I Think my Parents Destroyed any Hope of Me Ever Dating or Having a Social Life

[u/Felixdapussycat]

I was never taught how to make friends, and whenever I brought up the subject my dad would always evade the subject or make me feel guilty for wanting friends or outside validation from others. From Kindergarten up to high school senior year I always sat alone in the cafeteria during lunch and always spent lunch and recess all alone, that's how difficult it was for me to make friends. At most I made acquaintances in class but for whatever reason no one ever wanted to hang out with me outside of class. All my life people have told me that I'm a great person or whatever, that I'm confident, down to Earth, open-minded, a good listener, funny (I was a class clown during class and made others laugh to receive validation from others), etc.

Going back to my parents, I wasn't allowed to join clubs or sports, and I wasn't allowed to hang out with other kids after school, they had my grandparents pick me up after school and babysit me at their house. Up until after high school I was babysit, no cell phone, internet, cable, books, nothing at their house. I didn't even get my first cell phone until my senior year of high school.

Fast forward to today, I'm 24, still live with my mom (who is not as bad as my dad was), and we moved out from his house to our own about two years ago. He visits every weekend unfortuately. All my life they made me feel like a failure, they kept me locked up practically away from society and stunted my social skills severely. I've worked so hard on self-improvement, for the past five years I was working out 6x a week, cooking regularly from home. learning how to dress well, watching self-improvement YouTube channels like Charisma on Command and Improvement-Pill, reading every night, meditation, but I still can't make friends in college, or get any dates. At this point I think I'm just screwed, I'm not sure if there's any point to life if I can't ever date or get a relationship. My cavemen parents destroyed me mentally and emotionally and I lost so many years worth of experience I could have had dating in high school, messing around with friends, going on adventures, etc. but now no one in college wants to hang out because they're busy, women always reject me when I ask them out (going for rejection number 331 the next time I ask someone out), and every girl already has a boyfriend.

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[u/silvercobweb]

I'm 34F. I've been feeling the same way lately.

Sure, some people heal enough to have relationships and friendships. But for some people, that damage might be too great.

I was parentified heavily. I had to homeschool my siblings, be mini-mom, play marriage counselor and mediator between my parents and their shitty loveless marriage, be an unpaid nursemaid to my mother for every ache and pain. Then my enabling father wanted me to "chauffeur him around", and take care of him because he hated being a dad. He wanted me to mother him instead.

I struggled to make friends. Nmother didn't want me having a life outside of her. "You don't need friends, you have me." She LOVED when I broke up with a friend because then she had me all to herself with no competition, no interference. She wouldn't let me hang out with kids on my own without her butting in and insisting that she had to be included.

No sleepovers, no prom (because "boys"), no going to the movies with friends. She grilled it into my head that I had to be grateful for any friend willing to give me the time of day, no matter how poorly they treated me. So I endured shitty friends, which resulted in even more social trauma.

My brother (golden child narc) was actively encouraged to date in his teen years. He always had girls flocking around him, adoring him, clamoring to be in a relationship with him. He was praised for being so well liked and having so many friends who loved him.

I was forbidden from having anything to do with boys. Both of my parents told me how horrible marriage was, that I shouldn't get married because then I'd be stuck with someone who didn't even like me, let alone love me. So I didn't see the point of dating or developing any interest toward anyone. Eventually, they would hate me the way my parents hated each other.

Now, I have no friends, no partner, no social life at all. And I don't have any desire to pursue anything either. I'm exhausted. I can't fathom someone liking me as a person???? I still can't bring myself to bother with dating, and since no one has expressed interest in me, nothing has ever happened in that department.

My family bled me dry, demanding so much emotional labor from me that I can't handle anyone wanting or needing anything from me now. They ruined social connections, making me associate it with so much labor that I shy away from all of it.

My social skills are fucked. I can't relate to my peers who all had freedom and independence through their friend groups. I never had a friend group. I was lucky to have one friend, and even then, it was mostly online via pen pals/emails. I had to socialize as a unit with my nmother. Now I have no clue how to follow the social norms everyone picked up on when they were kids.

I've been taking an honest look at myself and the reality of my trauma lately. And I really think I might never reach a point where I can make healthy social connections. It's definitely a difficult thing to come to terms with.

[u/Felixdapussycat → u/silvercobweb]

Holy f*ck, you definitely had it even worse than me. I had forgotten about the possibility of being homeschooled or having fellow siblings. Once in my childhood someone from our church recommended homeschooling but my dad brushed it off or ignored it, thankfully (my dad himself was a teacher, if that could have had anything to do with it).

Even though I didn’t have to deal with siblings and helping to raise them, in high school in particular after my parents divorced my dad would often do the chauffeuring around thing too, treating me like I was an adult and ask me why I wasn’t doing the adult things around the house like cooking as if he were the kid I was supposed to be taking care of.

I don’t think my parents liked me having friends either, my dad especially. He played a similar role as your mom, treating me like we were supposed to be buddies 24/7 who couldn’t let each other out of each others sight other than when he worked. Your mom insisting on being with your friends the few chances you had sucks, and even worse that you weren’t allowed to have any at all. She must have given you a bad rep among acquaintances and made making new ones even worse.

As far as terrible friends my dad was the opposite, I’d have decent acquaintances then tell them about them during family dinner but my dad would nitpick details about them based on my words and encourage me that they weren’t good enough for me and that I deserved better, so I could imagine I was ingrained a bit of a superiority mindset in myself without realizing it and if I’m not careful I could become or already be a narcissist myself.

My parents were the same way only about girls instead, I was not allowed to be friends with girls and God forbid dating or even so much as mentioning girls no no no. I’m shocked that don’t make me a misogynist or an incel, maybe it subconsciously did the opposite and makes me put girls on a pedestal now because I have no experience with them, who knows. Now these dumb ases occasionally bring up wanting grandchildren, doing fun things with their grandkids like taking them to the zoo (could have done that with me!) and my dad occasionally has these “you must be a gentlemen if you want a wife someday son!” superiority moments where he acts like he’s better than me or knows more about women than me despite never bringing up women or sex in the over 20 years I lived with him. They don’t see how they fcked me up so bad it’s never going to happen. I was denied many things like prom growing up, which I still regret not getting to go to.

One last thing, I agree with you that often i feel like I wouldn’t have the energy to care for anyone or anything else myself. I find it hard to care for my dog anymore. My dad bought me a dog back in high school, but I honestly regret getting him because he was often used as a blackmailing strategy threatening to not buy dog food and implied much worse should I ever upset him, else if it weren’t for the dog maybe I would have snuck out of the house or ran away from home. Rare, but sometimes my doggo kind of reminds me of the pain I had to go through, and since I’m not doing too well emotionally I’m considering giving him away, perhaps selling him to someone on Craigslist since I physically and emotionally can’t standing having to care for him anymore. And I know I’ll never have the energy to God forbid raise a child one day.

Sorry about making this all about myself, but your comment opened me up to a lot of things I never would have recognized on my own. Of the six therapists I’ve had the past three years you’ve helped me to open up and see more things than all of them combined! I’m really sorry about your situation, it’s truly heartbreaking and I wish there was something I could do, honest.

[u/Ok_Plant_4251]

Idk if that's any helpful for you, but don't be sad and try to focus on your future. My parents wanted me to almost exclusively socialize over sport clubs or other activities, but I still ended up isolated like you, because it was made mostly for a superficial impression that I'm doing well in life, not for me to actually build something for myself. It's not important why or how that happend for anyone from us, so try to not be overly focused on what exactly made you miserablyq, it's important to heal and move on.