To be so worried I’m losing all my friends

[openbluewater]

Hi, I don’t know if anyone can relate or understand.

I didn’t have many friends at school. I came from a troubled background and I got a bit of bullying: nothing that really affects me now but it meant I didn’t really have any solid sort of base of school friends.

Up until about eighteen months ago, I had some good friendships - two women I worked with in my first job which was in the early 2000s who I was close to and we’d seen each other through various life changes, remarriages and so on. A couple of friends from college. One friend I was still in touch with from school and one from university.

This is awful but while I haven’t fallen out with any of them I’m not close to any of them any more. The women I used to work with -one has retired and is in a different phase of life and is also a grandma. The other has remarried and her second husband is horrible. My friends from college -one has emigrated and although we keep in touch on social media it’s difficult to properly discuss anything somehow. The other I feel differently about since I went out for her birthday and some of her friends were really rude to me and she didn’t stick up for me.

My school friend has a baby and the baby goes wherever she goes and she only ever talks to the baby, interrupts me speaking to speak to the baby, if she does deign to talk to me at all talks to me about the baby. Even if it’s something quite sensitive. My university friend is lovely but lives at the other end of the country.

I feel a bit like Oscar Wilde where losing one might be a coincidence and yet all of them is crazy.

I don’t know. Has anyone else experienced this?

Do you approach people cautiously OP? Are you worried about rejection before you've even started?

Op, I've obviously misinterpreted you're whole original post. Just to clarify, this is what I said above. It was merely a question that I was pondering considering you'd mentioned being bullied in your past. I wasn't saying you are like this, just asking a simple question about whether this is how you feel.

If you post about loosing friends/lack of friends/hard to make friends people will offer advice and ask you about yourself. You say you have no problem making friends. Well that's great! Maybe you're letting the friendships fall by the wayside too easily?
Like others have said, I have friends from all stages of life.

Sorry, I said I was out and now I'm back to niggle. I hope you find a whole new bunch of friends soon that stick around or you reconnect with your old ones.

thats a shame. It is very sad when that happens, you're right.

I still think you should keep trying with the friend you have, if they are all nice people and no fall outs then the reason they were you're friends to begin with is still there

Starbright you’ve asked some interesting questions.

Retired friend - I’m not sure why it’s changed, but times when I’m free (evenings and weekends) she is often busy. I have tried to meet up but have found the onus is always on me to go to her (about an hour and a half drive) then she needs to go after an hour.

Horrible second husband - I just don’t love having to sit there smiling while my fertility is mocked. I swallow down acerbic comments because I like my friend but I really don’t appreciate it.

It’s not that I’m resistant or not trying to be. Perhaps at my age it’s not about meeting hundreds of new friends, which is why I’m not chomping at the bit to meet new people.

Trampire, to be honest, I think I am far more tolerant of most friendships than most people would be, because I don’t have the sort of safety nets they do.

"I think a lot of people don’t necessarily need a lot of friends. If you have a husband, children, a sibling, two parents, in laws and colleagues then you probably don’t need many friends."

I think some people don't need many friends. And some do. I wouldn't say "lots" don't. It's a numbers games surely and if your volunteering activity wasn't suitable because of the shift pattern, try a different one. Don't draw any conclusions from it other than that didn't work out for X reason and then apply that to your next activity - choose something that doesn't have shift patterns. My friend has made good friends through a group that picks litter once a week! Obviously that's not gonna reap great friendships for everyone, but some groups are obviously going to be more social than other so go for those. There's loads of good advice on here and many people who are testament to the fact that we need friends. Hope that gives you more hope!

OP you come across as one of those people with an excuse for everything. And I don't mean that unkindly, its just the way your posts read.

It’s not exactly about excuses snowy although I’m sorry if it comes across that way. I think the problem is more that we’re talking at cross purposes. I’m asking if others have experienced growing apart from friends, but people aren’t talking about that and are telling me how to make new ones.

are you always the one to do the chasing op? to organise meet ups and to phone first, to be the one offering to do this or that? sometimes very confident people can do this then the other friends get lazy and don't put in the effort if they stop

But OP, everyone has answered you by saying yes, we've all experienced growing apart from friends, it's normal, and the answer is to make new ones. Unless you just want a long column of yesses, what else is there to say?

Yes, but pink, you can surely understand that it’s not really strictly speaking fair to answer something I didn’t ask and then get huffy because I’m not immediately taking helpful advice.

Yes, I think it’s normal to grow apart from close friends. In fact I think it would be relatively unusual (although of course not unheard of) to have a big close group of friends from your schooldays when you’re in your 30s.

op could you see the remarried one without her dh? maybe meet up for lunch during the day? and see if your university friend would be up for a visit to her? - keep it short - though - a short weekend!

I wonder if the decline of long chatty phone calls has meant we drift apart from friends more these days. it shouldn't, because texting and e-mailing are easier so if anything we can keep in touch more. Not sure it works like that though. It used to be normal to natter for half an hour to a friend on the phone, whereas I can't really remember the last time I did that!

I’m sure my university friend would like to see me, but it’s awfully expensive and time consuming.

My friend with the husband, we’ve just grown apart.

Write a list of all the suggestions made here and make a plan of action even if they are out of your comfort zone and report back ok?

You could add going to church/church activities even if you are not religious as they are all community minded.

You are starting to over analyse now which is not forward thinking so please let us know out of all these suggestions you are going to try first

Guess so, but that makes me the third person on here who has apparently got you wrong somehow, so at some point you have to start wondering how you're coming across. I'll leave you to lament then...

I probably am a cunt, but that’s really what I am wondering, so back to the start. Is it me slowly but surely becoming even more of a twat, or is it part of the natural ebb and flow of life and friendships?

Fluffy - I’ll be honest, I don’t want to, I’ve had my confidence knocked too many times now. I’m not trying to be a knobhead but that’s not honestly what’s motivating my posts.

Are you interested in getting fitter? Learning something new?

Perhaps take the pressure off yourself in finding friendships for now and go to a few exercise classes and evening classes.

Report back when you have done something positive.

its tricky and people do drop in and out but it doesn't just happen. You do have to put yourself out a bit sometimes but I have several good friends who are not close but can call for a chat, go for a dog walk, go over for a cuppa etc but not have real heart to hearts with. I find many of my friends are just as needy of a heart to heart these days - one with hubby trouble, another job trouble and a third whose DH has a terminal illness so its also about providing that support for others without letting it overwhelm you and also make room in the relationship for chat about your issues even if they are somewhat insignificant in the face of death of a partner.

Ah OP. This is a matter close to my heart.
I have drifted from friends or even actively distanced myself from groups that made me feel sad over the last couple of years.

I have three or four friends that I see or talk to on a regular basis. I also have a couple more who I consider close but only see two or three times a year. Everyone else are acquaintances.

Rejection from groups, feeling like i’m always on the outside, no one’s number one, two or even three has bothered me massively in the past. However, i’m at peace with it all now. I don’t really know what changed, maybe growing older. Maybe just the fact that I was no longer worrying about it, freed up positive energy that could be put into decent friendships.

I do feel for you though. I think your mindset has to change but not sure how.

Fluffy ... honestly, I’m sorry if I’m being a twat, I really am, but I didn’t post wanting to dramatically change my life. I was just brooding on some friendships that have waned over the last two years.

I’ve got very low expectations, if anything, I think. I let a lot of stuff that actually does bother me slide because I don’t want to risk the friendship.

I haven’t written anybody off. Like I say, there’s been no argument or anything. But I know we don’t contact each other as often, I know when we do it’s awkward and stilted.

In answer to your question, yes, it's completely normal to lose touch with friends, and no, there's nothing wrong with you that it seems to have happened to several friendships all at once - it's just timing. In my early 30s I lost touch with lots of really good friends, mainly because Life started happening in a big way: either babies, or promotions, or job moves to different areas, or relationships, sometimes all of that. Suddenly no one had idle moments to email in the office or meet for spontaneous drinks, the basic 'what's going on?' stuff that makes you feel connected. It wasn't that they suddenly couldn't be bothered with me personally, more that meet-ups had to be scheduled in and no one really wants to be the person flicking through a diary and saying, 'Literally the next free evening I've got is... three weeks on Monday?' It's embarrassing. So it often doesn't happen.

Plus, everyone started relying on Facebook to do mass updates, and that's when you get the edited highlights version of people's lives and start thinking, What? So you had time to go for coffee with X and Y but not me?? And who ARE X and Y?? when that was the ONLY TIME the person had been out of the house for months, and X and Y were NCT friends who lived 2 mins away and were easy to see.

(And I hear you on the baby front - yes, it can feel isolating if everyone else is experiencing motherhood collectively, and you're not. But the school run isn't the only place to meet people - I joined a book group and met a lot of amazing retired ladies, who have been wonderful friends to me.)

So, no, it's not you. I think it's everyone. Lives change, people grow apart. There is no easy answer, other than make some new local easy-to-see friends yourself. That's not what you want to hear, I know, but replacing friendships that have fallen by the wayside is completely normal - and helps you to move forward as a person yourself, instead of getting mired in why things in the past didn't work out.

Ok, if you only want to hear about our own experiences then yes, I've grown apart from my uni friends, they're friends on Facebook but I haven't seen any of them for a long time, apart from the friend I'm closest to. I've moved a few times since and I've retained friends from the different places, which is nice.

As you haven't fallen out with your school friend, you could ask again if she wants to meet up without her baby. And if not, the baby stage passes quickly, once she has a toddler she may well welcome the break, I certainly did occasionally.

And your friend with the horrible husband, you could try and meet up with her without her husband again? It sounds like she'd appreciate the support. And I personally like meeting up with friends without my DH around. (He's lovely but it's nice to do things without him sometimes.)

Thank you, yrhengi