Am I too dull to keep any friends?

Your subject was, ‘Why do friends desert me?’ — but I ask, why have you deserted yourself? This short email evokes an image of a little figure on an empty stage, surrounded by theatrical props, donning first this mask, then that one, a wig, a hat… then picking up different scripts to learn some lines and waiting for the audience to applaud the character you’re trying to become.

But they don’t. Because most people have acute antennae which detect fakery. We want to relate to real people, not impersonators.

Yes, most of us learn how to ‘perform’ in different situations because it’s a way of coping and even shy people can learn strategies for social life.

T.S.Eliot’s anxious poem of alienation, The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, contains the memorable line: ‘There will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.’

Even confident folk will, when necessary, wear a ‘face’ that

suits the room to be entered. You’ve let this instinctive tendency take over, obliterating your own true self.

You don’t reveal your age, but I’m guessing you are under 35. I hope so, because the younger you are, the more chance you have of breaking the habit of self-erasure.

First, I’d like you to answer questions: did your parents have friends and encourage your friendships?

Did you ever have a real best friend? Were you the kind of teenager others confided in? Did you confide in others?

Self-examination is essential — not to understand why ‘friends desert you’, but to work out whether you’ve ever been the kind of friend that you would want for yourself. Write it down. It clarifies the mind.

Go to the gym to get fit, but it’s not a place for chat. Anything you do with the specific goal of making new friends is likely to fail, because the motivation is wrong.

Genuine interests need developing for their own sakes — not used as a means to an end. Plus, if you throw yourself keenly into an activity, you’re likely to become a more interesting personality.

Similarly, when you talk to people because you’re truly interested in what they have to say, conversational self- consciousness disappears. But you are making everything about you and your desperate needs.

Try taking a deep breath and imagine what private pain is carried by each person you meet.

Asking questions and listening to the replies and then following up with an observation about what you’ve just heard — this is the key to conversation.

Concentrate on this and you won’t have time to worry about what to say next.

Instead of obsessing about being interesting, you need to become interested — in everything you do and in the people you meet.

Your real self will grow as you care about what makes other people tick.