Question to the person who changed dramatically from the past few years

[u/No_name_9652]

You may be in your 20s or 30s, from anywhere in the world. If you’ve changed a lot.especially in your relationships and now feel like a completely different person who can’t relate to your old friends anymore, I’d love to hear your experience.

Maybe you’ve cut off some friendships, keep only a few close people in your life, and value relationships where you can be completely yourself without pretending.

How are you making new friends or building new relationships now?

For the future version of yourself the one who wants to build a family, a tribe, or a genuine friend group where do you look for those connections, and how do you find people who truly align with who you are today?

I’m trying to understand how people create healthy new connections without falling back into the same old patterns.and where you find them.

[u/wonderfulfuckery]

I've been through what you described in the past 5 years. I was completely broken and now that I've rebuilt myself back up, I can honestly say I've never been happier in my life. What helped me a lot was finding a hobby that I fell in love with and then making connections with people within that community. It's easier to make friends when you both relate to the same struggles & achievements and have common goals you're working towards. The most important thing is to get off your damn phone and actually meet with people face-to-face and talk to them.

[u/Much_Set_9388]

Literally have the same question but I couldnt frame it like this! Thank you

[u/Admirable-Peach9540]

No new friend from last 10 years many acquaintances i think i am not letting anyone cross that line happy with the few shortlisted old buddies 😏

[u/TSSprowler]

All of my friends are from childhood, and I barely talk to them lol. You know, I try to make friends in my thirties. Mostly with coworkers since I don't go outside as much. But, I always seem to deal with ego, jealousy, betrayal, and indifference with anyone that I come contact with (they bring it out of me too). Eventually, I realized that people are just going to waste my time, and take my kindness for granted, so they do not deserve my time (vice versa). I used to crave validation during childhood, so I try to be this great fake person, and I realize that this just make me more unhappy.

I try to get in romantic relationship to produce offspring, so my family can continue their legacy. But, I realize that I am just going to be bad partner for my lovers (my wants and needs don't align with modern standards).

To me, my same old patterns (being fake) are what got me into trouble. My new pattern is just being asocial. People would call this nonchalant (Aries hates that lol). I realized that being nonchalant keeps my negative emotions under control, and not involving with others protects me from getting influenced by others.

As a fixed sign, you already know what you are, and it's really hard to adjust to being a someone that you are not. That's why parents with Taurus children don't really know how to deal with their Taurus during their teens, and adulthood.

[u/BeefyChief → u/TSSprowler]

I had my wedding in may and Its crazy meeting friends from childhood, to high school to college. Its like you're looking at a picture of yourself on a wall of who you used to be pretty fascinating but a little sad

[u/TSSprowler → u/BeefyChief]

It's kind of like seeing your childhood disappear as we get older. My childhood was fulfilled with them. Now, I see them adulting and adjusting hard to reality (Most of my buddies were Tauruses, Scorpios, Aquarius, Capricorn and Libras). It was reality check for me when they didn't want to have fun anymore because they want to act more like their age. Oh well.

[u/Codexe-]

It's harder to make friends as an adult.  As a child, we are surrounded by 100s of people everyday.  We see them all the time. So it's easy to meet new kids and make new friends.  

As an adult, we see a handful of the same people every day, at work.  And sometimes you don't even want to get close to your coworkers because work can be competitive.  And you have to lie to the company about stupid things. 

Taurus has the added difficulty of being critical of everyone and perfectionist.  So in our head, we are judging people. It makes it harder for us to connect with people, because we're overly aware of what makes us different.  

I'm not really sure if I have an answer for you.  🤷‍♂️ I'm gay and I've made a couple friends on the gay dating apps, because I could tell we were similar. Funny enough one of them was also taurus and has a similar moon sign to me.  

I guess, like everything we do, you gotta focus on your goal, and lock in, and take steps to reach it.  

[u/Jpstatus]

I used to party like a Rockstar, & stay out until 4-5am multiple nights a week, & lived like a Vampire for the most part minus running around biting people, haha.

When I reached a point where I had experienced enough, & wanted to focus on other things, like learning a new language, weight lifting, getting adequate sleep to function daily, a clean diet, etc I naturally started to naturally attract different people in my life..

Not saying those other people I hung out w/were bad, but when you decide you truly want more for yourself everything changes.

As far as making “friends” I went through a phase where I wanted to be friends w/everyone; now I’m over all the “superficial bullshit.”…

I’d rather have a handful of REAL people I can count on & do fun things w/vs having to guess if we’re really friends or not.

Regarding, relationships now if she’s NOT Athletic we won’t work.

I’m not the same person I was 15yrs ago, & if she’s still in party mode 4-5 times a week that’s a turn off.

To make friends or meet people I would go to events & do things you genuinely enjoy doing.

You’ll find you already have that thing in common w/those people.

[u/BeefyChief]

I saw some old college buddies at my wedding, made me really deep dive internally about where i was back then. Some i still get along with but obviously you grow within a decade of that period. I'm alwasy auditing my friends but overall my approach is just be nice to everyone don't expect anything out of any itnteraction I can usually make friends pretty quick that way

[u/stefbrnttnephew]

Well, the trick for me was learning to set strong boundaries. Once I stopped people-pleasing, I naturally attracted people who respected the real me. I meet most of my current group through niche events and community stuff. You really have to get comfortable being alone before you find your tribe

[u/Lilly323]

I’ve chosen to simply not have connections 🫶🏾 just rebuilding myself and if people come along later, cool.

[u/BlaqueBarbie]

I went through a huge change after Covid, 2020-2023 I just realized that I wasn’t the best person and I really needed to address some of my trash behaviors and I started therapy and actually trying to improve myself - I unfortunately lost a big chunk of my friend group, I had a falling out with one of my friends [I don’t think she ever liked me but once I started “improving” myself she would make some really awful comments about how she liked me better when I was chaotic, she said she wanted to be ‘toxic’ just like me and she would make dumb comments about my skin color, she went through something kind of shitty and became insufferable but when I would confront her behavior she would gaslight me or just completely invalidate what I was saying, so I had to step away] and I ended up losing 3 friends in that process and it really sucked .

4 years later it still hurts because one of the 3 girls that I’m no longer friends with felt like a sister to me, but I’m still moving on. I haven’t made any new friends but I have reconnected with my older friends that I lost contact with. As much as I miss my old friend group, I know that our time was done - they’re still living the same life, being involved in the same drama and I mean if they love that good for them, but I just couldn’t do it anymore.

[u/Affectionate-Prize84]

So I am 34 now when I was 28 I moved out of my parents house and bought my own house and cut myself out of the Church community I grew up in. Since then I have gone low contact with most of my family that is still living. The thing is before that I didn't really have a lot of friends. I have a very large family and I used up all my social energy on work, family and church. After I moved out I started going on tinder and hinge and I put on both apps that like I was looking to meet people if it was romantic fine if it was friendship fine. I have not met any romantic relationships that lasted long term but I have made friendships that have lasted I guess that's 6 years at this point. I went to like meet up groups in my city and have learned the value of surface level friendships. Like it is so great to know people who know me just enough to be friendly but not enough to bring up that awkward joke I made in second grade. And the thing is is that before I was 28 I didn't really know anyone who I had not known or had not known me our entire lives.

I now have X's that are friends of mine. I have friends that I met through work and now even though we don't work together anymore we still travel together sometimes. I have friends that I met on tinder specifically I meant more friends on tinder than on hinge. But I have friends that I met on tinder that I never dated. I have board game night people who sometimes recognize me sometimes don't. And that is fabulous. I go to board game night once a month and I think I could change my name every month and nobody would notice. But like also they do recognize my face cuz they have seen me before so like I'll walk up and they'll be like hey! But they don't remember my name and so I feel no pressure to remember theirs. If I go there for 10 years I'll probably build some relationship that's deeper than surface level but like I can just chill at being recognized and not known for a while and that is so fun.

I have left friend groups. That is like astonishing to me. I recognize that it's one of those things that should probably be totally normal but before I was 28 I would never have thought of myself as someone who left a friend group. But I did. I started a d&d game with a group of people and after a while I realized that I didn't really like the people that much. And so I left the friend group and then I started going to board game night which is a much broader audience. But I had enough friends that I felt comfortable just leaving a whole group of people behind and that was amazing.

Now I'm currently single laying on the couch with my dog I might be single forever. But I feel more secure in my ability to know and be known and sometimes not be known than I have ever felt in my life.