To think it's IMPOSSIBLE to make friends in some towns...

[IncaAztec]

I moved here last year with DC1. Everyone has lived here since the year dot. Its very hard to meet anyone, let alone anyone who wants to go on a playdate/be friends. I won't name the town but I think my experience seems to be common in small provincial ones with few incomers.

I have tried to make friends but am foiled at every turn. An example: At a baby group (dull, but an example), I offered another Mum I had met and chatted to before my seat as she is very heavily upduffed. She took it and went off to talk with her friend, leaving me alone. Not even a Hi!

People are borderline rude at nearly all the playgroups. I go for my DC's sake these days. Anyone else in the same boat or want to name and shame their unfriendly, cliquey, rubbish town?

I've come to conclusion I am both antisocial and unpleasant.

Me too! I've been sitting here all day thinking that, after a particularly disastrous social event yesterday.

There should be a special small town for people like us.

upstart It'd be fab, we can all bond over bumsex Fridays and slagging off unfriendly small towns - and exclude anybody with the nerve to move in without an invite!

Actually having read some of the experiences here, my place is just fine. I've met some lovely mums and people with shared interests. People are generally friendly in shops and all that. My place of work is lovely, a really fab group of people.

But yes, moving to a small and perhaps isolated or insulated area can have some..er.. initial challenges.

Liek the time a mum at a tots group asked me exactly what street I lived on, what car I had and then moved seat.

On 2nd thoughts, maybe it's just mums and tots groups that are the work of the devil.

Oooo. MNborough.

Can we handpick our shops? Naice ham shops and Pombear shops. Every shop flanked with parent and child spaces (with armed gaurds). A huge pound shop cunningly disguised with bunting and ALDI would do online shopping.

It's taken me FIVE years to make friends in this town. We didn't know anyone and I made no friends until DD began school. Then we moved to a new school and I made even more. Toddler groups are shit really. NO offence to people who enjoy them....but they're not for parents unless you're lucky enough to know someone already.

silvercup

Not going to give you the details of the one I'm involved in as you will tune and listen to my ramblings,

but these chaps copied ours, and will be glad to advise you to help you set up yours, nice bunch

then you can invite anyone along to be interviewed on your show,

I warn you, you get hounded by men and teenagers wanting a DJ spot to torture everyone with their mixing.

www.soundartradio.org.uk/

I might have to move to MNbrough instead. Will there be ?

Even organic if you like.

All socks sold will be cashmere or cashmere mix.

And any scarves earmarked by Style and Beauty will be onsale by close of business.

MNborough or MNbrough? Hmm.

Arf at icclebabyjesus - I started something very important quoteunquote. I started expanding the gene pool. - god knows they need it in W.Cumbria!

It sounds lovely. I'd like a college which does free courses at times I can go. Nice crafty things. Nice neighbours (obviously with cats that don't poo in your garden). All the teachers would be like Miss Hooley. Hmm what else...

Treedelivery I've had the whole, car/location thing, combine that with the book band my DS is on and some website should churn out some suggestions.

It's not too bad here. Some year groups seem to be impossible harder work then others. Some cliques seem to sweep up or scare anyone off.
Some operate a restricted numbers game - a new person can't be admitted untill an old one is fallen out with in a terminal manner.

There also is n't much movement between groups, once your bedded down with one group, it's seen disloyal to invest any time with a different set of mums. This is hard for me since there is quite a big gap between my three and I had DD1 quite young so I'm on the edge of a few groups.

I'm also pretty social rather then looking for a static best friends forever thing. We're moving next year so will be pleased with a fresh start. The unspoken affliation network is too complicated for me.

Can we have a drop in lunchtime meet up every week, in a pub. No invites, no whispered guest list discussion, just turn up and order your own choice of beverage and crisp product. Sit down in next available seat and chat to whoever is around. Simple.

Gosh. Hardcore selection criteria - by bookband.

It isn't that bad here, it also isn't a very middle class area, it's firmly working class majority. So the snobby element isn't too bad - but then the shops are pants .

I hope you are moving to more friendly waters with a cosmopolitan edge. I have come to the conclusion I was meant to live in a capital city.

I have, however, met some seriously lovely people in the last couple of years. So I am feeling more at home. It's take 8 years to find them though!

Council tax in MNborough would include AmazonPrime.

Can the pub have a playground that I can see from the warmth of the bar?

Can we have a waitrose with lidl prices?

Course we can.

But don't forget we have an Aldi that does online.

And the online delivery people will bring the groceries in, unpack them, put them away and remove the 50 plastic bags as they go. After sorting out the out of date stuff in your fridge.

Also there will be good public loos at every street corner and in every childs play area/park. With hand lotion.

Some operate a restricted numbers game - a new person can't be admitted untill an old one is fallen out with in a terminal manner

That's so true!

We moved to a small market town in Wiltshire when I was in the early stage of pregnancy with dd2. Dd1 was a toddler and so I launched myself into all the local toddler and play groups in an effort to meet people.

We knew no one in this town and so I was really keen to make new friends and have people to talk too. We lived on a small culdesac and I thought we ould be bound to strike up a conversation or two with the nieghbours. But no. No ne wanted to know.

Even when dd2 was born - no one enquired if everything was okay or gave us any congratulations. It made me rather depressed to be honest and I was very isolated as I had no family near by.

So we moved to Belgium, where I dont speak the language and knew no one. But I became part of a vibrant expat community and began to think maybe its not me!

Then we moved to New Zealand and I have made a good bunch of mates and have never been happier. So its not me! Honestly! Some areas or communities are just very difficult to break into I think. I think it is a very isolationist and inward looking way to be - it can really have a huge impact on peoples lives. I feel very sad looking back on that time now. The first year of dd2s life was quite miserable for me. So now I find I make an effort to make new folk as welcome as possible.

Whitehaven was very hard work especially as a brand new mum miles from our families. The local kids set fire to our hedge and chucked a brick at our window. Was very happy when we moved away and have never been back.

I nominate quoteunquote with her impressive list as the Mayor of MNborough.

Our house/car loves a local Radio station, the one at Lewes Bonfire night is particularly bad in a good way.

The first week we were in Warrington I had a lovely lady give me her phone number in a park because I told her I was new to the area and we had kids the same age. We're still good friends 9 years later. I couldn't believe it.

Who shall we twinned with?
I suggest we turn down small towns in the Franco-Belgium border region and approach Narnia or Diagon Alley.

I had the opposite experience. When I adopted my first baby I still lived in the town I was born in and raised in.

I nervously attended my first mother and toddler session and found the most unfriendly bunch of women I've ever encountered. My DS eventually took a shine to a 6 month old baby and I exchanged a few words with his mum. At the end of the session she came up to me and begged me to come back next week as she had been coming for weeks and I was the first person who had ever acknowledged her! We are still friends now 7 years later even though I've now moved away.

A year later I moved to a small town 10 miles away where I knew no one. First day at the new toddler group I was given the loveliest welcome ever. I have made so many good friends since I moved here.

I have noticed though that the mums in my DDs class are a lot less friendly than the mums I met through my DS. I'm an outgoing person but I find them hard work and they will drop you mid conversation as soon as they see one of their friends arrive at the school gate. I put it down to the fact that they are all a lot younger than me ( I'm in my 40s and they are all late 20's early 30's) but it may just be at they very wrapped up in their own established friendship group.

As for making friends outside of your children's social circle , I joined a running club and have made a nice group of friends through that .

We've lived here in a village in the Derbyshire Dales for about 6 years. We were made very welcome indeed. My husband is well known in the village and everyone says hi. He is never short of company in the pub

I've just started to make a couple of friends. But the difference between me and my husband is he got out there, went to where the people were, was friendly and chatty, and I was not. So it took me longer.

The town I grew up in - I was never part of it. A mining village and, like someone else said upthread, I spoke differently. Didn't have the local accent and they considered me 'posh'. Our family weren't part of the town at all.