"I thought X would get me Y and being disappointed."

This is most of us, most of the time, in most endeavours, and I don't think it's a gender thing.

I wasn't suggesting it was a gender thing. I was suggesting it was a thing I struggled with in my youth. That's it.

Good work figuring this out for yourself. Part of me wants to say “use your voice to tell your story so others like you don’t feel alone” but having experienced some similar things in my own life, I understand how it’s usually not worth going to battle.

I still wish folks would stay over more often, though.

> inevitably other people will jump up and say (in essence) "Well, that isn't true for me and you are evil and bad and wrong for saying this is true for women generally and you don't represent me!!!!!" type nonsense.

Your detractors are engaging in the No True Scotsman fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman One of the issues is that identity is, for most, a very emotional construct and anything which threatens that will illicit an emotional threat response - anger, lashing out, attacking. The best response is to, as much as possible, simply ignore those responses and continue doing what you'd like to do - the same as researchers will hopefully continue to do. In old adage form - "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink."

My firsthand experience has been that simply ignoring such responses tends to lead to the individual in question behaving in an increasingly unhinged fashion and actively hounding me as if they will not be satisfied until I reply to them in specific.

But perhaps that isn't really an argument for not simply ignoring them. It's just the reason I have tended to not go that route historically.

As one of my peers noticed one time: "I can't solve other peoples problems for them, but I can choose to leave them out of my life when they refuse to solve their own issues."

You do sound fairly exceptional. Would you rather not be?

I tend to feel about my life like that comment about democracy: It's the worst thing ever... Except for all the rest.

Also: Hell is other people.

My mother had a great social life. It involved inviting people over, serving dinner, having the ability to allow people to stay overnight as guests.

Replicating the nice dining table and means to allow for overnight guests failed to magically cause guests to appear. I never figured out what piece of the puzzle I was missing. My mother put a lot of emphasis on being able to serve her guests and make them comfortable and she was always surrounded by adoring friends and relatives. I tried to do the same. Somehow, that didn't get me a lively social life.

> I never figured out what piece of the puzzle I was missing.

You might then be interested in doing some research on the 60s term "vibes". It could be that it was your mother's vibes, more than the house decor, which must have made her socially attractive.

But yea I see what you are saying in essence. It has been part of your "social conditioning" (if we do X we get Y). In (traditional) India, one stellar example of the male social conditioning is that "if I get a good paying job, I'll get a pretty wife".

I don't know why people are reacting so negatively. It's a normal occurrence for there to be "people persons" who are great at creating and maintaining a social life and doing these kinds of events, and many of us introverts being unable to replicate that... (Actually, I personally am able to create a lot of friends, but it's mostly through the introvert's favorite venue - online chats)

Maybe you spent so much time trying to create an environment, you forgot to make friends?

That said, modern generations are more about going out and doing things in short social engagements. People 'feel' very busy, and the idea of an overnight stay may be too much commitment for someone that doesn't feel they have a strong friendship with you.

There were many differences between my life and my mother's life. I don't actually want to hash this out further. It would be nice if the entire internet would not make wild speculation about why I failed to replicate the extraordinarily wonderful social life my mother managed to have.

Well maybe if you just tried harder, it would work! /s

I'm right there with you. People are much different than they used to be; it's normal now to not even know your neighbors, let alone talk with them. I've had people decline dinner invitations, and former friends outright ignore my messages. I mean, I hope I'm not the problem but the thought crosses my mind. It sucks, especially if you want those relationships you saw your parents have but no one else around seems to.