Building Relationships

[jvstater]

Hi guys! I'm pretty new to this site (you can read my full story on the "Intro" section, although I'll warn you now its pretty long...)

 

Basically, I'm 23 years old, and I moved away from home a year ago to get away from a cult that ruined my life. By far the most difficult thing for me has been building relationships in my new city. I realize it's hard enough to meet people in a new place when you have a normal, healthy background, but it's even harder for me as a formerly brainwashed Christian who spent most of my high school and college years suffering from mental illness as opposed to learning how to interact with peers in a healthy way. 

 

Any suggestions on how I can meet people, and more importantly, build actual relationships? (Honestly, simply meeting people hasn't been that hard, but connecting with them in a real way has)

 

Thanks!

[MOHO]

Apparently today's socializing consists of sitting in a coffee shop or restaurant,  smart phone in hand, and trading text messages with anyone EXCEPT the people around you!  

 

[disillusioned]

I don't think there's an easy answer here.

 

When I left,  I dropped basically all of my former relationships other than family.  When connecting with new people through school and work,  I made a concerted effort to appear as normal as possible.  No discussion at all of my background.  I pretended to be normal until I adjusted to being out. I don't know if that's a healthy approach,  but it worked for me. 

[MOHO]

12 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

I pretended to be normal

 

Perhaps you could assist the rest of us with this, @disillusioned.  

[TruthSeeker0]

1 hour ago, MOHO said:

 

Perhaps you could assist the rest of us with this, @disillusioned.  

I second that Pretending to be normal doesn't work for folks like me, the questions inevitably start and then I have to try side-step them because people I don't know well aren't going to get the lowdown on my past.

[disillusioned]

1 hour ago, MOHO said:

 

Perhaps you could assist the rest of us with this, @disillusioned.  

 

There are 4 steps:

1) Be nice.

2) Don't talk about yourself.

3) When explicitly invited to talk about yourself,  deflect.

4) If forced to talk about yourself,  stick to predetermined, "normal" parts of your life that you are ok with discussing. Keep it light, and deflect as soon as possible. 

 

People mostly want to talk about themselves. For the most part,  they aren't actually that interested in you. And, unless you disavow them of the notion, they will usually assume that you are pretty much like them. I just exploited this until I became more comfortable with myself. And to be honest,  I still exploit it with everyone that I don't care about.  The people I care about are the only people I open up to. Like I said, I'm not sure this is a healthy approach. But there it is. 

[TruthSeeker0]

7 hours ago, jvstater said:

Any suggestions on how I can meet people, and more importantly, build actual relationships? (Honestly, simply meeting people hasn't been that hard, but connecting with them in a real way has)

 

 

I don't know about you, but I've figured out that "connecting" means different things to different people. For some, going out for drinks and in general, having a good time, is genuine connecting. For others, having a philosophical conversation about the meaning of life or some such, or your personal past or experiences, or your perspective on several topics, is connecting. The main thing is, you have to find people who connect in the way that you do.

[TruthSeeker0]

2 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

 

There are 4 steps:

1) Be nice.

2) Don't talk about yourself.

3) When explicitly invited to talk about yourself,  deflect.

4) If forced to talk about yourself,  stick to predetermined, "normal" parts of your life that you are ok with discussing. Keep it light, and deflect as soon as possible. 

 

People mostly want to talk about themselves. For the most part,  they aren't actually that interested in you. And, unless you disavow them of the notion, they will usually assume that you are pretty much like them. I just exploited this until I became more comfortable with myself. And to be honest,  I still exploit it with everyone that I don't care about.  The people I care about are the only people I open up to. Like I said, I'm not sure this is a healthy approach. But there it is. 

Thanks. I'm going to try my best with this. Healthy or not, it's a good survival technique until you've figured out who you would like to talk to in more depth.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I got involved in things that I enjoy (music, singing) and found a little group of local singers and instrumentalists. We do gigs around town and go to each others shows.

I courted my wife through taking dance classes, figured out through dancing and talking that we got along quite well.

I echo Disillusioned in not going into religion or ex-religion at all. Mostly people don't unless they are in the cult, or have a cultural belief (like Lutherans from Minnesota being a default religion).

I had to educate myself about approaching women, since Christianity messed up my entire view of everything from money to sex. It is pretty dated now (1990s), but I read a book "How to pick up beautiful women", but he made even the most striking women just human and who typically all have some basic ideas about what they want to see in a man. It changed everything for me, going from fear to normal.

I have on occasion hung out with the guys from work at a pub. But most of them are sports fans and I'm not, so nothing to talk about there. But we can all grouse about work or life. This is where people get to see the "real" you and get a feel for what you are like as a person. Otherwise things stay pretty surface.