Making friends on here

@Polahn There is no magical formula, unfortunately. 7 Cups was created to provide anonymous emotional support, not friendship. As you've discovered, our rules do not allow us to share contact information, and this means we cannot use 7 Cups do develop real friendships.

Even so, some people do become friendly with other people here, anonymously and without any real contact.

If you search the Internet you'll easily find other places where you can make real friends, or so they say. I haven't tried any of them myself.

Charlie

Thank you for your answer 😊. I haven't been very successful with other websites... I will keep looking I guess 😅.

@Polahn Hi! Yes, Charlie is absolutely correct, but we also open the 35& Over chatroom every Wednesday so we can meet and catch up. We also open at other times for discussions and meetings, and of course, plenty do actually make friends here in the forums with regular contact in posts and threads like this :)
But basically, 7 Cups isn't about friendship, it is primarily for listeners to give anonymous support in chats 1-1 with our members.
You can browse for a listener here https://www.7cups.com/BrowseListeners/

Listening - One Step At A Time!

Thank you @MistyMagic for your reply 🙏😊. I understand that it is more a place to gather once in the while with people whom we share common struggles with? (Beside Listeners)

@Polahn Yep, and over time you will get to see familiar faces and perhaps a long term listener too :) Hope you are having a good weekend!

Listening - One Step At A Time!

Thank you @MistyMagic 😊🙏. I wish you a beautiful weekend as well 😁🌻.

@Polahn

I discovered and came to check out and sign up for 7 Cups back in November. I was looking for a forum to just unload my brain with the long ongoing struggles I was having with my 40+ year marriage. Yes, I've benefited being here and sharing my struggles and have gotten support from it. But I'm disappointed as well that this site isn't more open to allow friendships to develop. They say this site isn't about making friends? I don't know, I'm a bit disappointed by that. And yet I understand the safety issues and protection concerns that they may have with online friendships, but there are some of us that could use a friend online. But like they say, there's other sites for that I suppose, but all I find is mostly dating sites, and that's not what I'm looking for.

I'm not looking for an online affair, but simply a friend that can help me understand how to deal with my wife. Someone near my age who wouldn't mind being an anonymous friend to me, even if its for a season, to get me through this. And who knows, maybe I can reciprocate that help back to them as well. 😊

Hello @Spearman60 👋😊,

Yes, I find it a bit disappointing that 7cups doesn't allow us to build friendships... Although in your case, wouldn't be a Listener more appropriate? What was your experience with them? 😊

I have an amazing one I talk with regularly. But I miss to have someone I share common interests and can chat about more various topics, not just 'emptying our brain from our struggles' so to speak 😅.

@Polahn

Actually, I did go through the process of becoming a Listener now. However, I haven't really done any "listening" yet. I'm still debating how involved I want to get with that, especially since I came here with problems of my own... 😊

Being a Listener, in my opinion anyway, is somewhat restrictive. All they want you to do is "listen" and not be one to take an advisory position. At first thought, I went through the process because I felt I had something to offer to others being that I'm nearly 63 years old with a lot of life experiences. So considering the restrictions set on it, I'm not sure if I'm going to get very active with it... we'll see.

My experience with a listener? Well, a couple of them didn't seem interested in "listening" but I have a couple of others that respond to me.

Maybe they do not want Listeners to give unsolicited advices, which is understandable in that context? Because I did receive some when I specifically asked for it and expressed it 😊.

But it does seem that the ''quality" of the Listeners varies. I encountered as many "incompatible" Listeners than "compatible" ones 😅...

@Polahn

That's why I'm still weighing this out to see if it's something I want to get involved in. I enjoy helping others. It's rewarding. It's always been my nature I guess... 😊

If I remember correctly, if advice is asked for, a Listener can offer some, but the ideal thing is for a Listener to refer them to one of the online therapists.

And I have encountered a couple of bad listeners too... makes me wonder why they even pursued the position in the first place.

Hello @Spearman60 😊👋
Yes, I completely understand your concerns about becoming a Listener...
Maybe it is worth trying? You can always stop to do it if you realize it isn't something you enjoy?
I suppose some Listeners are incompatible with some but some others enjoy their 'style'... 😅

@Spearman60

If you would like to discuss your marital concerns with me, I am close to your age and I may be of some help to you. I have connected with a few wonderful people here .. and we regularly stay in touch in order to "be a shoulder" to each other ... I'd like to extend an invitation for you to contact me. I'm always looking for a friend on here ...

God bless...

Try Interpals

Hello @Dragon2! 😊👋

Never heard of it! Thank you for the reference! 😊

Do you like it? Did you find friends there? 😊

@Polahn

i had a close friend I met there for 7.5 years and it is a good website

Thank you @Dragon2 😊. I will check this out! 😁

You make friends by contacting listeners on here. You just keep chatting with the listeners you would like to, that person becoming a long term listener, and ultimately same as being your friend 👍

@SkyGenesis
Yes it is definitely a good way to do it 😊. Although, as I explained it somewhere here I think ? 😅 the 'issue' for me is that a Listener might be an excellent listening ear, but we might not share the same interests, so it keeps being just about one another venting about our life's struggles 😅.

@Polahn You make a very good point. What some members do is contact listeners they see on the forums that share their interests, or in the group support rooms, so at least they have 'seen' a little and may find they are more compatible.

You can also post about the kind of listener you are looking for and what interests. It sounds to me like you are looking for a long-term listener that can grow with you over time? We used to have a project that was exactly that but it seems that now it has been discontinued in the search options.

Listening - One Step At A Time!

Yes exactly! 😊

That's an awesome idea I didn't think about! Thank you @MistyMagic! 😊🙏

I will look more closely within the community to find if that project exists still 😊. And if not, I will do as you explained it: ask for the a Listener with whom I share common interests and/or look in the interests-dedicated forums 😊.

@Polahn Another idea is to make suggestions to the 35+ Team which I lead, so for instance perhaps a discussion on one of your interests? Then depending on what it is I could get a script written up for the chatroom?

Listening - One Step At A Time!

@Polahn The former long term listeners project was first announced here: Sponsors on 7 Cups! It was based on the kind of sponsor relationship already established within Alcoholics Anonymous (and Narcotics Anonymous).

Details of the project don't seem to exist now. The idea was to have regular weekly chats with a listener who would guide you through a predetermined series of structured activities that would help you "in your personal healing journey". Long term, in the context of the project, meant two months or so. After that, if I remember right, you would run out of structured activities, and I was never sure what happened then.

You can see that this kind of sponsor was very different from a friend. The relationship was intended to be asymmetrical, with the sponsor in charge of the activities. This was the reason I never took part, although there are members I have supported over very long time scales.

Charlie

I've just had another thought 💡

If you go to the Listener Reputation page and expand the Member Support Badges section, you'll find Reconnection Hero and Steadfast Soul badges that identify listeners who chat many times with the same members, together with links for finding those listeners on the Browse Listeners page. Perhaps this might be some help.

Charlie

Thank you very much Charlie for all the suggestions 😊🙏.