In my groups of friends I always seemed to end up the goofy guy

I'm the female equivalent of what you want to be (the big sister/mom friend) and I think a lot of it is just inherent in my personality. I've always been calm, organised, sympathetic and empathetic, dependable, etc. I'm not a stick in the mud or anything and I can make people laugh just as much as the next person, but I don't think I could ever be the 'clown' of the group because my personality is just naturally not like that.

What I meant to say is that I don't know if you can, at least not unless you mature somewhat and maybe friend a new social circle to be this big brother friend for. I mean, you could try and identify what traits you'd like to develop and try and change your personality, but I don't know how successful you'd be.

>>18500838
your friends probably don't care about what role you play as much as you think they do

just do what you're comfortable doing and don't try on faces and roles because you are interested in appearing that way

if you don't have the stuff to be that person, then you're just not, you'd be that person if you were that person

if you feel boxed in by who you think you are expected to be, then relax

like i said, they probably don't give a shit about what you do and if they do they are garbage

>>18500871
I guess I would just want to be more calm and organized. I don't know if I could stop being goofy, but I guess i'd really just want to be someone they could depend on. I feel like I'm useless, like although I can make them laugh, they'd never be able to rely on me for anything.

>>18500913
What makes you feel useless and like they can't depend on you? Have there been any situations where they've left you out of 'serious' discussions or anything?

>>18500923
Yeah. It happens a lot where I'll volunteer for something, and even if I insist, they'll still want somebody else to do it. It happens a lot with my family as well, where no matter what I do they never let me help out. Which either means I'm not trying hard enough, or I have a habit of seeking out people like this. Probably a little bit of both.

>>18500941
What sort of situations is this happening in? Also how old are you? Your age might have a lot to do with it when it happens with your family.

>>18500948
22. It happens a lot during event planning and stuff. Like, I'll offer to do a lot of things, but I'll eventually be asked to just relax and not worry about it in the case of friends (Think, bringing things to a party, or setting stuff up.) And with my parents, it happens almost always, unless they REALLY need my help.

If it's an emergency, I'll help without prompting. And they're usually thankful about that, but they never seem to let me do anything important outside of that.

They usually don't let me do anything, and will try to do everything for me, something I try to avoid but sometimes I got hit by it anyways, (Like, I want to pay such and such payment for school, and my mom'll pay the whole thing without asking.)
My parents I can sort of understand. I've heard of parents doing that before. But I really don't understand why my friend group does it.