This question on Yahoo! Answers piqued my interest, and the answer I gave was so long, I put it here.

Do you need friends to survive?

My mom once told me that what matters in life is being honest and doing good, and that you don't need friends to survive. but after still living with my parents after 24 years (and hating everyday of my life), I still haven't been able to move out, because even the sh*ttiest one-bedroom apartment out here costs $500 and up, something I just can't afford off minimum wage. I notice most people my age live in apartments with ROOMATES. I haven't had any friends since high school, so there's no one to help me pay for an apartment. I have to do everything in life bymyself, the curse of the ugly I guess. So, would you people agree that having the right friends is necessary to survive in the real world? You can also consider such things as getting references for jobs and the like.

Additional Details

3 days ago

First 9 answers, with "Additional Details" repsonses

by Bel Bel

no I don't

by tawnee f

YOU CANT i say you cant .. you need at least a best friend why dont you go out and have fun and make some or call ur old highs school friends and see how there doing and get to gother .. and see hwta happend from there =]

by brdman18

I know how you feel. However, I didn't really have many close friends in high school. Now that I am in college, I have found the meaning of a best friend. I have realized that having a peer that relates and understands your situation can ultimately help you out tremendously in the real world. Just having people to talk to that know what it is like to be you is a benefit in itself. Parents can only go so far as to help their child grow. After that period, it is natural for any human to feel the need to leave. However, it lies on the shoulders of the child to take the step out into the real world. And having friends/connections/a relationship are essential tools to make it in the real world. Friends are a very valuable asset to have in life because you never know when you will need a helping hand. I feel that parents are there to guide, direct, love their children. However, if they don't help their child ever leave home, what is the point of raising them? Money is a different issue and unfortunately everyone isn't born with it. I feel that pain. In conclusion, I don't think people need friends to survive. They just need them to relate and make life a lot easier. Good luck in life, you WILL make it on your own someday.

by xiaofong...

sometimes.

1.sometimes they may help you in needy.

2.Sometimes u will find them irritating.

Afterall,wat goes around comes around

by bloodywy...

well I'm not trying to be a b*tch but it really depends on your view of the people around you, well people don't necessarily need friends to survive the real world, but it really depends on how dependant you are. I'm sorry if this dosn't help much, i suck at advice.

by r.moki

u don't have to have friends, but its good for your mental health. If you have any interests, there would be plenty of people you could share them with. even if u just do it over the internet. Its good to have other people to share ideas with - then you get to know that u are never really alone and not as weird as u might think u are

by kolten

You don't need friends to survive, but it definitely helps in basically every aspect in life.

by savoir68

"honest and doing good".. please take that with a grain of salt.

If you want friends work out what you need to do to make them, and prioritise your goals... "honest and good" can be a little lower than some of the other goals. Obviously keeping your job is number one.

(Work out what personality traits you need to try to tend towards or away from and stick to it. dont worry about results, just strive for consistency and comfort zone)

by lenoxus

I strongly recommend this article, "7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable". Since I don't know you personally, I can't tell you what sort of conclusions you might draw, but it can't hurt, can it?

All right, I'll go ahead and be presumptuous and say that the relevant point, as I see it, is for us to realize that anything worth having takes some kind of struggle. If someone asks us if we have what it takes for life, a lot of us say yes, because we're thinking of our strengths. But the truth is that at some point, life asks every single one of us to do something it did not prepare us to do. A man completely confident with his masculinity, for example, might crumble in the face of the the "naked photo test" explained in the article.

So don't assume that the whole "making friends" thing is easier for other people than it is for you. For example, the magical world of Hollywood is filled with wealthy, well-connected people the rest of the US considers beautiful and witty, and the truth is that most of them hate each other and themselves and they feel just about as empty as you probably do right now. Hope that helps!

So it seems like you need to do two contradictory things as once; perhaps it's the absence of them both that's driving you to the lows you're in. The first is that, like it or not, you have to learn to love yourself. There is something about you worth loving, no matter what. (You don't have to call yourself beautiful if you don't want to, although I've heard it helps.) If you can't think of anything, find the time and space to meditate. Whatever insights you may reach can be something to be proud of, because they will be yours.

The second task is to gruel yourself. Focus on your primary goal: is it to make friends, or just to move out? Believe it or not, the latter doesn't require the former! Sometimes, roommates start off as best friends, but just as (if not more) often, they start off as roommates, plain and simple. All the job takes is the ability to sit in the same room and both (or all) dependably earn the rent; you could be introverts in your own worlds and the rent can still be paid. And this is not some kind of catch-22, because Craigslist and all those other classifieds sites are filled with people looking for exactly the same thing.

On the other hand, if your goal is more in the social domain, do research on the sort of places (bars, libraries, coffee shops, wherever) or events (club meetings are great, because people are always glad to see new members) that people hang out at in your community. Don't think of friendship/sociability as having anything to do with "popularity," but simply compatibility. (Remember the Hollywood example.) When you're in a potential social situation, don't try to think outside the situation, don't try to get inside the other person's head, don't think in long-term goals. Just talk and listen, listen, listen; absorb who the other person is without analyzing them or thinking about anything else. Attention is almost all you need.

Or you can be the crazy person with no friends, and that's all right too!

PS: Regarding your esteem about your looks, I think the article here really addresses "the beauty problem" in a straightforward way that's much more satisfying than "You need to see yourself as beautiful!" or "True beauty is found on the inside!"

As far as I'm concerned, both beauty and ugliness are incoherent myths — kind of like "stupid." It seems to me that we're all stupid at something. For example, I know big words, but can I get through the day without losing something? For once?

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