You Aren’t Introvert, You’re Lazy.

Socializing becomes easier with this practical step.

Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash

I guess if you clicked on this, it means that you are a person who:

1: Doesn't have many friends.
2: You struggle to meet new people.
3: You're an introvert.

Also, you can't seem to connect with everyone, and those whom you considered your best friends are now far away. And you spend most of your idle time on the internet instead of socializing. You do have friends, but your shy demeanor might make you to avoid hanging out with them. Not only that, you might tell people that you don't need company to be happy, but deep inside you are desperate for those friends to call you to hang out. Does that sound like you? Well, until recently, I was exactly like that.

I only had a few great friends with whom I had grown up, and with the passage of time, each of them slowly parted ways with me. Due to my social anxiety, I didn't make any new friends. For years I had convinced myself that I was happy being alone. But I reached a point where I couldn't help but crave human interaction. I missed chatting and laughing with other people, I missed going on adventures with friends.

I also realized that it was my introverted behavior that had isolated me for so long. You see, whenever my friends invited me somewhere, I would make an excuse not to go there, and the more I did this, the less they even bothered to call me (no shit). I mean why would they? If they know that you won't come, calling you would be a waste of time.

Introverts aren't assertive. They wouldn't be the ones who would gather the boys and go on a picnic or hiking. Instead, they are the ones who wait for others to call them. So what I did different in order to start socializing again, was that I became the one who reached out to my friends. I would text them, asking them if they would be down for a game of football (soccer). Or I would tell them to inform me if they went out for an excursion outside the town.

It did wonders. Every group or circle has that one friend who is a total extrovert, and is thought of as the group leader. He is funny, confident, and successful in bringing his boys together for adventure. We too had a person like this in our social circle. Until he was around, everyone was in contact with each other because he always forced us to hang out regularly. But after his move to another city, our social circle collapsed, because there wasn't someone like him in our group to force us to meet each other. Everyone waited for the next person to call him.

My advice is that you should become that assertive individual who acts as a sort of bridge in your circle so that others could meet each other through you.

So don't wait around for others to reach out to you, especially if most of your friends aren't assertive as I mentioned. By being the person who gathers everyone around, you will not only get to socialize more, but others will respect you and see you as a sort of leader.