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.
I tell my friends hey im doing X on this day if you want to come. Sometimes they will say "I cant do X day can you move it?" and ill decide if I want to and if its fine then i reschedule otherwise I go without them. Plans never get changed from what I originally set.
if I just want to hangout and dont care about the activity I just ask if they want to meet up and do something making it clear the activity is open for anything. We then throw around ideas and whichever has the most interest we do.
So like what do you do in that case? Like I'm in my "I'm discovering myself phase" so I'm trying to learn what stuff I like to do and I need ideas, like I'd really appreciate if you could list off some specific examples, but not like generally specifc like whatever is specific to you please?
Summary of my list:
Good:
Bad:
My friends and I dont really share any hobbies or cross over interests. All the things im deeply interested in I have to do by myself or share with anonymous people on the internet.
Drinks at home/Movies/Online or Inperson gaming/camping/road trip/swimming/going out for food/airsoft/painball
There isnt much to do in my city. Nice nature is all we got.
Could I ask for reference which city you're based in? Or local municipality within what ever legal system governs the place you live in? Whatever you're comfortable with
Auckland City