It's pretty rubbish not having real friends. I get terrible anxiety at the thought of local meet ups with other mums I don't know, so that wouldn't work for me. I prefer one to ones if I'm honest.
I was okay in high school, had a good bunch of girls I was close to and still in contact with 3. We will ring or text each other every few months but very, very rarely meet up. In fact i noticed recently it's always me making the effort..
After leaving school I struggled to make any friends. On my hen night there was such a piss poor turnout it was embarrassing.
I met some lovely ladies at babygroup and knew them for 8 years until I moved away. Only a couple bothered to keep in contact, in fact we text regularly. I feel closer to them now because we feel we can share things we couldn't before. It's strange.
Since moving away, I am physically closer to my family which is a bonus but my sister who is like my best friend moved abroad (we still text regularly but it's not the same), my other sister makes very little effort.
So I have plenty of 'text friends' which is helpful when am feeling down, need to rant about DH, etc, but nobody I can go for a dessert with, or a coffee or to the gym with. I am trying teally hard to talk to mums at school but most aren't interested. Two seem really nice and I can see friendship developing but the hard part is maintaining that friendship.