Today, I’ll address the question of why you may lose friends. In the past, I discussed how excessive daydreaming can impact your social life. Now, I’m specifically talking about friends, especially close ones you have at school or work. The central issue here is friendship, which can sometimes become dull because you’re required to share, talk about your day, go out together, and invest time and effort.

This might lead you to prefer imaginary friends who are good listeners, giving you a sense of control. Real friends may have differing opinions because they are independent individuals. However, if you feel they’re not attentive to you or their opinions don’t align with your preferences, you may drift away. Consequently, you end up spending more time with your imaginary friends, creating distance between your real and imaginary friendships. Eventually, your real friends may stop reaching out to you because they realize you’re not making time for them, listening to them, or sharing your life with them.

Furthermore, your real friends might not understand your experiences and may criticize your infatuation with daydreaming, finding it unusual. Feeling judged and misunderstood, you begin isolating yourself and withdrawing from them because interactions become stressful. As a result, you turn to your imaginary friends who are nonjudgmental and attentive. This distancing process leads to the loss of real friends.

Over time, you might even lose your ability to make new real-life friends. Friendship is a risk because it involves differing opinions and the potential for disagreement. To maintain friendships, you need to be accommodating. But if you continually seek the comfort of your imaginary friends, you may forget how to navigate real friendships.

It’s crucial to focus on building and maintaining real-life friendships and addressing the issues in your life so that you don’t lose all your friends. Imaginary friends can provide support, but they can’t replace the support and assistance you may need from real friends when, for example, you’re moving, stressed, looking for a job, or simply need someone to talk to. Work on managing your daydreaming and nurturing your real-life friendships.

Note from the Author

If you’re ready and you’d like my help with overcoming and managing maladaptive daydreaming without spending years in therapy, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.