18 Signs You Aren’t Great At Making New Friends Because You’re Too Obsessed With The Old Ones

1. You have a bit of a superiority complex about your friend group. What? That’s what happens when you surround yourself with people who have loved you no matter what, been with you through the best and worst times. You’re overly aware that your friend group is the shit and sometimes you just don’t want to make way for anyone else.

2. More than once, you’ve chosen to stay home and g-chat with your high school or college friends rather than go to the happy hour you promised your co workers you’d make it to. Staying home and bitching to someone you’ve known for 8+ years > respectfully asking people about their siblings and hometowns.

3. You’re at your best when you’re uncensored, unfiltered, and don’t have to explain yourself. Meeting new people requires explaining your humor, and worrying that you’ve said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

4. You already have the unconditional love of your oldest friends. They won’t be turned off by something you said that one time and decide they don’t like you because of it, which is honestly reassuring.

5. When you move to a new place with one of your best friends, there’s always a small temptation to only ever hang out with that one person. Meeting new people and welcoming them in adds new layers, new dynamics, and, like, you already know you have each other, so is that really necessary?

6. No. It isn’t. In fact, it would really be better if the two of you stuck together and never spoke to anyone else.

7. You end up comparing the new to the old, in the same way that you’d compare a new fling to the ex love of your life. It’s bizarre, but you can’t help but compare different people and how they’d handle the same situations.

8. You’re meeting new people in an entirely different environment than you met your core group of friends. People seem less open now than when you met friends on the first day of college when everyone was equal amounts of scared shitless.

9. You find giving context to new people exhausting. They don’t know your stories, or can’t keep up because they don’t have any frame of reference as to what’s going on in your life. You never have to catch your old friends up, you can always just pick up where you left off (even if you haven’t seen each other in three months).

10. Your jokes don’t land around new people because your humor is an acquired taste.

11. You always have to explain to new friends that you’re not actually shy, and there’s never an appropriate way to do that. Like, what are you going to say? “Hey, I’m actually outgoing but meeting you scares me and that’s why I seem really quiet!” No. Old friends know exactly what makes you open up.

12. With new friends, you’re always concerned that you’re bothering them by reaching out, or texting them to make plans. There’s still the initial concern that maybe they just don’t want to talk to you. With your old friends you can message them, and when they don’t answer immediately, it’s perfectly acceptable to send 8 follow up messages asking where the hell they are.

13. You’re one of those people who would rather collect a few close friends, than an army of people who you sort of like, but actually mean absolutely nothing to you. You still gravitate toward your old friends because they’re the ones that have backed you up for years, so probability says they’ll continue to do so.

14. New friends come with their own territory of old friends, which can be hurdle when forming new friendships. It’s great to start liking a few new people, but then when they trot out an entirely new entourage of 15 people, it makes your head spin.

15. Whereas when your old friends bring their new friends around, you have zero qualms telling them what you actually think of their entourage. With new friends, you have to pretend you love everyone! And get along famously with all people! With old friends, you can tell them to their face that whoever they brought to your party actually sucks.

16. You like to be around people who make you feel exactly like who you are. With old friends, your realest personality comes out. With new people, you’re always concerned that you’re being slightly misread. New friends think you’re hilarious, when you actually average one joke per hour, and that was it. They think you’re defensive when you’re actually just being timid, they think you’re overcompensating, or too shy, or not shy enough.

17. And it makes you want to fast forward in a new friendship to where you can just be EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE, and have that be completely chill and wonderful.

18. Which is a stage that will never compare to the stage you’re already at with the people who have known you since you had braces, bangs, no game, or no clue where your life was going, and loved you anyway.