make more friends

I’m thinking about furthering this goal by joining a book club at the public library near where we’ll be living in the states (once we move back). I like to read, but I’ve never been in a book group. I’ve heard stories about book groups degenerating into gossip or not discussing book, but hopefully the public library structure will keep us from doing that. Also, hopefully, I’ll make some new friends based on common interests.

I feel socially awkward. I feel lonely. Okay, so some of this is due to the fact that we live in a country where I can’t speak the language worth anything. Also, we live far from other foreigners. But even back in the States, I never had a lot of friends. I am more one of those people who has a few good friends. But then the good friends change, or move, or etc, and I’m left feeling sad. Part of my problem is that when I meet new people, I always assume that they would never be interested in hanging out with me. I am totally insecure about things like that, so I hate asking people to do things. I fear that they wouldn’t really want to do whatever I asked them to do and would only agree because they couldn’t find a gracious way to say “no.” How lame is that? How lame am I?