I’ve noticed a pattern in my friendships that I’m struggling with, and I’d love to hear other people’s perspectives.
Whenever I suggest something I genuinely want to do with friends, the plans always get changed around — often to fit schedules or budgets — until they no longer resemble what I originally suggested. By the time we meet up, I usually don’t enjoy the activity itself, though I still value being with my friends.
This cycle tends to repeat:
I suggest something → it gets reshaped into something I don’t want → we meet up but I’m bored/miserable → then we don’t talk for 6–12 months until someone breaks the silence.
Recently, I’ve made a change: I started doing the things I enjoy on my own, without waiting for friends. For the first time, I’ve actually been happy doing what I love — but it also means I’m doing them alone.
Part of why I’m trying this is because I’ve lost friends in the past from being visibly miserable all the time when I adapted to things I didn’t actually like. Honestly, it feels like for most of my life I never really chose my friends — I just adapted to the people around me. Now, I’d really like to choose friends who genuinely align with what I enjoy.
So here’s my question: Is it wrong to want to choose my friends? How do you balance doing what makes you happy with maintaining friendships, especially if your happiness and your current friend group don’t line up?
Any thoughts, advice, or personal experiences would be really helpful.
ai disclaimer
I’m going through a lot and instead of just dumping my feelings here I thought it would make more sense to have Chatgpt handle it.
Here’s the source chat but if you want to cite my words I’d prefer you just cite my post instead.
Regardless I stand behind Chatgpt’s output as my own words and am accountable for it as though I wrote it.
Have you tried this:
-> You suggest [specific activity]
-> They suggest alteration
-> You say, “I actually really want to do [specific activity] this time, but we can do [their suggestion] next time!”
-> (1) They agree. Else (2) They insist on changing it
-> You ask why they don’t want to do your suggestion
-> They hopefully have an explanation you can understand so you either feel better about changing the activity, or you go to the activity alone and do their suggestion with them another time (both are just as good!)
There’s nothing rude about planning something and inviting people to the activity. If they don’t want to join they can say no and you’re still allowed to follow through with your plan.
Suggestions for activities to do on your own where your current friends can join if they want but you can also do alone and meet new people at the activity:
cooking class,
dancing class,
amateur theater/improv,
book club (I’m sure there are open book clubs to join at your local library, or you can ask the librarians to put up a flyer and start one… I do 1-on-1 book clubs with different friends at different times when we figure out a book we want to read. We just set a chapter goal and call once or twice a week to check in on each others progress and yap about our thoughts on the book so far. Not every activity needs to include the whole friend group every time - they’re all unique persons with different interests and time availability),
join an orientation club,
volunteer somewhere (I like animal shelters, but might be more interaction with other volunteers at something aimed at humans or political/societal),
visit an orchard and pick seasonal fruit/veggies (may not be super social with strangers)
join a hiking tour, especially likely to be social if it’s over several days,
go to concerts and festivals,
go to a meetup/show for motorcycles or old cars or something (initiate socialising by asking questions about, and giving people compliments on, what they brought to show off (car, MC, vinyl collection) )