Frustrated with my buddies

Dude are you describing my life? Apart from the drugs part this describes almost everyone I know. I'm probably guilty of it as well to an extent but it's so hard to dig yourself out of this quagmire when everyone around you is always trying to keep you where you are.

 

Unfortunately, you describe a phenomenon of our times, particularly for men - loneliness. Does seem a bit early for that with single guys the age you describe. I’m much older, married with grown kids. You get busy with married life, kids, work, etc. and if you don’t make a conscious effort to still make connections with male friends, a lot of those slip away. And once you’re married, and then with family, then coupled friends and those with kids seems to be who you naturally connect with.

I applaud you for recognizing it, and wanting to do something about it. It takes effort, and often times effort on your part. I’ve been dealing with that issue a lot lately. Seems most of my friends don’t take the initiative and it falls on me. I kind of resent that sometimes, like if I was important enough to you you’d reach out to me sometimes. But when I get that resentful attitude and wait for that other person to reach out, I either sit there and have a pity party waiting, or I need to just suck it up and take the first step. Always seem to have a good time and I think the other person is happy to get together. Perhaps others are just used to me playing that role, even though I’m not particularly outgoing, so they expect it. But if I want that socialization with other males, I’ve just come to the acceptance of me taking the initiative. Perhaps your friends expect that from you. And perhaps you can find a few others like you who are more motivated and less complacent.

 

I feel like I am one of the friends you are describing. I'm so stressed out with everything and seem to have replaced my pmo addiction with video game addiction. I have friends I would like to talk to, but I don't. I feel exhausted and caught up in everything, so I feel like I must look to passive on the outside.

 

I also have a couple of friends who are living the same day over and over again. They're not single anymore so most of their life revolves around doing things with their girlfriends.

Eventually, I came to the realisation that I was doing the exact same thing, minus the girlfriend part. I was also living the same day every day. Wake up -> Work -> jack off -> mindless entertainment -> food/chores -> sleep.

Took me a while to start looking at myself before slowly cutting my friends out of my circle.

Thing is, PMO had some influence but it's not the major reason why I'm living in a loop. In fact, I believe, living in a loop is what makes PMO so appealing. It's exciting, a new video, a new model, etc. I mean, who could resist the variety in a life full of the same shit right?

I became the person in my circle who takes control of how our meetups work. That means putting effort in socialising, planning group activities, steer the conversations, etc.

In short, I decided to take the lead and define how I want to run my social circle. Some will want to stay, others will slowly give up and leave on their own.

Fun thing is, every time I do something outside of the loop, I come back home with no desire to PMO.

 

Good for you! Connection is an important element in fighting PMO, which is done in secrecy and isolation. Taking the reins for social things with your friends, while it takes work, is rewarding and fulfilling in ways that PMO never will be. Kudos to you.

 

Does anyone on this forum?

 

Rescheduling works fine when most of us can't make it. Otherwise, we carry on with whoever is available.

 

Almost every single person I knew or hung out with from 20-30 was this way. (32 now) It’s a silent epidemic of the dysfunctional, isolated, multi-addicted tech generation at its heart.

For an extremely long time I would constantly be doing/giving 80-90% in the friendships in terms of initiation, asking how they are, just genuine caring in vain attempts to keep a relationship with several these “friends”, cousins, uncles, family etc.

I started doing serious work on myself (quit boozing, quit smoking so much, quit partying) & in that process I realized these aren’t the kind of people I want to rely on anymore. These friendships are puddle deep & these people really could give a shit less about it. If they did, if it was any kind of priority they would put energy into it. I got tired of being walked on & disregarded when I made plans. flaking out last minute, not bothering to even text cause they got drunk & played video games instead.

It was making me resentful and that’s not healthy. Since I was always the person to reach out I decided to see what would happen if I stopped overextending myself all the time.
Guess what.. all those people faded away. I got to see if any of them were really willing to have a healthy give/take friendship & none of them were.

My irritation went away, my remaining friendships grew stronger and I overall established a better direction in my life with those who genuinely wanted to share it with me.. which are few tbh.
I found out at the end of the day these people truly don’t want/or are not capable of the type of friendship I want, so it’s doing both of us a favor ultimately.

 

I'm in the process of cutting out most of my "buddies." Like @NamaClature14 said, if I don't initiate, I never hear from them. Half the time I do initiate they can't be bothered. I only have two true friends that I want to talk to now.

 

I was one of those buddies, now I have none left.

I didn't realise at the time why I didn't want to do anything anymore though, I know now but it's too late. It would feel strange to try and reconnect after such a long time, plus they're probably all wived up anyway with kids and stuff.

At times I feel like I'm missing out and it crushes me but then I also see everyone around me with their heads down buried in their phone and I think to myself do I really want anything to do with that anyway?

If/when I ever recover from this PMO malaise I kind of feel like trying to round up a group of likeminded nofappers and going on some crazy tour together.

 

If you have one genuine friend as a Man, you got more than most.

 

Hear that. I’m lucky to have just 1 I feel.

 

I can relate to this on both ends. I used to be the guy that would never hang out with friends just to sit at home and play video games. Then I turned into the guy who just wanted to sit at home and drink.

Once I started getting into the self improvement thing I realized something quickly; most people don't want to level up. So yeah, I don't know anyone on the same page as me right now either.

 

This is a great post. What I would recommend, and this is what works for me so I’m speaking from experience, is to take control of your schedule. What I mean by that is If you wake up super early you will go to bed super early. This will eliminate hanging out with bumbs that do cocaine. Go to the gym every morning – when at the gym make it a point to talk to other men. I force myself to do this every morning around five. It may take 100 guys to find one quality friend but that quality friend that lines up with your values will beat the shit out of your old childhood Coke head friends. Believe me I have a all the same friends that you are speaking of . A lot of them are in and out of prison and unmotivated because they are victims to their own mentality. Some of them have wives that they act like they are their mommies and have to ask permission to do things. I simply cut them all off and created a new circle . You can do this too it’s not as hard as it looks you just have to take the action as I did. Sitting around Numbly doing cocaine and not taking action is not the type of person any of us want to be around here on this form.

Step two would be to get off the drugs and alcohol as it is the same thing as ejaculating and jerking off - it robbed you of your energy and believe me we all want energy. If I’m assuming that you’re on drugs and alcohol which I am - all I’m saying is if you’re in a barbershop long enough you will get a haircut so cut those “friends” out. You will not change your friends, only your friends can change themselves, just as you have. We all know that woman that is just trying to change her boyfriend and never does. This is the same thing.

step three is to take control of your diet and fuel your race car with race car fuel. We all know what To eat.

Step four, which none of us like or want to hear is simply do what you know you need to do regardless of how you feel. This is called discipline. I believe we all know Jocko Willink – and his works on discipline equaling freedom. For example I hit legs yesterday and they are sore today but I still went to play basketball even though my bitch mind told me my legs are too sore to go play basketball. After I balled out and dropped 20 points I had a great time, all I had to do was not listen to the bitch in my mind . A real life example of this is closing a deal that will take care of my family and pay my bills but it’s too hot outside and I don’t want to do the work. I still have to get in my truck and knock the job out. After the job is done, I am able to take my fiancé to a five-star restaurant and leave $100 tip on the table. This is what discipline will get you. It will also get you a blow job on the ride home - Where I will have the discipline to retain my semen and put that energy into creation and more money so I can go to more five star restaurants and get more five-star blow jobs from My fiancé.

Love you brother keep pushing on the journey.

 

I relate. I'm doing stuff by my own these days. The past (people included) can eat dust if it has the tendency of holding me back in the old life.