@DracunculusVulgaris for what it's worth I think you sound really interesting, and I'd love to pick your brains about the bees. I was thinking of getting some once my toddler is past the daft stage.
You're the only other person I've "met" who feels like that about towns and cities too. I can't live anywhere but the countryside. I was brought up in isolation very much as you describe, miles from the nearest bus or shop. At the moment I live on the edge of a small village, and only for the woods across the road and the big garden, it would still be too built up for me. Any time I've tried to explain how badly I cope in anything bigger, I get to hear some variation of "don't be so silly" or "if you had to you would". I can manage the odd day trip to a city, often I find them enjoyable, but the thought of actually living there makes my stomach churn. I don't know what you're meant to do in them, I feel constantly as though there's a sort of prescribed "face" you have to wear. Anyway.
I have friends, but since I had my toddler I can feel them slipping away too. My oldest and best friend has had a personality transplant recently, and has adopted some very dodgy beliefs that I can't square up with. I used to have hiking buddies, but they have fallen away too. In my last job I was the youngest by some years, and I suppose I was a little spoilt by my colleagues who were lovely, dying for grandchildren, and subsequently made a bit of a pet of me and my children. I changed jobs last year, and it's a very different environment and I can't say there's anyone there I can see myself getting close to
I was going to some toddler groups on my day off, and I was almost at the invitation for coffee stage with a few of the mums, but by the time the groups start back after lockdown, the children will probably be starting preschool and then that window of opportunity is gone.
The thing is, I do care, but then again I don't. It has been far too easy to pull into myself during lockdown, and I do feel as though I won't miss having friends anyway. But I know I will, I've just become very internal and apathetic about it all I think