Just venting. Frustrated with my friendships and life issues

[vampyre]

I suck with people and I've always had a hard time making friends. I just have a few online friends at the moment, but I feel so frustrated with the way they treat me. I feel like they're always looking down on me and trying to push my buttons to get a reaction out of me. usually I brush it off, but when I'm in a difficult period mentally, it gets to me bad. I know if I give them a reaction, they'll just poke at me more and it sucks.
I wish making friends weren't so hard. I wish I didn't feel so dependent on others. Talking to strangers, even online, I completely freeze up and I feel I completely suppress my personality and come off as cold and uninterested. I feel so frustrated with myself. I wish I could be more normal. All of these emotions coming up just snow ball into more and more because I hold it in constantly. I feel overwhelmed. How can I function in society like this? I hate it

 

[darkshadownice]

Talking to strangers, even online, I completely freeze up and I feel I completely suppress my personality and come off as cold and uninterested. I feel so frustrated with myself. I wish I could be more normal. All of these emotions coming up just snow ball into more and more because I hold it in constantly.

"We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people." -Arthur Schopenhauer

Making friends (or just talking to people) is really difficult because of two reason's I feel at least from my observations:

1. People put on a "mask" and sacrifice their own uniqueness and individuality (as much as western society loves to preach about individuality) to conform to societal norms and expectations. You're not really talking to that person's true self, you're talking to their shadow.

2. A lot of people tend to see and value any sort of relationship as a transaction of sorts, and I mean in a more materialistic manner: "I'll drive you and your friends around if you let me hang out with you" or "I'll introduce you to my business contacts if you share yours". There's (at least more and more) rarely a love that transcends that sort of function and who cares for someone without expecting anything in return out of the kindness in their hearts because it is human nature to be selfish, or at least self-centered on a subconscious level. Once you start to ask these sorts of questions, you only go further down the black hole and began to ask questions like: "Is a parent's love for their child truly sincere, or is it just a feeling our brain gives us so we'll care for our offspring, to start a family without any care if the kid wants to be in this world, and to pass on our genes?" or "Does pure altruism even exist, or do we only do good for others if we expect to gain from it in some way, no matter how abstract?".

I wish I didn't feel so dependent on others.

That's probably the most difficult lesson and test to succeed in. In a way, if you're really honest about yourself OP and have no desire to put on that "mask", then you have to embrace being alone but not completely lonely, as humans are social creatures. I always think the best way (at least for me) to participate in society is to treat it like a bonfire. Do not step too close to the fire (socializing with everybody you meet and forming a lot of friendships and relationships) or you will be burned, but do not stray too far from the fire (being completely alone and having nobody to talk too) as you will be frozen. You must feel the warmth of this fire, in the middle of the heat and cold. You must not completely become a part of society, but you must move through it.