How can an introvert Asian engineer like me make friends?

I'm a massive introvert who spends most of his time coding, playing video games or Magic the Gathering, and my life has devolved 3 times into full-blown WoW addiction -- the fool's gold life people take on when they feel their real one sucks.

I have almost no friends, hate making plans and, generally, would rather be alone. "Hell is other people" is my motto.

And of course, this lack of relationships makes me very sad sometimes. The short term desire to be alone leads to long term sadness.

But here's where our stories diverge: I'm a tall, likeable (when I want to be), charismatic, good-looking, athletic white guy and can pick up women at will.

And yet, even though I can turn on the charm at will and get what I want (coincidentally, I'm a sales engineer), I'm still totally alone most of the time. This makes me feel like an outsider, an outcast, a loner, etc and the sadness can get uncomfortably dark.

So here's my point: As someone said earlier it's our desire to be alone that's the real problem, not what you look like or what your accent sounds like.

Introversion is a constant sabotage of happiness. If you don't maintain and work at friendships consistently over a long period of time, they will deteriorate. And doing that is nearly impossible for a "hell is other people" introvert.

The best solution, I've found, is to take the plunge and join a structured organization or group that you can't easily get out of. Being in college, specifically a fraternity, was the best time of my life. It forced me to be social and interact with other people, even when I didn't really want to. I think a healthy work environment with other people your age can help, too. It did for me.

One other note: I felt the same "Why is everyone else out having fun and I'm not?" feeling very profoundly in my mid-to-late 20s. It was a consuming, jealous, rage-inducing feeling. But now I'm 33 and I haven't felt that in years now. I don't even know why. Did I stop thinking that was a desirable thing? Or did I just give up?

TL;DR

1. Don't blame your appearance or awkwardness. The real problem is your short term desire to be alone. 2. Join a social or work structure that forces you to interact with others. 3. The jealousy of others' social activity should dissipate with age. Mine did.

p.s. Also, get off of Facebook. People are only posting pictures of their happy times, so all you get is an artificial stream of happy happy happy. This will inevitably make you feel worse. Facebook image crafters are probably just as unhappy as everyone else. They're working awfully hard to prove otherwise, aren't they?

For people with Aspberger's or other non-neurotypical issues (and I suspect a lot of "introverts" in our industry are actually just self-conscious Aspies), treating human behavior and motivation as a game-theory kind of exercise can be more productive than a million baffling attempts at conversation. Turning the black box into a white box with known rules helps a great deal when it comes to grasping the inputs and outputs.

Look at it this way... would you tell someone trying to learn to program to skip the books and just practice? Computers are incredibly complex, and there are decades of theory and understanding captured in classic books that can put you ahead of the game. There's a bright line between the learn-by-doing hackers and the engineers who take the time and effort to study the masters of the craft.

Humans are far more complex, subtle, and difficult than computers, and the masterpiece works of human behavior and communication are often centuries old. Study and be better!

Email me (email in my profile) We can first start with coffee and goto a few events.

Friendship (and success with women for that matter) is largely a self-fulfilling prophecy.

3. Go out, talk to people, and force yourself out of your comfort zone

No amount of reading and theorizing will ever substitute for real-world experience.

You've got to learn how to create your own reality and not depend on others giving you permission. Surround yourself with other confident people and pay attention to what makes them different (hint: it's not their accent or physical appearance).