Friend meaning someone who I love and can entrust myself to, and with whom I am “walking in the light” (tangibly, this means no more being underhanded toward people, and true honesty about times I have used, betrayed, or wronged them)
@ian I can see 'planning to befriend people' being twisted by me into making gaining peoples' trust a goal (which gets in the way of actual friendship). So I'm somewhat wary of saying that I plan to do xyz. (though, wariness doesn't mean I'll avoid being tempted to fall into that self-trap/easily compromise when it seems opportune)
One thing that could help is humility. I'm very judgmental toward people who I assume have less IQ points, and I have had a lot of prejudice against actually listening to what they're saying.
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@Angela I think I'm specifically talking about doing things like: Going to shows/going to classes/volunteering/etc. - things that get you out of the house and close to people
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@ian ahh, long response got deleted.
(*) I’ve told someone that I’ll stay away from a church that most of my acquaintances go to, and I’m not sure if this is permanently conscience binding. If that restriction were lifted, there’re lots of people who I know there/who were my friends in the past who I could connect with (some I know actually through both math and church)
I’m also in an interesting housing situation—there’re 4-5 houses on my street where college students and current/former staff who’re connected to a student group live, and people all know each other, or generally at least know of each other (they organize movie nights, game tournaments, dinners, study groups, some Bible studies, some church carpools during the semester, and generally hang out). I have everyone’s contact info. Some people are still in town over the summer; at least 3 of them wouldn’t be disqualified by (*) (If (*) were lifted, there’d be at least 5-10 people on the street)
I think I’d probably be “building genuine relationships with people who I somewhat know” more than “meeting completely new people”.
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I think I’ll be cashiering part-time over the summer, which gives me (supposedly) a lot of time. I’m also kinda poking around some online reading groups, although I’m not sure if they’ll lead to any long term friendships.
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@RayDoraisamy I would say so (with usual caveats about rose-colored-glasses, etc). I think things fell apart due to a mixture of me falling back into being manipulative with words (there was a guy who I'd wronged but I still wanted to be dating, so I prevaricated to hide the worst of my deeds), and potential culture-shock/social confusion from going from a fairly intellectual/introspective friend group that was older than me to living with people--all younger than me--who'd grown up in the church.
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