If all my friends frequently are unable to message me, because they are busy, does that mean exactly what it says, or could they secretly hate me?

Consider how much time you spend thinking specifically about each individual you know. That's how much time most people will think about you.

People who communicate with you don't generally hate you or even dislike you. It's much easier to ignore you if that's the case.

I'd say probably not. People really do get really busy, and they are almost never thinking about me when they do something that affects me as much as I am thinking about it.

That said, it's possible that it would be helpful to try and branch out, maybe to a local reading group or something given your stated interests, something to pick up the slack a bit you know. It's probably not good for you to have no human contact for days on end.

The sad thing is that sometimes even people who like you, or who you like, become more distant due to life changes that none of us can entirely control. You don't have to take it personally, but most of us have to find ways to keep making new friends over time, because sometimes people can't stay in your life even if they really want to.

Best of luck with the whole situation though.

It could mean that, but mostly I think people just burn up their social energy at their jobs and it takes concerted effort to organise social engagements, which people only really reserve for people they're actively very excited to see.

Unfortunately, you do have to stick your neck out a lot and say "Oh, can I come to that?" and not rely on others to extend the invite. But also accept the rejection if they're like "Oh, this is for friends of this person" or "Nah, it's date night". It stings, I have shut myself off for years avoiding the feeling. idk

It does sound like you're hideously depressed though, not that I have any solutions for that.

I am also not entirely sure how to build up proper community in "adult" life. In university, I felt like between classes and tutorials I could flit over to a student club and shoot shit for an hour or two every day, but now my lunch break feels only long enough to microwave a meal and get back to work (and is nowhere near the friends I have made). Clubs and community things are like... A once a month deal, heavily depending on how far away they are. Living in a house-share situation means I'm cagey about just inviting anyone over, let alone a large-ish group on the regular. The main socialist hubs require way too much time to get to and after work I just want to sleep.

Fairytale retellings can be fun, play ravenswatch, seek out local sci-fi/fantasy club maybe.

The answer is you can't tell. It can go both ways. To tell whether people hate you or not, you have to find out if they're purposely not inviting you to hang out. Of course, if they're actually doing this, you wouldn't know by virtue of them not telling you.

tl;dr you have no real way of knowing

they probably don't hate you (at least not in a way that one could tell from this limited info), people just kind of become more interested in their jobs and personal lives/relationships more than friend groups as they get older. i have a roommate that i would hang out with all the time but they recently got a new romantic partner and now all they do is talk on the phone with them. i don't really have other friends or family nearby to compensate for the new void in my social life so im not taking it particularly well. and thats on top of the ever present background sexual frustration and romantic loneliness that comes with being incapable of socializing normally or forming relationships, which itself is on top of global climate catastrophe, imperialism and genocide that define global politics. i distract myself with weed and mecha models and video games to cope and its worked out so far, i manage to maintain an iron-fisted, white knuckle grip on my sanity to reduce any additional hardship on those around me that might be caused by my mental problems.

It is very easy to lose touch with people. I think the economy is really hitting people hard. People are struggling, and I know myself there's a lot of times I even flake on my lover, and just want to stay home and lay on the couch and do nothing.

On the occasions where they do message you back, how substantial are the conversations? Based on you saying they apologize, it sounds like they do value you. If they didn't like you, they don't have to message you. It would be way easier to just not message you and let it fizzle out.

Up until about your age, I had a bunch of friends who were people from my college housing area whom I kinda just knew in passing. The first year or two of college was full of people chasing careers, largely on a gust of privilege. Maybe I'd gone to very conventional frat parties and gotten drunk with them. They would greet me and wave, but had no deeper relevance to me. Most of it was very impersonal, with the sense that if they left my life or vice versa, they would just be another person I knew by the faint memory of a first name and a face.

What changed? I started interacting more with the nerds in my department at the university, environmental groups, punks at punk houses, and especially the local anarchists, and ever since then I couldn't be happier with the friends I made, who were better aligned with me and more permanent. I went from feeling like some kind of novelty in high school and much of college, to deep ties ever since then.