AIBU to wonder why many posters find it harder to make friends than find a life partner?

No I completely understand that there’s a difference between a friend and an acquaintance.

But I am happy to meet people and sit with the ambiguity: I don’t get the need to immediately pigeonhole people as one or the other.

Acquaintances can turn into friends and vice versa.

I don’t struggle to meet people, I’m perfectly happy to speak to people in new situations. I do find it hard to move from acquaintance to proper friend these days though. Lots of my close friends moved away and whilst we’re still in contact virtually and occasional meet ups it’s hard to find people local. Everyone I meet is happy to chat on a superficial level but generally have their own friends for nights out and meet ups. As busy parents to young children this means it’s hard to fit in new people. I do feel quite lonely sometimes. I’m fairly senior at work too so unlikely to make lots of close friends there whereas when I was younger and more junior I had lots of friends through work. The other senior people are significantly older than me and in different life stages. I keep busy by volunteering and doing kids activities like swimming and sports classes. My youngest has just started school and I’m hoping to make some friends that way.

Oh FFS. 'I am not like the other girls'.
In 2026.

The amount of ingrained misogyny on this thread is beyond belief.

CS Lewis wrote something along the lines of: the start of a good friendship are the words "me to".

I've always really struggled making friends with women, but I find men much easier to get along with. I find women generally don't have much in common with me...I'm a geek, I like sci-fi and gaming. I'm not into crap TV dramas or reality TV. I've found very few school mums who share my values, interests or humour...and you need all 3. I've found a few blokes over the years I've gelled with, some I'm still close to.

I know several lonely men, it's more common than you think, generally nice guys who either spend their time with the family or are guilted by the wife when they do go out.

I think the problem these days is twofold: that if someone isn't perfect, cut them loose or keep your guard up; we don't accept people for who they are any more. That it takes repeated interations to build a friendship, and to build trust. if the connection isn't there on the first "date", that's it. It's not how connection works. People don't play the long game anymore.

Its an interesting question and I would agree with OP that you would think it would be easier to make friends.

From my (male) perspective, I think women treat one another horribly and I think this is perhaps something to do with why friends can actually be tricky.

My jaw frequently drops reading about how women treat each other one here.

There was a hen night thread recently where the accommodation fell through and people were out of pocket. Instead of coming to some adult resolution together, about reimbursing people or whatever, the last I heard was that the bride and MOH had secretly bought the silence of one guest with a partial refund, but the other guests were to get nothing and were to be kept in the dark over this secret payment.

Apparently the bride didn't want any ill feeling before the wedding and seemingly the best way she thought this could be ensured was by screwing over her friends who had given time and money to come to her hen night.

Just absolutely jaw dropping stuff. I can well imagine men being angry over losing money in an accommodation mix up, but they would "have it out" and then forget it by the time the first round of drinks arrived.

Men can sometimes 'lose touch' with friends, but very rarely fall out. If they don't like each other, they simply don't take anything to do with one another. In contrast, women seem to delight in being 'faux friends' with people they don't like, purely so they can make each others life a misery. Go figure. You often see threads where women wake up one morning to discover their friendship group is suddenly treating them like a pariah, for no apparent reason. I mean, WTF?

As to why this is? Feminism has tried to mould modern women to be extremely self centred. The idea of putting others first, or even considering them at all, just doesn't seem to figure, many women seem to just think of themselves and only themselves. In contrast, women were traditionally seen as considerate and selfless. This change is surely connected with the friends issue. (Of course you get selfish men too, but it seems this mostly affects their partners rather than their friends).

I understand that… but I don’t really understand why people need to categorise people in these neat little boxes.

Why can’t you just be content to spend time with someone and enjoy their company without the need to define the status of the relationship?

In the final analysis they are someone whose company you enjoy. Does it really matter which side of the friend vs acquaintance line they sit on?

This is the bit I don’t get.

Sorry I don’t understand what you are trying to say.

Exactly my thought when reading that. Biology??? You don't need relationship for conception.

Don't you think we would realise our partners only wanted our bodies? Don't you think we'd have left them?

You do know you can get pregnant without having an emotional connection, right?

Getting pissed and fucking a stranger is still likely to get you pregnant.

For some, yes.

People don’t understand that you can’t just introduce yourself to some randomer and off you go. People who want friends and don’t have them generally lack social skills, more than those who aren’t bothered.

I don't know, it sounds plausible to me.

What utter nonsense🤣

I understand that… but I don’t really understand why people need to categorise people in these neat little boxes.

Why can’t you just be content to spend time with someone and enjoy their company without the need to define the status of the relationship?

In the final analysis they are someone whose company you enjoy. Does it really matter which side of the friend vs acquaintance line they sit on?

This is the bit I don’t get.

I'm baffled at the number of people on Mumsnet who struggle with the most basic social interactions and find making friends to be traumatic, but have found a life partner to settle down and have kids with.

A significant number of posters on here struggle with friendship or social interaction to various degrees, manifested in the extreme in the declarations that they "hate people", "don't want new friends", find friends to be too much "drama" and only want to spend time with their families. There is a classic of the genre running at the moment in which an OP has taken umbrage at a coworker making fairly mild friendly overtures to her as a gross invasion of her privacy. (But admits that she met her partner at work?) Or just at the milder end of the spectrum the huge amount of anxiety which making new friends seems to generate.

I genuinely don't understand why people who have managed to find an intimate relationship in which to have children can find the prospect of exchanging words outside the school gate or sending a text to a coworker so traumatic.

I found attracting a partner and building a relationship to be a far more fraught and involved process than making friends: there's so much more to lose, so much more vulnerability needed and the prospect of loss of face and self-esteem in the process of dating is far greater than in making friends. But texting someone (platonically) to ask if they want to have a coffee seems to spiral posters into paroxysms of self-doubt. The "school mum" threads are a whole sub-genre in their own right, where the paranoia and suspicion is often seriously irrational.

Why do people find it relatively easy to find a partner but finding friends so difficult? From my perspective it should be the other way around.

Right, I'll bite...

I think the fact DH and I have autistic traits has meant we were drawn to each other and "get" each other. This isn't so easy to do with friendships.

I have always found it hard to maintain a friendship. I have one friend I see regularly. We have a lot in common but we both have stressful lives as parents. Good support to each other. Other than this, I don't keep in touch with friends I made in uni years ago. In my 40s now, and having chronic health issues means getting opportunities are few and far between.

DH is my best friend. He just understands me and I him.