There was a time when I had completely run out of friends to spend time with. It was quite an unhappy time, because spending time with my friends is my favourite thing to do. Naturally, my solution to this problem was to try and make new friends. Not having much money to spare, I signed up to a website which is designed for people who want to make friends.
Someone added me who was similar in age, lived in the nearby area and had several common interests. That sounds ideal, right? So we chatted for a while online and then agreed to meet up for lunch a little later. I was quite excited and then, when we finally met, I found that they were easy to talk to and that they were perfectly pleasant.
The problem was, that I just didn’t care. It was quite an anomalous thing for me, but I actually had no interest in developing a friendship and cultivating a bond with this person. The whole time I wished I was at home reading or playing games. Even though I had no one else to meet up with and the addition of this one friend would have been a huge addition to my social life, meeting with them did nothing for me. I never communicated with them again and they never communicated with me either. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came away with a similar feeling of disinterestedness.
It was an unusual experience. At fist I thought that, perhaps, I’d just lost my ability to properly bond and socialise with others. This was a concerning thought. Then I thought that I might have been a little too depressed at the time to become enthusiastic about making new friends. Then I concluded, that some people just don’t have the right chemistry. You can like and be respectful of just about anyone, but to form a meaningful friendship, that chemistry needs to be there.
