Hello all,
I've read a few other threads similar to this (and I'm always full of advice too lol), but I'm feeling incredibly frustrated and just wanted to vent.
SO - I moved here in August for my internship and to move in with my boyfriend, who is going to school here. I'm now more than an hour away from my university, where I'm a grad student.
I'm busy all the time - I do my internship, I tutor, and I teach a class at the university here, and I exercise every day, which means that I don't usually finish everything until like 8 or 9 every day. Weekends I tutor sometimes, but I'm generally free... but my bf usually goes to hang out with his friends, so I'm alone - and I hate it.
The problem is that there are no opportunites to make friends here. My colleagues at my internship are all older than me by a lot, except for the other intern, and she lives like an hour away and is married (although we do get along pretty well). Obviously I don't really want to befriend my students for ethical reasons; plus they're a few years younger than me since they're mostly freshman and sophomores.
I've looked into organizations and clubs here, but anything of interest has meetings during the week when I'm not free. I exercise at home since I have my own treadmill and weights, so I don't have the chance to see people at the gym or anything. I've thought about joining an exercise class in order to meet people, but I don't have the money or the time.
The biggest problem is that the two areas in which I was always able to make friends in the past are now completely gone: church and music. I'm no longer officially a Christian (converted to a different religion), so joining church activities aren't really of interest to me, and the university here doesn't really have music ensembles (I have a music performance degree) or performing opportunities. I used to always be really involved musically in churches in the past, so that's been a huge hole in my life. There aren't any official groups or meetings for my new religion here (aside from some smaller ethnic groups that do stuff in their own languages), so that's out. A third way of meeting people - parties, bars, and drinking is also out. I used to drink for about 2 years but I stopped several months ago, and don't want to be in that environment to avoid temptation. Plus, even though I wouldn't mind at this point going to parties again, I don't even know of any anyway since I don't know anyone here!
I've had a couple of friends from my undergrad come up to see me recently, but my bf criticized me because he thinks all of my friends are international students (and somehow that's 'bad' because he thinks that means I don't know how to interact in my own culture). Yes I have a lot of international friends because I've been involved in helping them since I was a freshman (and I have both a bachelor's and master's degree in teaching English to intl students - and about 3 years university teaching experience, so yes logically I would know a lot of intl students!!!). About a month ago two of my American friends came to see me, and he criticized them too for being 'so dorky' (because they don't drink, they're overweight, conservative, 'vanilla').
I've felt really upset and misunderstood recently because he's been on my case about it, how I have no friends, how I'm boring, and how I don't know how to make 'real' friends since they're all international or 'dorky'. I guess he wants me to be with skinny blonde drunk ****s... not that I have anything against them but I've not really been in environments where these kinds of girls are, lol. Yet in the same breath he's telling me to not be so picky and just be friendly with everyone and see what happens. Ugh.
I keep trying to explain my situation to him, how I don't even come in contact with potential friends in my current situation, but he thinks I'm just making up excuses. He also has the belief that I don't know how to make friends - I believe stemming from the fact that he met me when I was in a huge crisis in my life and was really depressed and was shutting everyone out of my life. I let a lot of potential friends go during that time because I couldn't even get out of bed or get the energy to go to school a lot of the time, much less put myself out there for friends. I had just begun grad school (teaching master's degree), so while everyone else was getting to know each other and bonding, I was in a deep depression and uninterested in doing anything with them. Ironically, I should mention that most of my classmates were international students.
Anyway... I've been without any real friends since I graduated from undergrad (so about 4 years now). I have some on the periphery, but no one close, no one that I call when I need to talk, no one to hang out with when I'm bored... no one that I can really count on. Ugh it sucks, and I wish I could change it somehow. I just feel so frustrated too because the one person who understands me better than anyone else isn't understanding this. Or maybe he's right and I'm just full of excuses.
I've read a few other threads similar to this (and I'm always full of advice too lol), but I'm feeling incredibly frustrated and just wanted to vent.
SO - I moved here in August for my internship and to move in with my boyfriend, who is going to school here. I'm now more than an hour away from my university, where I'm a grad student.
I'm busy all the time - I do my internship, I tutor, and I teach a class at the university here, and I exercise every day, which means that I don't usually finish everything until like 8 or 9 every day. Weekends I tutor sometimes, but I'm generally free... but my bf usually goes to hang out with his friends, so I'm alone - and I hate it.
The problem is that there are no opportunites to make friends here. My colleagues at my internship are all older than me by a lot, except for the other intern, and she lives like an hour away and is married (although we do get along pretty well). Obviously I don't really want to befriend my students for ethical reasons; plus they're a few years younger than me since they're mostly freshman and sophomores.
I've looked into organizations and clubs here, but anything of interest has meetings during the week when I'm not free. I exercise at home since I have my own treadmill and weights, so I don't have the chance to see people at the gym or anything. I've thought about joining an exercise class in order to meet people, but I don't have the money or the time.
The biggest problem is that the two areas in which I was always able to make friends in the past are now completely gone: church and music. I'm no longer officially a Christian (converted to a different religion), so joining church activities aren't really of interest to me, and the university here doesn't really have music ensembles (I have a music performance degree) or performing opportunities. I used to always be really involved musically in churches in the past, so that's been a huge hole in my life. There aren't any official groups or meetings for my new religion here (aside from some smaller ethnic groups that do stuff in their own languages), so that's out. A third way of meeting people - parties, bars, and drinking is also out. I used to drink for about 2 years but I stopped several months ago, and don't want to be in that environment to avoid temptation. Plus, even though I wouldn't mind at this point going to parties again, I don't even know of any anyway since I don't know anyone here!
I've had a couple of friends from my undergrad come up to see me recently, but my bf criticized me because he thinks all of my friends are international students (and somehow that's 'bad' because he thinks that means I don't know how to interact in my own culture). Yes I have a lot of international friends because I've been involved in helping them since I was a freshman (and I have both a bachelor's and master's degree in teaching English to intl students - and about 3 years university teaching experience, so yes logically I would know a lot of intl students!!!). About a month ago two of my American friends came to see me, and he criticized them too for being 'so dorky' (because they don't drink, they're overweight, conservative, 'vanilla').
I've felt really upset and misunderstood recently because he's been on my case about it, how I have no friends, how I'm boring, and how I don't know how to make 'real' friends since they're all international or 'dorky'. I guess he wants me to be with skinny blonde drunk ****s... not that I have anything against them but I've not really been in environments where these kinds of girls are, lol. Yet in the same breath he's telling me to not be so picky and just be friendly with everyone and see what happens. Ugh.
I keep trying to explain my situation to him, how I don't even come in contact with potential friends in my current situation, but he thinks I'm just making up excuses. He also has the belief that I don't know how to make friends - I believe stemming from the fact that he met me when I was in a huge crisis in my life and was really depressed and was shutting everyone out of my life. I let a lot of potential friends go during that time because I couldn't even get out of bed or get the energy to go to school a lot of the time, much less put myself out there for friends. I had just begun grad school (teaching master's degree), so while everyone else was getting to know each other and bonding, I was in a deep depression and uninterested in doing anything with them. Ironically, I should mention that most of my classmates were international students.
Anyway... I've been without any real friends since I graduated from undergrad (so about 4 years now). I have some on the periphery, but no one close, no one that I call when I need to talk, no one to hang out with when I'm bored... no one that I can really count on. Ugh it sucks, and I wish I could change it somehow. I just feel so frustrated too because the one person who understands me better than anyone else isn't understanding this. Or maybe he's right and I'm just full of excuses.
Thanks for your response Hope, you really made me feel more encouraged. I would be very grateful for a 'net' friend. 
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