u/questionalternateacc

Just looking for advice and venting. I'm 25, male, my life has just become working the whole day and scrolling on weekends. When I go out it's always alone and I see everyone else is with their groups and partners, I realise I'm not doing any of the fun things people my age do. No friends, never dated, always heard the advice to "focus on studies and career first" and my youth passed away trying to focus on it while everyone else was making friends and memories, now I am at this old age with no social experience and dating experience, while people younger than me have tons. Doing things alone gets tiring after a while.

People often advise to join different hobby groups and clubs to meet people but my experience has been that I can meet and talk to new people there but it never grows into a real friendship that exists outside of that hobby class. We meet, have some shallow small talk, focus on whatever the activity is about and then leave. It never evolves into a friendship where we're doing other activities or talking outside of the club. I try to invite them for other things and that's always rejected because everyone seems busy now, after a while it feels like I'm the only one putting in any effort so I stop. Trying to build a social life feels extremely hard if you don't have an existing friend group