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Original poster

Is it so shocking that I dont have “the girls”?

405 replies

Sidebeforeself · 13/01/2025 18:31

I was talking to a friend at the weekend - someone Ive known a long time but she is part of a couple rather than “my “ friend if you see what I mean. She made some comment about doing things with “the girls’ and I replied that I dont have that sort of a friendship group. She was really taken aback and I could see she felt sorry for me. I explained I have a decent number of friends but they dont know each other, dont live in same city etc so that kind of friendship is never going to evolve for me. She made me feel very unusual.

I must admit I do struggle to make friends and am actively trying to I make more but it left me a bit paranoid. Not least because when I then considered my other friends I realised they do have all female friendship groups! Am I weird? Am I missing out?!

OP posts:
LegoBingo · 13/01/2025 18:31

Nah its fine

catandcoffee · 13/01/2025 18:34

perfectly normal to have separate friendships only.

TetHouse · 13/01/2025 18:35

I don’t struggle at all with friends, and I don’t have ‘the girls’. I can’t imagine only having one default set of friends I did things with. I have lots of different sets of friends I do different things with. Some of them are male, too.

Joyfulspringflowers · 13/01/2025 18:38

If some one referred to her friends as " the girls" my estimation of her would go down immensely. I would assume she was still living her life as a schoolgirl and hadn't grown up yet.

VoltaireMittyDream · 13/01/2025 18:40

Totally normal. It takes a lot of stars aligning before you get a gang of friends you can see regularly in a group.

You need a bunch of people who know and like each other, who enjoy socialising in groups, who live close enough to meet up, who have some shared history and shared interests and similar amounts of free time / availability.

I had a group of friends like this once when I houseshared with uni friends in London, and again in my late 20s when we all worked together at a company that attracted a lot of likeminded people (though it was a mixed group, not just ‘girls’). But by the time I was in my 30s everyone had moved all over the globe and/or was so busy so that it was impossible ever to organise anything.

I think my next chance to get a gang together will be in a retirement home 🤣

SoloSofa24 · 13/01/2025 18:44

Sounds normal to me. I have moved around a lot over my life, and have kept in touch with one or two people from each stage, so tend to meet up with them one-to-one when I get the chance.

I think people with big 'girl gang' style friendship groups must either have always stayed in the same place, or are the kind of extrovert, big-group type of personality who forms groups with other school mums and so on and likes to go out en masse.

I have been invited to one or two hen nights or parties with this kind of group, and it is my idea of hell. Maybe it's an introvert vs extrovert thing?

Original poster
Sidebeforeself · 13/01/2025 18:44

@VoltaireMittyDream Yes that’s what I thought- you need the right set of circumstances. The friend that said this to me has lived in the same town for most of her life as have “ the girls” so no wonder they are still close!

I don’t mind admitting I’d like a small group of friends but she made me feel as if the problem was with me

OP posts:
Thursdaygirl · 13/01/2025 18:45

Totally normal. It takes a lot of stars aligning before you get a gang of friends you can see regularly in a group.
You need a bunch of people who know and like each other, who enjoy socialising in groups, who live close enough to meet up, who have some shared history and shared interests and similar amounts of free time / availability.

Totally agree @VoltaireMittyDream I had a group like this in my 20s, and quite by chance have recently found another group in my village, but I’m in my 50s so mathematically it happens approx every 25 years!

Snowmanscarf · 13/01/2025 18:45

I don’t gave a ‘girls friendship’ group either. At times, I do feel I’m missing out, but it is what it is.

iamnotalemon · 13/01/2025 18:47

I don't have a group of friends, just separate ones. I prefer it too. I find there's more bitching and backstabbing otherwise

MushMonster · 13/01/2025 18:47

I think you can only really have a "the girls" group at certain points of your life.
While working, with young children... too difficult to meet up regularly, at least you all have kids in the same school and go out for a coffee after school on Fridats, or similar.
Then, also too troublesome for full on professionals that work long hours, or travel for work, live miles away...
I think "the girls" is for young people and then, I hope, older retired/ semi- retired folk. I cannot really do it at present.
I get to see most of the friends around Christmas, between kids concerts and so on. Rest of the year, is one or two at a time.

Doggymummar · 13/01/2025 18:48

My hairdresser was really surprised when I was talking to her last week that I don't have friends at all. I prefer it that way. I moved town and left everyone behind after a traumatic event and now don't trust people. I'm not weird, have a great job, two in fact but I have no wants to have friends. We are all different.

GroovyChick87 · 13/01/2025 18:48

I've never had a girl gang. I've got individual female friends but I've never thrived on or really fit in with being part of a group. I prefer to spend time with people one to one or in small groups.

RachelCarew · 13/01/2025 18:48

It’s fine OP, some people are pack people and others are not.

Cornecopia · 13/01/2025 18:49

Having a ‘group of girls’ for my friends sounds like my idea of hell 🤣 I’m quite happy with a very small select few people that I see every now and then. I’m very much a homebody

RobinHeartella · 13/01/2025 18:49

I'd like to have a group of friends like this too. I think voltairemitty is right, it takes stars aligning, rather than requiring something about you.

My lovely SIL has a group like that. She's lived in the same town all her life, I think that's the main factor required. So she stayed in touch with her secondary school friends easily.

The other element is that her mum (my mil) was, and still is, good friends with the mum of one of SIL's "the girls". So they've often done multi generation house parties and things.

I envy their lifestyle a bit sometimes

kaela100 · 13/01/2025 18:49

From my experience you can only build that kind of group of friends if you've never moved more than 10 miles from where you grew up. I think it's more normal for educated professionals, especially if high earning, to not have that kind of friendship group.

VoltaireMittyDream · 13/01/2025 18:50

Sidebeforeself · 13/01/2025 18:44

@VoltaireMittyDream Yes that’s what I thought- you need the right set of circumstances. The friend that said this to me has lived in the same town for most of her life as have “ the girls” so no wonder they are still close!

I don’t mind admitting I’d like a small group of friends but she made me feel as if the problem was with me

Edited

Sounds like she doesn’t have a frame of reference to imagine anything different, if she’s lived in the same place all her life. It’s def not a you problem though.

Waterboatlass · 13/01/2025 18:50

Perfectly normal. Ive moved around a lot and kept people as I've gone rather than made a local friendship group over a long time. I bring them together them as and when and they all get on but as people are so dispersed, meetups tend to be separate.

AsmallabodeIsallweWant · 13/01/2025 18:50

I never got that too, either
Most of the people ( I am from the Continent ) move through what we call them companies and you have one if school, a new one in uni and a third when you go to your various jobs and often they dissipate but the real one on one friendships you made, stay with you for life

RobinHeartella · 13/01/2025 18:51

Even more to be envied, SIL's best friend (and one of her "the girls") has similar aged kids to hers. I'm so envious!

Stressed199401 · 13/01/2025 18:51

I used to be part of a "girls" group untill I removed my self a few yeahs ago, it was one of them where if you were up for drinking and going out you were in, but if you didn't or couldn't for whatever reason you were forgotten about, I often had the feeling the second my back was turned I was being bitched about, I stopped going out when I had my second child in 2019 and the group chat got quieter and quieter, yet they were still going out and doing things 🤔 me and my best friend came to the conclusion they'd made a new group chat and started to distance ourselves, the final straw was when my house burned down with me and my daughter inside and not of them reached out just commented on my social media post, with mundane shit like "aww hope you're ok babe" like bitch we could have died, we lost everything are you kidding. 🤣 and it was then I knew, I was done. Removed myself from the group chat and never looked back. Still friends with my best friend from that time but the rest of them can take a run and jump. If I see them irl now I just don't even make eye contact.

curious79 · 13/01/2025 18:52

I sometimes wish that and then I think back to the Marbella holiday I went on with a group of girls, against my better judgement - think lots of cackling, pinot Grigio around the pool - and remember how much I farkin hated it.

I don't move in packs. I have a collection of friends from life, and they see one another when I have some kind of big event (think wedding, 50th) but otherwise are not connected.

My sister does have this group. I remain jealous-not jealous. It's just life

WonderingWanda · 13/01/2025 18:52

It's often down to circumstances. I have lots of dispersed friends and some smaller groups locally but not one main group of 'girls' that I meet with every week, send message all the time. Mainly because I don't live where I grew up and I met all my local friends when we had small children and no time and we are all busy professionals who now are back to work and too busy for constant meet ups.

aperolspritzbasicbitch · 13/01/2025 18:52

I don't think there's anything wrong with not having 'the girls' at all.
I do find it a bit strange when people have absolutely no friends at all and 100% wrap themselves up in their partner.
Also, if people flit between friends/friendship groups but don't retain a friendship with the previous friends...I assume that person is the problem.

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