Creating and Maintaining Personal Relationships

[Hotfoot]

While I'm not a huge fan of relativism, it's occured to me that everyone seems to make relationships for different reasons, expects different things from the relationships. Commonly like-minded groups will form, cliques and such. On the Internet, it's more common to not bother with certain people, while in the real world you can't help it sometimes.

Personally, I usually have to have some sort of common ground with someone before I can initiate any sort of closer contact. I also am somewhat dispassionate about friendships and the like, at least insofar as in I don't think I'm as emotional about it as many other people I know. I commonly do things that some people see as "nice", but I just see as either common courtesy or common sense, and am sometimes confused when they think of it as so odd. Similarly, I often have no use for certain conventions or traditions, which can cause friction because others place higher value on such things.

I also hate indirect drama. It's one thing to vent about something you can't do anything about, but I've grown to detest passive-aggressive shit, and as a result I find myself having zero patience for such traits in people.

I may just be rambling, but in any case, anyone else see things differently or have something to say?

[Mayabird]

I've noticed for many people (me included) that the best way to meet new people (and therefore create new relationships) is to be thrown into a new place with new people and no one familiar and be forced to interact with others. We're social animals and need to be with and around other people, but we need to be pushed into meeting others. It's a lot harder if you know even one other person, since you'll stick with that one person you know rather than interact with others and it's a lot more work to do so.

I've noticed a pattern for myself that the first stage consists of random interactions with people, with me eventually getting to know people and honing in on a group that becomes my circle of close friends.