To give up on these friends?

[TempsPerdu]

Name changed for this post. Would really appreciate some advice, as I suspect I’m being naïve and probably just need a reality check. It's prompted by two things: a discussion on the Relationships board about problems finding likeminded friends, and my current experience of trying to arrange a meet-up for my birthday.

Basically, I’m feeling at a loss for what to do about my oldest group of friends. I’ve never been the sort of person who has loads of casual friends – I need genuine connections and can’t really ‘do’ the sorts of friendships that only involve discussing mortgages or TV or whatever. I have a group of 4 or 5 friends that I’ve known since school. This is the only group of friends I’ve ever made that’s still going strong – old university friends and work colleagues have drifted apart as our lives have diverged. Without this ‘core’ group of friends, I’m really quite isolated, especially as I work from home and both DP and I have tiny families and so can’t rely on siblings, cousins etc. to fill the gap.

Problem is, all of my school friends are married with kids, and I’m not. I’m in my early ‘30s, my friends each have 2 or 3 primary age children. They've all very much embraced motherhood - I'd go so far as to say that they now define themselves by their status as 'mother'. Nowadays meeting up – even for a quick mid-week drink at someone’s house – is a logistical nightmare, and it’s always me, as the child-free one, who does the running. Ditto things like remembering birthdays and Christmas – I’ve always been more likely than most to go to the effort of sending a card/message/present because I genuinely enjoy it, but while I’ve bought countless birthday presents for friends or their DC, no one remembers mine any more, even on Facebook. (I do occasionally get one a fortnight or so later saying something along the lines of ‘Sorry – crazy busy – hope you had a good one’).

The latest thing is that I’m trying to organise a get together for my upcoming birthday – nothing major, just a very low key BBQ with DC invited too. It’s this month, and I realise the summer can be a nightmare so I’ve contacted my friends with the option of any weekend between late July and early September and said I’d work my dates around them. Have heard back from three so far, and both reckon they’re booked up every weekend for the entire summer – not on holiday, just not available any day or evening. The same thing happened when I tried to organise a get together at a different time of year last year – most people not free over a two month period, with week nights deemed impossible because of childcare issues. I only get to see them maybe every 2 months or so, despite living just down the road. I know they regularly meet up without me with their DC, and while I know I’d be a total spare part (and bored senseless) at a soft play centre, it makes me feel very much out of the loop.

I feel in some ways that I get so little back from (and have so little in common with) this friendship group now that I need to cut my losses and move on. However, these are long-standing friendships and I’m someone who struggles to make new ones. I’ve tried all the usual things – hobbies, voluntary work; I even did my MA in part because I thought it might help me to meet like-minded friends. But the people I come across are don’t seem to be ‘in the market’ for new friendships. Even the people I most envy friendship-wise seem to have made their closest friends at school, despite most of them having been to university, worked, made new ‘mum’ friends etc. Is it really so impossible to make new, meaningful friends at a later stage of life? Does being child-free mean that you inevitably lose your friends who do have children?

I’m probably being precious about this; I’m sure my perception of my friends’ lack of effort is very one-sided, and they’re all just incredibly busy with their own lives. Not having DC of my own, I probably don’t appreciate the extent to which they take over your life and become your priority – which is why I’m posting here! Feeling increasingly lonely, and crave more social contact, but don’t know where to find it given my circumstances.

YANBU. It's very common, sadly, for one-time close friends to go their separate ways once children come along. The problem is two-fold; firstly, you have less in common as the focus of the mothers is primarily with their children and secondly, the lack of time available to just sit and chat as you used to just disappears once children come along (unless you have a nanny or very hands-on family).

I think you should just accept that you and your friends have a different focus now compared to when you were younger. As difficult as it is to accept that things have changed, you have to move on and not rely on these women as much as you once did.

Could you do an activity with your PD which would bring you into contact with more like-minded people of both sexes? How about geocaching or mountain biking? Most friendships grow out of doing things with other people rather than sitting talking to people. It's the activity/event that bonds. What do you like to do? Where are you based?

I agree with Lady you need to accept that you and your friends have taken different paths now, if they cross every so often then that's nice but don't rely on them to be your sole social life.

I need genuine connections and can’t really ‘do’ the sorts of friendships that only involve discussing mortgages or TV or whatever - you need to over come this. it's nice to have casual friendships where you can pop over to see someone or vice versa, talk about a load of mundane crap and just while a way a few hours .

No being child free definitely does not mean you lose friend who have children but it does mean that you are leading totally separate lives now and things won't be the same again.

What hobbies do you have? I have made some fantastic friends at the gym and at my pole fitness class, there's common ground to start with which id always good - maybe think about joining a club or something.

I dont think you are being precious at all. I have a very similar sounding circle - there are four of us all old school friends and I dont socialise much with anyone else. Two of us have kids and the other two dont and as expected, the two of us with kids socialise together more and the two without spend more time together (however these are natural pairings prior to kids that have been slightly exacerbated by the arrival of the LOs).

How are they at meeting evening time for stuff? We four meet once a month for dinner and drinks, with our husbands at home with the kids and it seems easier somehow to arrange this than to try and eat into weekends (family time) or weekdays (I work full time and the other mum part time. The two without kids work ft too).

We strictly prioritise each other though- a birthday is important! I get from the reactions to you that they just arent prioritising you amd that must feel awful.

One thing we have which really helps keep us all linked is we have a WhatsApp thread running and talk daily / every other day, on there. Great way of keeping in touch without havig to have the time to sot and talk on the phone. Would something like that help?

You need to accept that you build up a 'genuine connection' with people through discussing mundane things like TV or mortgages. You do that and become friendly with someone and then through the passage of time or through one helping the other through good times and bad you become close friends with a 'genuine connection'.

You need to be realistic about how friendships build up - you're very unlikely to walk into an MA class and meet five soulmates instantly.

You've grown apart. It's sad but completely natural and I do think it's time for you to move on and invest less emotionally in these friendships.

I agree with Betty, when she says of your preference for very close bonds with friends that you need to over come this. it's nice to have casual friendships

I'm the total opposite to you OP and the majority of my friendships are fairly 'light', easy-going ones forged in adulthood which have little deep shared intimacy or intense attachment. I would say I still have "genuine connections" with people, just in a much more relaxed context.

This way, there's always someone available when you've a free weekend and fancy socialising. And conversely, I don't feel pressured or obliged to see people when inconvenient or feel huge guilts if I've not contacted anyone for a while.

Give it a go

I'm still close to my school friend circle, some of whom have children, some of whom don't, but we very rarely all meet up at the same time. If we only met up in a group we would never meet as some people need childcare and have other commitments which means we are never all free at the same time. Why not catch up separately?

From a parents point of view I rarely leave my children with anyone other than my husband (they're 4 and 2 and my parents are elderly), so if he has plans too a summer does get booked up quickly.

Meanwhile 2 uni friends and I have set a date to meet 6 months after we had hoped as everyone's so busy so don't take it personally!

Thank you - lots of food for thought here! I don't mean to come across as overly intense; I'm not looking for a soul-mate, or people with identical interests to me! I favour closer connections, but definitely not rejecting casual friendships - sorry if I came across as excessively fussy!

Without sounding fatalistic, though, I'm finding that even casual friendships don't seem to happen naturally for me. It's partly my own making - I've changed career twice in 10 years and obviously working from home like I am now (I'm a writer) won't give me network of colleagues. But there are also some things I can't control. Many people I know increasingly socialise mainly, if not exclusively, with their wider family network, but I only have one brother, who lives overseas and is single, DP only has one sister, also single, who is uninterested in hanging out, and neither of us has any cousins or more distant family. I think, for both of us, growing up in this quite insular environment has affected our attitude to friendship too - we didn't have all the casual comings and goings and group celebrations that others seem to have.

Then, as I say, my 'old' friends from both school and university have very much gone down the motherhood route, whereas I haven't. Again, I find myself in the position of having to somehow strike out and make a new group of friends, but now I'm older people seem to be happy with their own family lives and not that interested in adding to their friendship groups. I'm in London, so maybe that doesn't help - lots of people very caught up in careers too.

It's frustrating because, while I'm no party animal, I'm actually quite sociable. I've studied overseas and worked in jobs where I'm always coming face-to-face with new people, so I'm quite practiced at and open to communicating with others, but increasingly I'm finding that many people are 'closed off'.

ThinkIveBeenHacked - we do manage a casual curry or something similar every six weeks or so, so I'm not a total recluse! It's mainly when it's me trying to organise things that I end up getting frustrated - somehow if another of the group who has kids suggests meeting up is seems to carry more weight than if I do it, possibly because they assume I can always be flexible with dates and venues.

If you're based in London OP, try joining Gateway Women. This was founded by the writer Jody Day, for childless, mature, professional women The group arrange meetings, workshops, events, dinners etc. quite regularly. If I didn't live in the Midlands I'd definitely go.

OP I did think you sounded a little intense!

I think as people get older and life gets buiser or whatever, people do naturally gravitate to lighter conversations. One of my best friends is going through something horrific right now and so obviously that changes the dynamic of our relationship right now because I wouldn't send her a text saying "New Apprentice starts in a few weeks - you in?" like I normally would, but these are exceptional circumstances and much as I love her and have been friends for 30 years we are very much on a daft text/email basis for the most part and when we meet up we'll talk about TV and other daft stuff.

I'm justthinking about the summer holidays...we're away for two weekends, we have inlaws down for one, we've got an event on in this city that we're desparate to take part in, so that's 4 out of 6 weekends I've got tied up without even looking to check if family birthdays fall on any of those weekends.

I'm justtrying to say, don't take it personally, accept to a degree most people make friendshsips on the bais of superficial interetsts and the deeper stuff comes after and most of all don't think there's anything wrong with you - it's just life!

Hi OP - even though I have DCs, I have found that the nature of my friendships has changed hugely since my friends and I settled down and moved into our 30s.

In fact, a friend of mine sent me this rather cheesy but pretty accurate portrayal of our friendships now. It is aimed at mothers but still shows that our lives do just move into different spheres as we get older.

I'm only friends with two of my old school friends and have picked my other friends up along the way; some from work, some from church; toddler groups etc. I feel dissatisfied as you do as I also work from home and can't really meet up much in the evenings or weekends but our circumstances are different. I too am sociable and I have to network for work so am adept at the art of conversation but even when I meet new people I feel could be great friends, I don't like pushing it in case they think I am being needy - it is a bit like saying 'I Love You' too early into a relationship, even if I think we have lots in common and are getting on very well.

Anyway, sorry I've gone off track slightly.
Re: your particular situation and your birthday, although I have much sympathy with your friends that weekends do fill up very quickly in the summer, I find it sad that they can't make one date at all between them to celebrate with you. Have you tried suggesting 4 or 5 specific dates instead of giving them an open-ended question and seeing if they can make them?

I don't have children - but noticed that when people around me started families, some (but not all, so please don't flame me!) women went into uber-mummy mode, and became unrecognisable from their pre-pregnancy persona. Uber-Mummy is totally consumed by baby, can't hold a conversation that isn't baby-orientated, if you phone her she'll put baby on the line, hasn't applied make-up since Tarquin/Chelsea was born (6 years ago) as she hasn't had time, and certainly wouldn't entertain any sort of socialising (on the odd occasion that she does leave the house during the hours of darkness, she'll generally be home by 9.30pm). And of course you wouldn't understand because you're not a mother. It's actually their husbands that I really feel sorry for.

Uber-Mummy is generally in the minority, most of my friends who had children are still quite normal, simply with the addition of a child, but if the majority of your social circle is "uber", then I can completely understand why you've ended up in your present predicament.

Depends where you live, but investigate the WI.

No, seriously!

Many groups now are much, much younger and far more likely to be made up from young professional women than 70 year-old grannies! Some are a mixture of ages which is also great, but if you look online you will come across many that could appeal, with no trace of jam or Jerusalem!

Also, if you are a writer, are there no professional networking groups for you? Who knows what that could lead to.

I'm in my early 40s, and I'm a WI member. We're the "new wave" WI, set up under the auspices of traditional WI, but more of a "ladies circle" in reality, its very social and our average membership age is 39. None of us know how to make jam and we don't sing Jerusalem!

Thanks everyone for all the thoughtful and practical suggestions. Hadn't thought about the WI Nanny0gg and Sunnyfeet but it sounds interesting - thanks, will investigate! Ditto your suggestion Ladyfoxglove.

You make a good point Rubadubstylee about trying to arrange events over the summer. Like I said, I have a tiny family, so I've never had any of the family celebrations that tend to fill up other people's weekends - I know other friends are always going to relatives' birthdays/weddings/Christenings and I probably don't appreciate how much time these things take up. I think actually that's what I envy most - I've always hankered after a big, chaotic (preferably slightly bohemian!) family. With just me, my parents and my brother overseas it somehow manages to be full-on (ageing parents increasingly reliant on me) and distant at once, and I don't have that extended support network than many others do.

Yes, Petal02, can definitely identify with what you say. I think this particular group of friends does have Uber-Mummy tendencies. Tends to manifest itself in little things, like constantly checking phones on the rare occasions we do manage a night out, always leaving ridiculously early because they don't trust DH to sort out the children, posting endless child photos on Facebook with cutesy captions like 'My Princess' or 'Mummy's Boy', and no longer being interested in fashion, make-up, wider culture or any of the things we used to bond over before they had DC. They're all genuinely nice, well-meaning people, though, and I think in some ways they see the Uber-Mummy persona as the only 'correct' way of doing things. I think they're terrified of getting it wrong.