I am the author of this trope, and I did it becuase I feel this way in real life :/

Dude, are you me?

I was wondering why the heck there wasn't a Troper Tales for this yet! So, I cannot make friends to save my life. I guess it's because I'm the only anime/game fangirl in the state of New Mexico. Because I don't like the chaparral outdoors, I must be evil or something, because I cannot get them to talk to me when I say hi. Woo.

Ooh, another New Mexico Troper. There's seemingly not many of us around. Game/anime fan here too. *waves*

There are other New Mexicans here?! I thought I was the only one! I'm an anime/game fangirl too!

Most of my friends stopped keeping in touch with me. Usually, when I tried to keep in touch with them, or ask to chat, or hang out, it was often seen as an inconvenience, even though they had nothing else going on. The only true friend I have is an online buddy, but she lives on the other side of the US, and we've never met.

Same, I'm an only child. {{Troper/sabrinadiamond}}

This troper's life story. Due to having pretty bad social skills, I was usually unable to keep the friends he had for very long. I was bullied sometimes as a kid, and some of the friends I had were pretty bad people. This led to an insistent IWorkAlone stance for this trope up until high school. To top it off, in middle school I ended up struggling with some form of depression, which drove away most of my friends, and actually made my depressions worse. Fortunately, things seem to be turning around, as while I still have crappy social skills, I have a sizeable Nakama, and I can't think of anyone among them who dislikes me.

To quote an old phrase: Are you me?

Sounds like me, but with more violent lashing out around the middle school period.

I... don't remember writing this.

Fourth guy here with the same story. We should form a band. (Dibs on the drums!)

And this fifth troper calls dibs on the guitar.

The story of this troper's life as well. I'm beginning to think that, if you don't develop the requisite social skills and self-confidence by a certain stage in your development, you simply CantCatchUp. I can do my best to act like everyone else does, but others seem to sense that I'm not quite like them. I've made only one friend since high school -- which was ''six years ago.''

How long have you been in high school?!

This trope is the story of my life. After being homeschooled for many years and then forced back into public school, it took me two years to make any friends... And then, as soon as I had a fairly large Nakama, all of whom I trusted my life with, I had to move again, and here I am, completely alone again. What I wouldn't give...

Kind of a subversion with this troper. I don't have any friends today because I don't go out and even when we meet someone in the street, people don't tend to talk to me and if they do, I say soemething small so as to not be rude and revert to my silence. Even when I was in school, I only had one real friend and even then I was mean to him. I never physically beat him or exactly FORCED him to do things against his will but I was controlling and abusive. I was convince din one eyar that he was a bad, controlling person when in fact he wa so timid, so shy that he wouldn't ever hurt a fly. I admit that we always laughed and that I made him laugh hysterically at times but trying to convince him that my parents were better than his, that he should be ashamed of himself for saying that he had boy scouts as friends, that I am mor eintelligent than him and always spoiling in my third year any fun he was having made me one villainous bastard who deseved what came upon him later on. I became a devout Catholic and, before any militant atheist cries out 'religion is evil', it wasn't because of religion. Those were very early days in my conversion. ANyway, I was always bothering him to pray or he'll go to hell. He became tired and started spending time with other boys (were were in an all boys school and this was in form 5; boys in this 'grade' are from 15 to 16 years old). The final straw came at the annual school Christmas party where, even though I didn't speak about religion alot that day so as to not spoil his fun, I still started bothering him when I saw he was dancing and jokingly said that that is not what nerds do. He said: 'WHAAAAT!' angrily and then left to dance. When school started in January, he didn't wantto talk to me anymore (rightfully so) but at least he wanted to remember me as he asked me for my signature before we left school. Itserved me right. I was always alone after that. Before I used to be really mean to people and would get them in trouble for even lightly joking with me (it was sad that I was the msot 'well behaved' and a teachers pet. Stupid teachers with their definition of a 'good student'. Yeuch) and that was when real bullying started. I was neve rbeaten but there this boy who would always taunt me, steal my things, another who was always sexually harassing me while pretending to be my friend, another who was Muslim (no offense to Muslims intended) who was a downright pervert, and then there was this other who was a year older than me who was my friend in name only. We did not have alot of interests and were never really close. In a word, I was an ass who pretended to be someone smart and who looked a ttothers as being purely evil people when in fact I was the one being evil. Don't think I'm exagerating, I'm saying this with all honesty to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary. There are other things which I shall not touch upon. I practically ruined my school mates' life at school but at least they went on and at least my ex best friend got other friends who treated him more nicely than I ever will. That moment at the Christmas party truely was a 'kick the son of a bitch' moment and a crowning moment of aweosme for him.

Enkufka skirts the edge of this trope. I have a great deal of friends... in Wisconsin. I live now in Vermont. I'm only good friends with one of my roommates, and even that I'm not sure about. I'm pretty sure my other roommate either has a great deal of disdain for me or outright hates me due to the fact that I (apparently) accidentally burned an image into his TV. As a result, I get insults every day from these two. Plus the fact that when I do manage to meet people I like, I inevitably get some kind of barrier keeping me from liking them completely. Add to that the fact that one friend of mine is a type B Tsundere (who managed to go into full TsunTsun mode when I asked her to not sing while I was writing the final paper for one of my classes ((causing me to lock up for 3 hours just trying to keep myself from hiding under my desk))) who spoke badly about people who I was trying to befriend. I would then start to dislike those people for those reasons, even though I was willing to become their friend. tl;dr College sucks I hate my life here.

I've given up hope really. I'll never have friends. I'm too much of a self-hating mess for anyone to actually want to spend more than 5 minutes with me. Though it would be nice.

Hey, if you can stand a girl that acts the same way, minus having any actual problems... we'd make quite a pair.

He's a self hating mess. She's a bratty teenage daughter. They fight crime.

Oh, oh! Can I be the overly-energetic yet smart {{Meganekko}}?

I have friends, close friends but never a best friend. I never had anyone I met similar to me and I'm always alone in school. I just want one friend where I could talk about anything with and she's a girl.

This sounds like something I would write. Good luck to everybody in this situation.

I must ''know'' you.

This Troper has no real friends and never really has, he just spends his life in a corner behind an opened umbrella..sometimes crying..

Ella, ella, ella, hey, hey

Are you me from two years ago?

I could be...but i might have to change this to the DrivenToSuicide trope soon...

Whoa there, let's not be hasty... this troper is sure if you'd think about it - even a little - you'd find people (friends, acquaintances,amigos, family, blood relatives - whatever you want to call them) who would miss you. As this page evidences, YouAreNotAlone. Okay, so you may be hurting a lot right now, but perhaps things are not as hopeless as they seem. 6.89 ''billion'' - that's how many people there are in the world; 310 million, in the U.S. alone. Potentiality for true and sincere friendships clearly exists amidst these masses. Look, this particular troper is not the most socially adept person in the world. She feels uncomfortable in large groups and maintains a tendency to fade into the background. And, when she does speak up or let lose, she tends to humiliate herself. She used to believe true friendships would perennially evade her. However, one day, she finally relaxed; stopped striving for her idealized version of friends, and simply let the pieces fall where they may. And, what do you know? She developed a {{nakama}} all her own! She's by no means popular or even necessarily sociable, but goddammit she has ''friends''; friends that she once believed existed solely in her dreams. The moral of this anecdote? ''Don't give up.'' Try to relax a little; be confident in ''your'' ability to make friends. As long as you do that, chance effectively guarantees you these bonds you want so dearly, if not in the way you expected.

This Troper was like this during elementary and middle school, because not a single person shared her interests. No one even ''knew'' what "anime" was, and all the gamers only played FPSes(as opposed to my Nintendo games). Sure, my classmates were nice to me, but I never became more than a classmate to them. I only had one real friend during those years, and she was in the class above me. Luckily, this changed when I started cosplaying, and my high school has a bunch of anime fans(one in my class, the rest in the year above us.)

This troper was horribly bullied in primary school and as a result kept a huge-as-hell wall between her and other people at all times. I made friends when I went into high school, but those were over ten years ago and no-one's kept in touch. I have a huge fear of people, being seen in public, answering the telephone....even emailing my old friends to say 'hi' sends me into a tizzy. On top of that, I have cripplingly low self-esteem and loneliness. I'm a mess but I don't quite know what to do to make it better. The only real friend I have is online, but it's not the same sometimes...

This Troper was this Trope up until College, I had people I regularly hung around with but I didn't consider them true friends, I had good friends online, and still do but they're, well, online. Then College came, and this troper now has a small Nakama who he loves. Of course I'd still like more friends, because you can never have too many nice people in your life. :D

This Troper is extremely shy and bisexual in a town filled with country loons and fundies. and I can't remember the last time I actually spoke to someone just for social interaction...

this troper was like that in middle school, when literally the WHOLE school hated her. she made a 'warrior cats' role playing website called Starclan, and after a bit, people joined.. they saved her life. they were her best friends. she made it past middle school, and has a group of friends now, not a nakama, but good enough. she misses her Starclan friends though.

I'm basically like this. I'm really shy and a bit of a daydreamer who's in her own little world most of the time, and so it's hard for me to make friends. I like spending time by myself, but I also wish I had more friends. In high school I had two really close friends, but since we've all started college (in different states), we've drifted apart, and I have trouble getting close to people in college. But this year I've had more friends than ever before since I've been involved in clubs. My biggest problems are that I have really low self-esteem and I'm horrible at small talk. But I'm working on building up my confidence, and this year I'm not quite alone as I had been. I still don't have anyone at college that I consider a really close friend--not compared to my high school friends--but I'm just taking what I can get at this point. Sometimes it's just nice to have someone to spend time with. It doesn't mean we need to tell each other our deepest secrets.

Looks like you and this troper have some things in common. I'm somewhat shy, and causing that to me being a loner. I like spending time with myself, but do want some friends. H.S, well, not that great, not a lot of friends made there, just a couple of female students, one of them Asian, but left in January 2010. The new H.S I went to, not even close. After managing to get into college, well, you might expect me to say everything went back up, I made a good amount of friends, and enjoying life/having high confidence. Well, while it hasn't ended yet, not everything can be good. I tried to talk to a few people in a club and be friends with them, after messaging one of them twice(3 if you count a reply, or 4 if you count reply and after not on Friends list on Facebook), one of her friends said I was bothering her on Facebook. One of them said that it was alright to hang out with them, until one of the Asian members of that club said that I have to leave them alone(in other words, get the fuck away from them). Please note that I didn't disturb or insult them, just tried to be friends with them. I want them to ask me for help, so I can do this:

Person from that group that pissed me off: Lets ask him for help, hey, can you help us?

Me: Hell no.

I am almost to the point where I just give up trying to make friends and just be a loner.

This troper has felt this way for a long time, but has long since given up trying. She lacks the right sort of personality for being at ease with people, let alone getting them to like her, and she's been this way for so long that frankly she finds it easier to just be lonely than put the effort into trying to be likeable. By the way, all that "you'll get friends eventually" nonsense others have sprouted elsewhere on this page is rot. Friendships don't work the way the do in films; they require you put in the effort to present yourself as a good person. It doesn't matter what sort of person you are on the inside: if you can't prove it or fake it through your actions, then you're a bad person, and you don't deserve friends.

It's this troper's greatest wish.

This used to be me, but after a while, I just said "Fuck it" and took up a IWorkAlone stance, and now, they flock to me. FLOCK I TELL YOU!

This troper has been this for most of her life. Hopefully, it will change one I reach late high school or college. I wish to know what a true friend feels like

This is an interesting one with me, and something I struggled with for a long time. See, this troper's got more than a few neurosis: ADHD, OCD, ODD, ICD, anxiety, and brief lapses of depression. Now, it isn't all bad -- I've always had some form of friends, but sometimes I just don't feel it, y'dig? Like, I feel inadequate, like I all I am is a joke. I do a lot for attention, and have worked hard to legitimize myself which pays off in some ways, and I have two people whom I can call 'best friends' with the surity of one thousand things-that-are-sure. I don't know why I complain so much! Low body image? After seeing the other tropers here, yeesh. Y'all got it rough. But y'know, I think part of it for this troper has always been his yearning to be liked by everyone and his lack of a filter (ICD, ADHD). When I get into a group, I try to be a crowd pleaser, making sex jokes galore, and being pretty icky -- people like it, but it is kinda low brow. And I have lots of female pals, but no romances... well not for a while. Anyway, a lot of it is just low self-esteem I suppose. But somehow, I still feel useless, although with new anxiety meds, I've been doing much better. I recall back in middle school I was going through lots of depression and trying to fit in with the 'cool kids' even though I already had legit allies around me. Well, one day in class, everyone just sorta ganged up on me and my flaws, and I can't remember the events leading up to it, maybe I deserved it, but I started to cry and my friends were saying for everyone to stop. Anyway, I guess the point of this post is that sometimes I get into lapses of depression and feel that I don't have friends, when I always do -- it just takes some reaching out to be with them. So maybe some of you have friends or potential friends, and you just need to medicate or work out your problems or something? And then you'll see the truth! :D Also, I echo the whole 'internets not the same' thing. I mean, I have good friends on the 'net, but it really isn't the same. It lacks physicality.

This troper feels like this most of the time. He only has three friends in real life and most of the tropers here, except for a few, have not been getting along with me so far.

This Troper has absolutely no friends at all whatsoever, and spends most of her time asleep just to avoid dealing with such a hopeless reality. I really wouldn't mind if I just dropped dead right now.

I'm not sure when you wrote this,but what you wrote is how I've felt my whole life. So believe me when I say I feel so, so sorry for you and I really hope it gets better. Most of the time I don't comment on the troper tales sections, but this post made me feel sadder then anything I've read on this site. I wish I could do something to help.

This tropette somehow manages to get into this situation at whatever school she's at. This eventually caused a great amount of BreakTheCutie and left her a twisted shell of what she was before. Thankfully, she's gotten over some of this, but it has really left quite a mark.

This troper seems to be the only one in existence in Arkansas. Does anyone else here feel like life is having some sort of very long Kick The Dog moment with them?

This troper was this... a year ago. Now I have practically given up in finding some common ground with the people around me (they're nice, but we don't really connect at all). The most pathetic part? I talk to myself and even consciously dissociate parts of my personality so I have "someone" to talk to... I have issues.

This Troper is homeschooled, has a just enough severe form of AspergersSyndrome to creep people out, lives in one of the most isolated parts of the country (Deep South Texas, ''in'' the country and seldom interact with people who aren't my immediate family. The one person I can consider a IRL friend that i see regularly, her parents are annoying to the point of I want to strangle them. Most of the people I talk to are via the internet, and I would absolutely love to meet them IRL and have face-to-face conversations, but they are all very far away, and like I said, Isolation. There seems to be nobody where I live who shares my interests..

Moving to a new continent every two years caused this troper to constantly having to try and get new friends. At first it was easy, but in middle school the people were so terrible (An American public middle school, no offense) that I generally withdrew to the only place that I didn't feel too alone: The computer and the internet. The United States left such a huge scar on me that making friends became very difficult because of social awkwardness. Not only that, coming back to my home country after 6 years of being abroad showed me how much my old friends changed...and how little they care about me now. I feel generally alone and like I have no place in the world. I poured these feelings to my childhood friend here, who despite being so different from what I remembered still accepted these feelings of mine and is now supporting me.

This troper used to have friends when she was younger, but as she grew older she's generally withdrawn from the society and now only has one internet friend who lives in a different country. She'd like to have more friends, but she seems to have forgotten how to go about interacting with people (and social anxiety doesn't help).

This troper has no friends. Allow me to elaborate. I spent most of kindergarten and elementary school hiding under desks or in the school library. In fourth grade, one of the girls in my class started being nice to me. I turned into a Yandere who constantly gave her stuff like scrapbooks and bracelets I made my mother buy and refused to leave her alone. When she so much as talked to other girls, I'd have a jealous fit, and eventually I got the message - after she'd given me the cold shoulder for literally weeks. Of course, less than a year later I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, which explained why I couldn't read social cues for crap. Nowadays, I'm a bit better, but because I thought that she had done it on purpose for so many years, and because my immediate family is more loaded with neuroses and backstabbing than politics, I have trust issues. In short, I have no friends and can't make them. I don't suppose anyone reading this is in CA, USA?

That's me. Except all the crap happened to me in middle school. I was harassed and taken advantage of by my so-called friends so much that I ended up building a huge wall to block other people out. I'm probably one of the biggest Stepford Smilers there are. BTW, I've got Asperger's too. There are some guys at my school who keep going on about me being a loner and how I should make friends, but the way they say it sounds like they're making fun of me. So I always end up lying about me not needing friends.

Same here, including the AspergersSyndrome, only I've become a complete Jerkass since I realised that HumansAreBastards at the age of 14. I tried making a friend a few months ago in college and we apparently got along for a while but then he changed and things got cold. After that he started threatening me. I considered smashing his skull in with a fire extinguisher but decided that a murder charge was the last thing I needed. I got him to back down a few days later. I've since changed to a different course and the most social contact I make with people now is the occasional snarky comment about whatever someone is talking about. It's working surprisingly well, I've actually managed to get laughs out of people for the reasons I intend.

Story of this Troper's life as well. I had no friends in high school and made my first offline friend since then only two years ago (I'm 23!). I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why people don't like me...Is it my appearance? My voice? Do I smell bad? Is it my shyness or lack of eye contact? I ultimately settled on the idea that people like me just don't exist in my vicinity, which makes me an outcast to the people who do. No matter how hard I try to act normal, I guess everyone can see right through me.

This troper suffers from this, almost to the point where I've given up trying to relate to others, both in real life and the internet. It doesn't quite help that the only reason that I can see why the friends I make often leave me is that I'm paranoid about losing friends to other people. This has often lead to unfortunate misconceptions which have significantly crippled my social standing.

This troper has Aspergers disorder (also known as High-Functioning Autism), and that pretty much explains it... The funny thing is that he's attractive and lots of women talk to him, and it's still hopeless. He mostly gets by on talking at and playing with his dogs.

This troper, to a degree. I have a number of friends that I've met at school, but that's also the only place I ever see them. Same deal goes for online friends; they're people I talk to, but we haven't actually met. The thing I lack, however, is a close friend. Someone I can go to to cry on their shoulder; someone I can confide in without fearing them gossiping to others. Actually, I guess this isn't so much IJustWantToHaveFriends as it is IJustWantToBeLoved.

Add an aversion to meeting outside of school, two best but not close friends (and one of those two having an underlying rivalry of me vs. her for valedictorian (I'm winning right now, unfortunately for our friendship)), the feeling that all other "friendships" are a lie, and isolation via genius, and this is me.

My first year in college I was like this. I was a self-conscious ShrinkingViolet and so I never talked to people and made very few friends. It really got me down. I got out of my funk in the Summer though and stopped caring about it, and I did end up making better friends in my second year. Just goes to show that the whole Not Actively Trying method really does work.