girls, girls, girls!!! so hard to make friends.

[ashenn]

post-happy... ;D

another thing that's been driving me up the wall about myself for awhile:

it is impossible for me to make girlfriends. besides being a bit of a mysogenist, (generally) i just can't get past comparing myself to other females long enough to make a lasting friendship. the first few minutes of conversation are totally overshadowed by my brain, which is screaming, 'look at her skin!!! it's amazing!!! say something intelligent to make her stop looking at you like that!! what the hell noise was that you just made?? are you stupid? YOU ARE STUPID!!!'

etc.

i've really tried to get over this by telling myself that personality is what matters, but i really know that i won't be able to make friends with women until i'm happy with the way i look. and besides this i'm just generally convinced that i'm a schmuck who has nothing to offer people. arghh!!!

comment!!!

please!

[Krib]

Ash, believe me, I know how you feel!!
Nearly all my friends are boys too, but trust me, you can get past the skin thing with females....it took me a while, but the thing is that when a female genuinely likes you, they don't even notice your skin, which is never as bad as you think it is anyway! Or if they do they don't give a toss!

I was shocked when a male mate told me that a female friend, Amy, thought my skin was great (nope- just clever make-up!) when I could barely look her in the eye as she talked to me...."my skin's so red and flaky and shite!"...etc...

I also identify with being a bit of a misogynist, I judge women harshly and it takes me longer to trust them, and yes it doesn't help that most seem to have "perfect" skin! I always assume women will be giggly, girly things until I'm proved otherwise ;D But again, the females I get on with are quite boyish and none of us get on with real "girl's girls" if you know what I mean.

So have faith, you just haven't met the right females yet! And there's obviously nothing wrong with you as a person since many on here identify with what you feel and say, and the vast majority are female! your posts make me laugh anyways, I like ya sense of humour ;D

Confidence mate!!

[snuggleball]

I'm a bit of a misogynist too, and I also compare myself to other girls constantly. I think you just have to find someone you're really compatible with, and realize that everyone has some flaws.

[anonymousartist]

I have the opposite problem....I have trouble getting and keeping guy friends.

At the same time I can see why it's hard to have girlfriends. I have some awesome girlfriends and I don't get that vibe like they're judging me. But there are a lot of women who do judge others harshly (hell I'm sure I do it too. I'm a mean shit-talker) and women are competitive with each other. We do it for no reason all the time. And I also tend to get very envious of some of my girl friends, but the thing to realize is that everyone has problems. Everyone has insecurities. You don't know how often you talk to a girl who also is worried about her skin or even picks and is good at hiding it.

And I think there is something to meeting the right girls. You can't trust all of them. I honestly don't think I've met a lot of the right guys in recent years (and had some trouble meeting good girl friends too. Some are so fake. Some pretend they want to be friends because it's uncomfortable for them to tell someone they don't really like them or want to hang out or whatever, or maybe it's not that complicated and I'm being unreasonably paranoid to think someone just hates me because they don't put time into a friendship with me, and maybe it's nothing that big).

Just, don't forget to feel lucky for what you do have. The rest will come.

edit: I should add that a good girl friend doesn't just come out of the sky. It takes time for those relationships to become close. Sometimes it even takes really random events to tie people together. It's nothing you can control.

[newandbetterme]

i'm sorry to hear u are having such problems
i also sometims compare myself..
but i would not that get in the way of meeting people
..acutally what happens to me..is if a person is distant to me...then i look at them..skin wise..etc..but if make attempt to talk to them..or if they talk to me...the skin issue fades..within minutes..
and if it reappears i never turn it into a big thing.

i can only suggest to try..and try and try..try different approaches..
it is not a good thing for us to isolate ourselvs...it tends to lead to more depression..anxiety..and picking..i'm talking from experience.

[ashenn werk]

anonymous--
see, exactly. guys are easy to me because i feel like males are less judgemental by nature. also, the guy friends i have generally seem to talk about interesting shit, or at least to be entertaining. they have great senses of humor. i find myself at a total loss when i'm hanging out with girls and they start talking about....shopping....or whatever, just indulging in their femininity. i can't do that. i feel like a total knob talking about my hair or whatever. i like to make jokes and be ridiculous, but i almost feel LESS FEMININE doing this in the presence of other females. weird.

also, even when i meet girls i dig and who dig me, i tend to harp on aspects of my personality. i will pick out their best personality trait and say, 'You don't have that, so how can you possibly get on with this girl?' like this girl Emily i know-- she's so fucking funny, along with being very pretty (beautiful angelic skin too)-- and i just feel so PALE in comparison. like hanging out with her dilutes my personality. then on top of feeling envious over her sense of humor, i get pissed at myself for being envious and think, "You dog, what a nasty thing, to feel jealous of your friend. You must be a horrible person."

--this is horrifying because it totally prevents me from feeling OK hanging out around women, because my eventual conclusion is that i'm a bad person and not deserving of friends.

i think newandbetter has the right idea with trying everything i can. it's hard, though...i am so willing to condemn myself as morally bankrupt.

[anonymousartist]

I see. Well, ok, I only noticed this about a couple years ago, but some girls have to have the spotlight on them. They need to be the prettiest and the funniest, and the best example I can think of is a chick I knew who I ultimately didn't become close friends with even though when she talks to me she acts like nothing's wrong. The thing is I think she needs all that attention because from the way her mom and sister are such control freaks and so is she, I can totally tell they basically run her life for her. So in turn she needs to control the situations she's in too. I thought this and another girl and a couple of guys were my friends until I noticed they weren't inviting me to things when it used to be implied that I was invited and starting feeling horrible all the time. If you get that kind of vibe, it's not a good friendship to be in at all. And every time I hung out around this girl after I got a sour taste from her spotlight hogging abilities because it always seemed like everything needed to be about her (wow, she is needy). (And wow I am kinda lame for still feeling like shit-talking her).

But anyway, I'm sort of not as girly as I want to feel either. It comes from different things. I was kinda cut off when I was young and growing up from real girl friends, my family didn't have the money (and my mom wasn't into) to get all the expensive girly things, my older sister went through an anti-girly phase that I followed along in (it was the early 90's) and then I became what I considered too fat to wear cute, girly clothes. So some of my friends are guilty of trying to dress me up (I don't mind a little help now, and actually when I go into a store I have to remind myself, "ok, I know how to dress myself") I guess I just lack my own personal style in that department. But I confess a lot of the time when I am clothes shopping with my friends it gets boring and I kinda suck it up 'cause I like spending time with them. I never buy anything expensive and until recently nothing in the mall ever would have fit me. I use mostly hair products that clean my hair and don't smell really special and I have no idea what fragrances I like (although one of my friends gave me a shitload of bath n body works stuff that I don't mind having at all!)

Ok now I'm rambling. But the thing is my good girl friends, don't make me feel bad, and I am sure there are girls who won't make you feel bad about yourself. There are girls out there who are sensitive to those things or just plain don't care about anything but a friend's personality (and those are the ones to aim for). I happen to have girl friends right now who are very pretty. I get particularly annoyed when guys pay so much attention to them and only them (and figure the guys are jerks because they aren't the kind of girls who ditch me for them). The thing is that eventually they open up to you and you find out they're not perfect by any means. I think my prettiest friends even have some variation of this same picking thing, either they have admitted to picking blackheads or they have really bitten down fingernails. You really know a girl is a cool friend when she seems perfect and all of a sudden admits to something gross like farting. That's what tells you she's human. Stick around long enough for that or for vibrators to come up in discussion and you'll be ace. Sure, some people may try to give you a make-over but as long as they accept you as you are, then you're good to go.

Something you might try which can be a quick way to meet people is join a message board for your fave band or something else you really like (some of the fanbase of my fave band consists of whackos but I did meet a couple cool people because they happened to live in the area and we met at a concert). That way you're meeting people online who already have something personal in common with you. When a concert comes around and there's a fanmeet you already feel like you know some people. Plus, you never know, you could end up with some other perks like knowing way too much info about whatever band and even get backstage or whatever.