To feel more lonely after going out with my friends?

I felt the same the last time I saw my mother group! The previous few times I'd felt worse after I'd seen them. Then something happened: 3 of us have DC in the same class, and nits have been a problem this school year. The other 2 started talking about how they'd texted each other when one of them got nits, the same child that sits next to mine. I had sent them text when my dd got them but never heard from them when the reverse was true. We've been eating sushi together for 10 years and I don't get a text? In that moment I was done.

I’ve learnt the hard way not to let friendship circles or even seemingly close friends dictate your self worth. That has to come from within, if you don’t need them emotionally it’ll be easier to decide to go your separate ways.

I’ve re-read your OP, OP, and I have been in your shoes EXACTLY and i did feel a huge sense of relief when I finally cut them off and extricated myself from the group. However, I can also completely understand if you don’t want to do that

apologies though as I’ve not RTFT

Thanks OP for starting this thread. It's been strangely liberating for me. I have struggled for a few years now with this and now it seems blindingly obvious to me that it's time for me to move on and somehow find some new friends even if that proves hard at first.

I have always found friendships easy, and have still some amazing friends albeit they are far away. I'm sure I can find some new ones locally - I've been bashing my head over a brick wall for ages thinking there was something wrong with me (maybe there is and maybe they find me totally boring) but it doesn't matter, we have just outgrown each other, and that's ok 👌🏻

I don't always gel well with other women, I'm also a sci fi fan, love reading and films, and love to have good in depth conversations about silly stuff or interesting topics, going to the hairdressers and just talking tedious small talk bullshit is my idea of hell

What in the fuck knuckles is this nonsense? Do you seriously think you're the only woman in the world who likes sci-fi, reading and films? Or that the average woman doesn't have in-depth conversations about silly stuff or interesting topics?

Jesus Christ. The internalised misogyny is strong with this one.

FWIW, I don't find small talk particularly easy, but last time I was at the hairdressers (for three hours; turns out dyeing your hair black and forest green is rather more complicated than I imagine) I spent about half that time reading my book with a cuppa while various dyes developed on my hair and for the other half my hairdresser and I chatted about:

• Why we think Liam Hemsworth isn't going to be as good as Henry Cavill when he takes over playing Geralt in next season of The Witcher
• Our favourite metal bands of the 1990s
• The unrecognised country of Transnistria and how to get there from Moldova, which led to a conversation about Socialist Realist art of the Soviet era
• Why all city breaks should include a visit to a cemetery
• The pros and cons of gentrification
• Soft drink adverts from our youth which we've since realised were a bit racist
• The most recent version of Nosferatu compared to the 1922 original and the 70s remake
• Which era of history we would most like to visit through time travel
• What hair salons can do to become more inclusive of people with autism
• 80s sci-fi cartoons (specifically Battle Of The Planets and Ulysses 31)
• Neolithic sites in Orkney and Shetland
• The Lovecraft Investigations drama series on Radio 4

The friends are here for a reason, a season or a lifetime poem is explored a bit more here

https://www.selinamankarlsson.ch/80-a-friend-for-a-reason-a-season-or-a-lifetime/

I'm not a mum but had a similar experience recently. Met up for dinner with a group of school friends. We used to have some brilliant times in our 20s, nights out, laughing etc. We're all in our 30s now and doing different things. I was sat there feeling so disconnected. Not one person asked me a question the whole time I was there and I just couldn't connect with their topics of conversation.

Apart from one or two people in the group, I realised I wouldn't miss seeing these people regularly. I wouldn't leave or shun them but certainly won't put loads of effort into the friendships anymore.

I've now invested in other friendships and started going to a book club too.

This makes sense. It seemed that your friendship was based around the children as opposed to who you are as people.

I have mum friends - and friend friends. My mum friends are people I probably would have never crossed paths with and have little in common with if you remove the children. Whilst my friends are my friends and we can spend days on end chatting or sitting silently together because we just get eacother and are one and the same. You need to invest in new friends.

The good news is that you have hobbies - are there places you can where you can meet people that are like minded?

This. If you no longer enjoy their company, then step away and make friends elsewhere to whom you feel more attuned. I do agree also about liking sci-fi and fantasy not being your entire personality — plus lots of people of both sexes like that kind of thing, so don’t think it makes you some kind of oddity,
.

I haven't heard that saying before but I love it.

I’ve felt EXACTLY the same as you about my school friends OP I could’ve written this post!

I agree NO friends better than mismatched ones

love to have good in depth conversations about silly stuff or interesting topics, going to the hairdressers and just talking tedious small talk bullshit is my idea of hell

This cliché really annoys me: it’s so misogynistic. Most women love in depth conversations about silly stuff and interesting topics. Just because sci fi and fantasy aren’t interesting to lots of us doesn’t mean we only indulge in “tedious small talk bullshit” at the hairdresser. So reductive and arrogant.

Last time I was at the hairdresser we talked about Elon Musk and what’s going on in the US, the pros and cons of electric vehicles and heat source pumps, the comparative merits of Sheffield and Norwich, and whether it was better to be experimental or stick to what you know, with particular reference to hair styles but touching on a wider philosophy of life.

Come sit by me.

I'm dreading the school years (just coming up for me), as I don't always gel well with other women, I'm also a sci fi fan, love reading and films, and love to have good in depth conversations about silly stuff or interesting topics, going to the hairdressers and just talking tedious small talk bullshit is my idea of hell, I cover it well but I'm hoping to meet some like minded mums along the way.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you OP, maybe they just aren't really your crowd, they were while you had more things in common (early years of children), but now you don't really share the same interests anymore. What do you do when you meet up? Could you suggest a games night once a month, or some activity that you'd all enjoy doing, rather than just meeting up for a chat etc, we have friends that we do that with but we tend to keep it to once a month or so so we have plenty to talk about.

Could you find more like minded people through other hobbies or shared interests to plug the gap?

SF&F fandom is completely dominated by women and has been since the original Star Trek. Have you considered hanging out with other fantasy fans? If you go to a book signing with a fantasy author, 90% of the attendees are women.

@Lilifer never too old or too late to find new friends, imo. I chose quality over quantity a couple of years ago and have no regrets, though it was hard and hurtful at the time (acrimonious split).

Time is precious, and time spent with friends should be nourishing, nurturing, interesting, fun snd/or validating and uplifting if you ask me. Not every time, but most of the time. I love learning from my friends, supporting them, making them laugh. If I'm coming away from an evening out feeling empty, unseen, or despondent, it's a sign to spend less time with that group...

Oh my gosh it is such a relief to read this and realise that I am not the only one going through this - a weird sense of isolation when in company with long standing female friends - I come away feeling completely unseen and disconnected - it's awful, existential really. Starting to think that I have just changed too much and need to find new friends but at the age of 55 it's hard to start again

I know exactly what you mean OP, you have my sympathies. I've been there with a group of long-standing female friends, where most times after meeting I'd feel disconnected, agitated, misunderstood and just, I dunno, like we had nothing in common anymore and that the friendship had run its course. I'd outgrown them. I was getting softer, more open, more compassionate whereas they'd often be the opposite. I didn't enjoy their company anymore, so we split up (long story).

Most friendships where you meet through circumstance just fizzle out. I agree with others that perhaps meeting 1:1 with them might be better? I think as we age we become more sensitive to how interactions and social occasions make us FEEL. Lean into it and decide whether these friends are still worth your time and energy.

Make new friends.

I know exactly what you mean.

It's a horrible feeling.

The older I get, the more I feel like this.

I went from being a social butterfly.in my teens and twenties and early thirties, to raising young children in my mid thirties.to mid forties. Now approaching late forties and I just want to scuttle off home and be comfortable.

I'm less tolerant of people who don't actually care much about me.

You only ever had one thing in common with them, which was the fact that you had kids at the same time. Did you meet them though NCT classes or something? There’s really no reason that you’d automatically get along with people just because you’re all mums of kids the same age. It was a friendship of circumstance, and now that circumstance doesn’t really exist any more and the friendship has run its course.

The fact that you like sci-fi and fantasy is not the issue, provided you are capable of talking about other things. Liking a certain genre of fiction shouldn’t be your entire personality. I love fantasy fiction and I also love football, which none of my closest female friends are into, but it’s not a barrier to friendship because there are other things we have in common.

All the women I know who are into sci-fi and fantasy are ND. Some are ok in groups, but definitely more comfortable one-to-one.

There's a common saying that friends are 'for a reason, a season or a lifetime'.
My DCs are adult now, and I am still in touch with one or two people from the baby stage, but drifted away from most of my antenatal/mother & baby group friends when the children started going to nursery or school, as really I didn't have that much in common with them.

It sounds like these were your friends for a season, and now you need to make new connections with school mums or with people who share your actual interests.

My stance on this is to not expect friends to fulfil all your needs. It doesn’t matter if people don’t align with you on everything. Enjoy their company for what it is e.g. a bit of a laugh and chat and escape from domestic routine.

If you want people to enthuse about sci-fi and fantasy with, you need to seek them elsewhere, but it doesn’t need to be either/or. You can have both, and more.

I have a friend I go walking with who is very different from me but we both like walking, an old work friend whom I am poles apart from politically and socially but whose company I love because she’s lovely, and a bunch of women I’m in a book group with, some of whom I get on with and some of whom I only communicate with because they’re in the same book group as me.

It would be different if any of them were being nasty, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the problem for you.