I miss the friends of my youth. Can I just vent?

[JaneFondue]

Most days I hear young adult DD chatting away for an hour at a time to her friends on the phone about everything and nothing. It's lovely she has such good friends, but makes me yearn for the days I had those kinds of friends, before work and kids and responsibilities got in the way. Can I just moan a bit without being deluged with solutions? :)

All my friends are busy, distracted, depressed or far away as everyone has moved out of London. Nobody talks on the phone anymore or even meets. It's all texts and social media likes. Most are struggling to keep up with the CoL and aging parents and anxious kids and work..... Meeting them involves a long game of telephone tag or texts back and forth.

And yes, I am trying hard to make new friends. I am in several hobby groups and have many acquaintances. Takes time to turn them into friends though. I feel like I am doing all I can. DH has no friends except a few he meets maybe once or twice a year.

Oh I hear you.

i moved to a completely new area two years ago. I have friends now but my god the first year of getting out there and being polite and nice to everyone and making small talk was soul destroying. It’s so so hard.

It’s timetable aligning even if you have lots of friends and want to meet.

But the elderly parents and kids and caring responsibilities is life sucking sometimes. DH was away for almost 7 weeks caring for his Mother last year. I was mighty irritated, I know that’s selfish. But 30 years of his all encompassing job it was supposed to be our time for a 3 month trip.

Lots of my friends lives have also been subsumed by awful divorces over the last 4 years. There are 4 of them, all their spare money is on solicitors fees.

Then as you age the risk of health issues. My time has been taken up lately by my own heart issues, thanks genetics. Another friend needs a heart op and another has just got the all clear from cancer after a major op. These are women in their late fifties, none of us smoked or lived an unhealthy life.

When at school timetable's align and for my generation extra curricular classes were rare, we had all the time in the world.

All this sounds rough @ViciousCurrentBun
I am lucky I am reasonably healthy and so is mum. DH has some medical issues.

I actually do believe that many women are lonely in their 50s and would like more connection, but modern life makes it really tough to find it.
I did reach out to a friend in another country this morning. She confided that she was struggling.
Everyone is struggling silently.😪

I get this. I'm always thinking who actually benefits from all this busyness because it's not us. I miss having friends that had more time.

I find with my friends it can be hard to see some due to distance (one moved abroad back home).

All mine have moved away and even out of the U.K. We talk on Zoom but lately we haven't been able to find a time to do that!

I understand this. I miss the intimacy of those relationships, too. My best friend from school died a few years ago, we had known one another since the age of 11 and understood each other completely. I won't get that back in any friendship, ever. There's definitely no solution to that and I wouldn't want one.

I think this is true if you're friends don't live near you and so meeting up takes a lot of logistical planning. I have friends from school who are a couple of hours from me and they have kids 10+ years younger than me so we're in a different place at the moment. We start planning when to meet and actually do it 6 months later!

However it's so much easier with local friends. Ping out a message about going for a walk, coffee, drink and you can have something booked in within a couple of weeks. Then when you're chatting, book in the next meet up and so on.

I meet with friends in the NY and we plan birthdays and weekends away from Jan-Dec then it's sorted, on the calendar and you stick to it (and have lots of things to look forward to!)

I have been talking with an old friend on the phone recently (no video, just audio) for about an hour a time when we both have things like emptying the dishwasher to do. She was going through something and needed distraction. I think the lack of video prompts a different type of conversation. If you have anyone you think would be open to chatting, ask them!

100% with you OP, I really miss my friends. I see some of them when I can but mostly that's a lunch/coffee meet up during my lunch from work as we are all busy, some of us have young children so aren't around so much in the evening/at the weekend.

Just miss us all meeting up for dinner and drinks in the evening, having a night out, being available to meet last minute plans etc.

I am hopeful things will change as our children grow older but I am worried people won't be bothered by then.

Oh god yes I empathise very strongly with this.

Trying hard to make local friends in my hobby group, such as suggesting a coffee after the activity.

I feel the same. I have a good circle of friends now, but I always feel I have to be so careful around everyone, as people are so touchy nowadays, and no one can have differences of opinion (as is evident on here every day!) whereas when we were teenagers we could all be ourselves and not get judged by each other for every little thing. I don’t know, maybe I’m not explaining it properly, but the dynamics were just different.

I think about this a lot.

The intense friendships you have as a young teen are just impossible to replicate as an adult I think.

agree. hard hat on here but less than 5 years ago we used to have such a laugh when we met up and would talk about everything under the sun. Now most people have kids (and are in the early years trenches) firstly it's almost impossible to find a date at all, secondly anything in the daytime means kids come along so it's impossible to have a conversation without constant interruptions, and then even if, magically, we do manage an adult only evening, all the conversation is about baby poo and weaning and schools and it's SO FUCKING BORING! And nobody drinks because we all have to drive home and get up early, and we go home early because we're knacked and rather than having a great time I just wonder why we bother!

I feel lucky enough in that I do have good friends and a few are even relatively local, but I do get what you're saying. I so miss the spontaneity of younger friendships. Trying to get together ot just meet up is such an effort and I hate it.