I have never been without friends. There have been a few times when I didn't have any that were close by, but I kept in touch. There is one person who's been a close friend for 45 years now.
I have noticed that it's gotten much harder to find friends over the last few decades. Our society has changed in ways that make it harder to meet people and harder to get to know them. Online can be a good start but it's very difficult to progress from that.
Putting yourself in situations where you meet and interact with people, in person, definitely helps, but that's not easy for introverts like me.
I'd say my entire life. I've never really had friends, just friendly people who come and go every few months. Not really relating to them or having talks with them, but nice to see them i guess.
Tbh, i'm not even good with relationships in general. I find it hard to sustain relationships or find people who have the same interests as me :/
I suck at human interaction very bad in general and i'm used to it, but sometimes it sucks. Really hard. Same cycle every couple of years for me.
I did have a friend who i stuck with for 6 years but i wouldn't say it was a healthy one. Broke it off months ago.
Going on 18 years now, don't really miss it. It's kind of freeing not having to worry about anyone else's problems and worries. I can keep myself.entertained.
Hey, guess what, isolating your child from society and trapping them in a 12-person class with only 2 people they can actually have conversations with and a bully who isolates your child from talking to those two people isn't going to magically give your child social skills they actually had before you locked them away. Oh, right, nothing happened, the child just has Puzzle Piece™.
I have friends around in other places, and where I live now, but things just are different in adulthood. On one hand, I can and do connect with some of these people occasionally. On the other hand, it’s not like my early life where every day I was around peers and hanging out with people. I’ve kind of adjusted to this and enjoy my solitude.
The way i see it, I went from 2018 to 2021 with no real friends. Sure, I had an irl ttrpg group, but I felt more lonely around them than when I was actually alone.
Probably something like the first 1-2 years of my life.
As long as I can remember Ive always had friends and my current best friends Ive had for the past 15-18 years, since school.
I know not everyone is this lucky and I am very grateful for how my life turned out.