even if you have one or two good friends that live 1 mile apart from you or even in the same house. at the end of the day you are still alone. and thats normal.

like what are supposed to do with your buds if you are 30? party every week?

(March 28, 2021, 10:34 pm)Akhenaten

(March 28, 2021, 5:58 pm)Avarics I guess you can say that I am naive for thinking that people can change and that there’s always potential for it.

Indeed. Try forcing yourself into a clearly-mismatched relationship because you're "keeping an open mind," or staying in a toxic one for any length of time at all. Maybe that works for some people, and that's great (?), but for me, it's better to seek out harmony from the start rather than hoping maybe it can develop with enough willpower and dedication. I have deal-breakers, and I've tried to sidestep each one of them at some point. Always ended in failure, sometimes due to my own inability to get over it (which is my right to have; we all have our limits). The important thing is that I learned from each of those and have a much stronger sense of what I'm looking for out there. But hey, that's just me. That's been my experience. I didn't want to hijack the thread, but it's important to clarify things.

To bring it back around to @"bballconnor" and the original point: yeah, getting ghosted fucking sucks, especially when it's hard to get a conversation started in the first place. I share your pain, and hope you're feeling better.

There was a woman I was very interested in, I had known her for several years (we worked at the same company, then both left and went to a different workplace (its a very small town)  I even went and spent a week with her on a road trip around the west coast to try and feel out how the relationship could or could not work out.  The only problem was she was deeply religious (Mormon) and I am very strongly Agnostic on a good day, Athiest on a bad one.  She said she didn't expect me to convert.  But I knew she wanted kids one day, and I did not want them raised in that tradition.  And it also colored our basic beliefs of how the world should work.  I don't think she's a bad person, just not a person I am compatible with in the long term.

So I ripped off the bandaid then instead of 8 years down the line when everyone was invested.  She was in her early 30's at the time and wanted kids; I wasn't going to keep her around and deny her that chance.

Just wanted to step in and throw my two cents behind Akhenaten's point of view.  There isn't anything wrong with filtering out people that you know are just going to cause conflict/bad feelings.  Save everyone's time.

(March 30, 2021, 9:52 pm)big_carl72 And it also colored our basic beliefs of how the world should work.  I don't think she's a bad person, just not a person I am compatible with in the long term.
So I ripped off the bandaid then instead of 8 years down the line when everyone was invested.

Ding ding ding... that's it right there. I'm sorry that couldn't work out for you, but I'm glad you were wise enough to see it upfront.

The adage "they are internet people" means just don't have online friends, I have 40 people on my FB (my only social media page) I've known in RL including blood relatives and step-family. I been friends with a woman in North Carolina who's pregnant and is due in Aug., she's in her mid 30s and I talked to her BF as well. We have live chats on zoom and to me, she really wanted to talk to men who are fascinated with her unique physique. I don't like it when you befriend people and they don't bother to PM, call or acknowledge you, including on message boards over the years. Life in your 40's is mostly work, not much play and many have families. I have an older GF who I talk on the phone and zoom during the pandemic (we're both going to get vaxxed soon), but in the 2000s-10s including my high and middle school days in the 1980s-90s, I wasn't much of a social butterfly.