to begin with. The OP just didn't recognise that.

> OP's approach might not be palatable to everyone but really any tactic that allows you to filter these people out is going to lead to more satisfying relationships. Just my 2 cents.

It also filters out all potential real friendships and leaves only transactional acquaintances. While they're young, unencumbered, and healthy, these might appears similar to friendships in that they will be people with whom they can hang out, enjoy various activities, and feel part of a community.

However, when life becomes difficult due to illness or injury, family circumstances, etc, transactional acquaintances will disappear and they'll be left isolated. Of course their criteria of a balanced effort ledger will still be satisfied, so maybe they'll be happy.

Or maybe they'll realise too late that holding an account of effort is incompatible with long-term relationships of any type. Too late in that their peers will already have their crystallised social networks, and they'll be unable to grow their own.

> There is a cultural aspect to this. In my opinion American culture because it is so individualistic and market-driven encourages transactional, superficial relationships.

So ironically, this is a real and growing cause of mid- to late-life isolation in developed economie, but it's a result of the mindset the OP is falling into.

[npodbielski]

On the other hand maybe OP filtered people to group that like that kind of feedback in some way So maybe it did work ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[closewith]

Yeah, agreed! It is selecting for a certain type.

Just don't want the GP to fall into the trap that the others were clueless as they commented, because that normally indicates a blindspot on the GP's side, not the people with whom they've interacted.

[onnimonni]

I have thousands of connections I’ve hanged out during my twenties.

Ive arranged countless parties. People have met eachother in those and are happily married nowadays or have made friends during those events. Somehow the relationship between me and them formed into one where they were expecting me to arrange and include them everytime without offering help or asking me in return. Ive done all the things both of you mentioned and you’re definitely right that this does filter out plenty of people but I dont mind that nowadays.

The ones that get filtered through are the ones I feel like I should spend my energy and I have strong feeling that some of the effort does echo back to me during the times I dont have energy to be the one who arranges. It feels very nice but again we have different needs and YMMV. This works for me and I should have been more explicit about my background in the initial post as well.

[npodbielski]

I do not know... I would probably never do that at all. Seems calculated and cold. Well I am not an expert in human connections also it may vary from country to country. But where I live you may have better results by connecting to people that have similar interests whatever it may be:

-you like soccer? Watch the game with some people.

-you lime playing basketball? Probably there is some group of people you can join in your city.

-do you like old cars? Probably there are some events you can drive to and show whatever you have in your garage.

-do you like W40K or MTG? Probably there is some local club somewhere? etc.

-if you have kids you just talk to people that have their kids in the same school/preschool/class because it makes it easier

-or if you like just to have a chat start attending local pub of your choice and have a chat to other regulars

This is the usual way of dealing with making friends where I live. But I am bit terrible at making new friends. I have just like 5 friends for +15 years.