When socialising, my friends seem to only know how to banter

>>18305599
My friends are basically like yours. We joke about everything. It's hard to have a completely serious talk about stuff. But that's probably because we've realized there are very few things worth taking seriously. Although we tend to be much more clever about it than just calling each other fags. We are all a bit smarter than that.

And no, it doesn't get draining. I look forward to it.

>>18305618

Right, to me it often looks like making jokes is just a social crutch use to avoid talking about something normally.

It's also frustrating if one of us is speaking to a girl or something, then another of the group always goes in with the joke's and end's up fucking up the other guy's game.

>>18305599
Maybe it is time for you to grow up, and tell them all it is time to stop calling each other fags and do something better.

Maybe it wont work, but maybe it will.
>get new friends

>>18305599
This reminds me of a time I went to a bar to meet with a bunch of friends. I show up early, followed by a guy I never met and a girl that I didn't talk to much before.

Safe to say we're near stranger-level, but we get a table and start talking, instantly click, we end up talking about philosophy, hopes and dreams all of that shit.

Then two pals arrive and the mood shifts, we start doing exactly like you and your friends do, bantering, calling one another names and just fucking around. This alienated the first two people from the conversation, more friends show up and the two of them ended up leaving early(they lied about why, but it was obvious they were uncomfortable)

I don't consider it draining, but as with everything else I'd like there to be a balance, if all you do is banter and never talk about shit, you're a pretty boring person. That said I'm not dominant enough to change the mood in the group at will, I expect it to happen naturally, and when it doesn't I get bored, so what I do is try to convince them to switch places or to do something else in hopes of having more fun, and hopefully along this road the situation gets more interesting.

>>18305599
Never could figure out the difference between "banter" and just straight up insulting someone.
I just stick to myself these days.

So the world is using banter these days?

>>18305711
Banter implies you're jokingly insulting someone, and using it implies you're close to said person. If you come to me wearing lipstick because you've lost a bet, I could go "aww that sucks anon, you'l get em next time!", or I could call you faggot, and if we're pals you'd know I don't mean anything by it.

>>18305719
I know what it "means", I just couldn't tell the difference when people were just using it as an excuse.

If you can't influence the group dynamic then it means you're low on the social hierarchy and should probably find other people to hang out with. I'm not one of the hypermasculine bantering types but I know a lot about a lot of things and am fairly well-spoken so when I'm around people they try to come up to my level and talk about shit that I'm interested. They also ask my opinion on things. Work on having more confidence and presence and if you're not getting anything out of hanging with these people don't hang with them. I'll duck out of a group in a second to go talk one-on-one with someone I have more in common with. People often come to me and wonder why I ducked out of the group, and I'm just like "eh, I just do that sometimes". I don't do it to be cool or anything I just don't enjoy pointless conversations for too long.