To hate socialising ?

@MuppetLady Yes this is it. I am very content to be with DH but everybody else seems to rather not spend more time being with their own partner or families.

This reads like you think you're better than other people. You do you, but if you hit 60 and DH leaves you for another woman (happened to my mum) or passes away young, it could be a very lonely 20+ years.

It might also be just I've moved on and while they are nice people i am no longer in a phase where i want to do stuff in the evenings or i want to try something else (that doesn't involve eating & drinking

So do something else? Suggest you and your friends do something that you want to do. Or join a running/knitting/language club or class.

@SweetSixty60s - no longer even care about losing touch with friends. Totally happy in own company and skin.

Again, fine, but don't be sitting there in your 70s or 80s complaining that nobody visits and you're lonely.

You can maintain friendships in ways that are more suited to you. Can you meet with friends one to one, doing something that you like? Watching films together? Just hanging out at home? A coffee on a saturday morning. Going for a walk? Meeting up with the kids, so they play and you catch up. All of that doesn't mean you have to get dressed up or tell jokes to entertain a group.

I'm not even interested in travel these days.

No me neither. The idea of motorways, airports, all those people makes me feel faint. My last few holidays have been a cottage in a garden in Dorset, lonely walks on beaches, dinner in the garden, a play on the radio with a glass of wine and then bed. I can't imagine wanting more.

I started to feel like this at 42.
I'm exhausted running around doing school run and clubs. Also working FT. I just want me time. DH does his share but it's still tough.

I do force myself to try and keep a few meaningful friendships as my mum did find it hard once we were teenagers and doing our own thing. I don't want that so putting in the effort now. And it is effort.

This is interesting. I'm 41 and find all socialising a total chore but persevere so I can maintain friendships. But I'm wondering what the point of maintaining them is if I'm going to feel even less like seeing people the older I get!

I take iron daily for anaemia and have never struggled with constipation. There are lots of different types and some suit better than others.

Don't know anyone who would take iron if wasn't absolutely necessary since it really constipates.

It sounds like you are not being true to yourself and that's why socialising is draining for you. If you don't want to get dressed up and you can't go out in jeans and no makeup without sticking out like a sore thumb, your friends are clearly no longer right for you. If you feel exhausted by having to put on an act, ask yourself why you can't relax around your friends. If you can't face going out in the evening but would enjoy a Sunday with friends, try and suggest it and see what happens.

Friends are important in life and I think you are making a mistake by not wanting to bother. But of course you need the right kind of persons around you.

Totally the same but I have had a few friends pass away recently only in their 40s. I wrestle with living life to the fullest and also treasuring the friends I still have.

If I do socialise I do everything I can to see people in the daytime. I struggle so much with going out in the evening as all I want to do is veg on the sofa. My meet ups are also very infrequent, we all have kids, jobs etc so more than 3/4 times a year is impossible!

My kids love seeing shows and that’s the only thing I am willing to face in the evening. I don’t find my partner and children at all draining. Even friends that I love I find draining but it’s my problem not theirs.

I'm exactly the same as you OP.
This is me -
20s - partying every night and loving it
30s - doing the above and clubbing in Ibiza for my holidays
40s - enjoying quiet drinks with friends in pubs
Early 50s - preferring my dog/pjs/crap telly but occasionally forcing myself out to socialise so that I don't lose all my friends (who agreed that that's why they still went out.)
Late 50s - socialising in each others houses - film, wine, chatter
60s - no longer even care about losing touch with friends. Totally happy in own company and skin.

Yup similar age and I feel like I have to make a lot of effort but I don’t really want to. I thimkmit’s just the demands of having young children later that does me in. After I’ve done their stuff I just don’t have the energy for much else.

I'm also 42 and completely relate. Honestly, I just can't be bothered.

Are you 'most adults'? I'm a menstruating woman and my iron levels are actually high due to a genetic condition common in Celtic people which I didn't know about until recently. And iron supplements aren't always prescribed, OP could be buying them.

Are you a doctor? I definately need iron; my tests results and my GP says so and I think I'll listen to them. It's dangerous to say things like that. Lots of women (vegetarian and massive bleeders during periods) need iron supplement. GPs don't prescribe them for fun.

I hear you OP!! My DH gets energy from socialising while it completely drains me. If it's casual just seeing one friend or two with or without kids I'm fine and I enjoy it. People are different and in my twenties I forced myself but now I don't have the energy for superficial socialising (where you have to make an effort).

That’s true, we are all here in our party hats, frocks and tuxedos, standing under a big banner saying “we support you”, waiting to yell surprise, but OP has got changed into her pjs, got on her sofa and has stood us up, well all this advise buffet will go to waste, start popping the balloons! 😂

I think socialising probably feels less something you need to motivate yourself to do now, because you have a husband and young children. It’s when the children are grown and / or when your spouse has died or you’ve separated that it does become a problem, because it’s much more difficult to build an entire social network of new connections from scratch, and loneliness and isolation in older people is quite literally a killer.

Do you not do any low key things with friends? Have one or two over to your house / at their house for a few glasses of wine, or a small dinner party of close friends, or just a walk and a coffee together? If you’re absolutely too tired even for any of that then I think it’s worth going to your GP for further tests.

Most adults don’t need Iron supplementation it can be quite damaging, but you are not able to absorb as much vitamin b12 as you get older, that could be it, all the b vits actually it’s good to supplement,

Just choose your lane OP, it’s ok to not want to socialise, but friendships are based on common interests like gatherings, hobbies, alcohol, when you don’t have these interests in common then friendships will fade.

My dad is 77, he has never had friends, just people who he encounters,
like a chat down the pub or work colleagues years ago, family phone him a bit and two old friends of my mum call him occasionally now she has died. But he is fine and will never change, I am just like him in that way, I could live happily with very little human interaction. I think some people don’t believe that, but our kind do exist. Apart from 3 mates from years ago who text me or I text them may once a month or so all other friends are only maintained because of my partner, and I haven’t seen them in ages, he has though.

Add into the mix that for medical reasons I can’t drink alcohol anymore, most who we used to see have lost 90% of their interest in seeing us, it’s amazing how many ‘friendships’ are held together by alcohol.

What I’m saying is, if you are truly one of us who are like social camels and can survive on barely any human interaction and have always and always will be that way, then that’s ok, you may maintain a couple of text message friends if they are similar types, but most will quickly lose interest, but if that’s your lane, keep swimming in it, it’s ok.

I'm wondering what you'd talk about on the phone if you never go out. Work? Kids? TV? It wouldn't be the most scintillating conversation.

Same! 42 and after my child I lost interest in big gatherings one after the other. I will go and enjoy it but I try to arrange my weekends so I don't have things going on every single one of them. I don't understand couples that struggle with a weekend free and end up booking a lunch or dinner with us 4 or 5 weeks down the line. Seems like most of them don't find enjoyment in having a lazy relaxed weekend every now and then at least. I would be shattered! Keeping in touch with friends is important though even to get away from every day routine.

There's socialising, and socialising though. I think if you'd said you cba with work dinners but enjoy dinner and drinks with your friends we'd all sympathise. This might be a symptom of having too much on? Perhaps you need to schedule weekends 'off' where you don't socialise so you can enjoy when you do go out. But saying you actively never enjoy meeting your friends is odd. And enjoying food isn't having an obsession with it fgs.