Has anyone ever had a group of friends like on TV?

[Gobrookeyourself]

Was watching friends earlier and spoke to DH about this. Has anyone ever had a group of friends actually like this? Like in and out of each other’s houses, know everything about each other, casually hang out all the time etc? I personally never have but always watch it whilst wistfully thinking how nice it looks.

does it actually exist or is it just TV? I know it’s probably harder in this day and age with the existence of social media and people working so much.

When I was a student yes, but not since then.

My friends are quite spread across my city, it would be nice for everyone to be closer.

A little bit in my 20's not long after graduating. It was pretty common i think. Everyone hung out in huge groups back then! Brilliant times and so much drama!

For a couple off years, then some of them fell out. I'm still friends with them all but they aren't with each other.

As a student, yes. It was wonderful and although I really love my life now I do miss the days when my friends were my world.

we are all over the country now.

Yes I have, although not in and out of houses, but we did visit each other a lot!

During secondary school years, a group from a musical theatre group I went to - we had group texts/emails and would meet up as a group constantly. I'm still in touch with a couple of them but our group didn't really survive us all going off to uni.

Also school friends - would spend hours on the phone/regular sleepovers. Didn't survive a big fallout aged 18, I think two of the others are still friends.

When I got together with DS1's dad, he was really extroverted and pretty much hated to be alone so there was a core group of us that would constantly hang out. I got on with his friends but they stayed loyal to him when we split so I lost touch with them.

DH has a uni group that he still sees although they are a bit more fragmented now and unfortunately one died. Some others are married (not an issue) and everyone lives spread out, so there aren't really face to face meet upd. He used to play games online with them all but I think doesn't any more.

When I had DS1 as a toddler I met a group through the local La Leche League who I got really close to, we did spend a lot of time together because toddlers = need for social contact or you go mad! I moved abroad and lost touch with all but two of them.

On moving abroad I started going to this English speakers' expat brunch thing and met people through that, group whatsapp chats, regular girls nights out/in. It's different being abroad without family, so people support each other as a kind of adopted family.

I've always liked socialising in groups.

I came on to say similar to this. My SIL was in a group like this of 8 (2 couples and 4 singles) used to go on holiday together all the time, always hanging around each other's houses. One of the singles found out the DH in one of the couples was having an affair with her friend (not part of the group) and it all turned to shit.

Yes- immediately after graduation in London- the flatshare years. Lasted about 3-4 years before people bought their own flats/ moved overseas/ moved in with partners etc. We had a flat share with 4 of us and then there were two other flats with a 3 and a 4 with friendship links to ours and we all hung out a lot / had a lot of parties and nights just staying up chatting and drinking. I remember it very fondly but it was basically a stage and not sustainable.

I had this with a group of friends in my teens and 20s and we still socialise together now at the age of 60. Things changed a little while we were bringing up young children, but we’ve always been a close group. I love them and I know I’m really lucky.

Yes throughout my 20s and until I moved out of area.
Still friends with a few of the despite the fact I’m now living in a different country and they all live in a different place now.

i miss that tbh.

It reminds me of the student days and the first couple of years afterwards, where I lived with my friends and our other friends lived nearby. That time in your life where your friends are like your family while you’re starting to venture out on your own. Now we are in our 30s it’s not like that, still good friends with some but others have drifted away as we moved away and met partners. I had my baby quite young compared to others I know and I sort of disappeared for a while. Life evolves but it was great fun at the time.

Interestingly, unlike other posters, few if us were students. Some were married, some werent.

When we meet up again, we actually still spend a lot if time doing the same things than before albeit with provision for children (when they were small)

We have a bit of a commune thing going on with the neighbours, it started in lockdown, we’d all sit outside in our seperate bits and chat. It’s just never stopped. We live all facing inwards into a news/courtyard, off the road, so it’s like our own private area. We have a cuppa together every night after work, have bbqs and communal roasts and parties in the summer, decorate for Halloween and Christmas, the girls all do nights out together and go aerobics together each week. It’s nice!!

It’s lovely to hear some of these! I lived at home for uni so definitely going to encourage DSs to go and explore the world when their time comes. For the ones who had friendship groups like this, how did you stop kids changing the dynamic? I couldn’t imagine, eg, Rachel and phoebe going to soft play. I know it’s just a show but in the real world, how on earth do people keep that closeness?? Kids is probably the time in my life that I drifted the most from everyone.

Definitely as a student.
We have a group of friends now that are like this when we are around each other, but we live far apart so don't have the opportunity to just pop in and out all the time. That works well as we all get plenty of time and space, but when we do get together there is nothing better.

I think the whole point of the show was it was supposed to be a time in their.lives ,when their friends were their world
I have heard the actors themselves say the friendship group by now would be different with kids and relationships etc .

I yearned for this on paper, however my ASD prevents me from feeling comfortable in such a scenario. I do have friends but I push them away because being sociable causes me anxiety. When I do socialise I ruminate and analyse everything I do and it spoils the enjoyment. So, I just don’t bother, and live a hermit existance.

We just all adjusted to the needs of our dcs.
we had meals together with babies/toddlers sleeping in a pram/bed.
one if my friend had a child who just refused to go to sleep if there was anything going on so we all accepted she was around. And because she had always done that (she stopped sleeping when her parents were out when she less than 1yo!) she was used to it and nit a nightmare.
it helped we had children at about the same time (all in the space of about 4 years).

Basically flexibility on all sides, no judgement on how we handled our dcs and the common wish to spend time together.

What’s funny is that we were still recently of how lovely it would be to live together in some sort if commune still (close but with each of us having our own house)

@AsterixInEngland thats such a lovely idea. I always think the idea of having your own little community, whether it’s family or friends, such a comforting idea, especially in a world that can be lonely at times

@Afonavon I’m sorry to hear that. What if you’re open to your friends about how socialising makes you feel, but that you still want them as friends, they could find ways to make it easier for you?

for me it’s having that group of friends where you’re so close it’s not even classed as socialising any more- you’re all just so naturally in each other’s lives it’s like being with family

We are a group of friends like this, one of each of the group had a partner who was part of the same sport group and 30 years on the extended group still meet at least once a week. Life has taken the group in different directions but (most) still live within walking distance and enjoy each other's company, we have taken the mickey and supported each other through children, sickness, parents, marriage and divorce. We all have other interests and groups of friends but still meet up and enjoy each other's company frequently.

We lived like that in our twenties - DH and I met at university and sort of joined our two separate friendship groups together and created a big hybrid one, and then moved to london in a flatshare and lived like that till we were in our late twenties. We were in the pub 2/3 nights a week, had people crashing on our sofas all the time and always the centre of the action. It was bloody wonderful and I loved pretty much every minute. We then all started to settle down, get married, move away and the group naturally dispersed. It then continued into our late thirties with boozy nights out in London a couple of times a year, as well as seeing people individually but COVID and people becoming a bit more insular has sadly put paid to that at the moment. We also all now have slightly older children who are more opinionated about what they want to do and are busier with their own social lives and have more going on at weekends. It’s harder than when they were babies or toddlers and you could just go for a pub lunch with a nice garden and they’d be happy!

I am however very happy that I had as much fun as I did in my twenties. It was all very tame really, lots of dinner parties with cheap wine, communal curry nights sitting on cushions in the garden as we didn’t have enough chairs, and nights out in the pub playing trivial pursuit but I loved it. I miss being so carefree!

It was all very tame really, lots of dinner parties with cheap wine, communal curry nights sitting on cushions in the garden as we didn’t have enough chairs, and nights out in the pub playing trivial pursuit but I loved it.

I think it’s the simplicity of it that makes it work.

When I was at University yes.

It reminds me of living in student flats. Pals living together. Different flats in and out of each others kitchens (especially after nights out). Mix and matching partners. But none of us worked and most of us had low contact hours at uni. We didn't have the money to go out much so stayed in and hung out with each other.

There was some awful bitchiness/ bullying and falling out though.