Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

Original poster

To feel sad friends haven't visited me?

20 replies

FruitFriends · 20/07/2019 21:06

I finished uni last summer and moved to a new town for a job late August. I'm now an hours drive/1.5 hour train journey away from my friends, and I've not had any visits in the almost-year I've lived away.

My uni friends declared in the new year that they were so busy they wouldn't have any time to visit me in 2019.. my friendship with them has since fizzled. My other friends and I message fairly frequently and they keep saying they must visit, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon.

I've been back and visited a couple of times but feel a bit upset that no one has come to see me? Ive tried suggesting meeting this summer/invited them over but they're always busy. While I've been here i feel like a lot has happened and they've not been around for any of it. I got into a relationship in october, we now live together and he's never met any of my friends.

Is this just what adult friendships are like? Or would you have expected some visits?

OP posts:

SparklesandFlowers · 20/07/2019 21:10

I wouldn't expect any visits: it doesn't seen to matter where I live or what big life events happen to me, people just don't come over.

In all seriousness, focus on friends where you live. It's a sad fact that sometimes friendships do fizzle out, especially as you leave school/uni and settle somewhere. I have friends from school that I'm still in touch with but see rarely and I'm still trying to be okay with this. It hurts and I feel lonely sometimes, but that's the way it's happened for me.

Absofrigginlootly · 20/07/2019 21:11

My uni friends declared in the new year that they were so busy they wouldn't have any time to visit me in 2019..

Ouch! That’s just an incredibly self absorbed attitude.

It wasn’t my experience of friendships post uni... of course some fizzled out. But I kept a couple of good friends and inevitably we all spread out around the country and used to try and visit 1-2 a year.

It’s only since having kids that meet ups have got harder/fizzled out completely but that’s a good decade later

Do your old friends all still live in the same area? Maybe they feel there’s only one of you to travel to them Vs lots of them coming to you.

Have you actually invited them? Said you’re having a house warming party on X-ray or something?

Absofrigginlootly · 20/07/2019 21:12

X day not ray!

Namechangeforthiscancershit · 20/07/2019 21:14

Meet ups absolutely, but visit only happen if I specifically invite people. Are you actually saying "are you free on xxx so we can do xxx"?

To be honest, mostly I would rather travel to my friends. They all live in London and I don't, so it makes more sense for one person to travel that loads doesn't it?

Namechangeforthiscancershit · 20/07/2019 21:15

And what your uni friends said is very strange and very self absorbed!

Original poster

FruitFriends · 20/07/2019 21:29

I've suggested meeting half way, and specifically invited them over to mine. Tried giving several specific dates this summer, everyone's busy - though I know summers not the best time as people are on holiday.

Though I am trying to make more of an effort to build relationships with local people e.g. work friends, to build more roots here :)

OP posts:

SabineUndine · 20/07/2019 21:32

I lost touch with all my uni friends within a couple of years of graduating. I was in London. They were 1 getting married, 2 working abroad, 3 moved back to their home town and resented (I think) that I lived in London and 4 too posh to bother with me once they left. I concentrated on making new friends and building a new life.

Starrynights86 · 20/07/2019 21:40

Have you invited them to come and stay with you? People on here are always saying they find it rude if someone invites themselves to star, you might need to start explicitly inviting them if they are of the same mindset?

Starrynights86 · 20/07/2019 21:40

Stay not star!

Xmasbaby11 · 20/07/2019 21:46

I would definitely expect visits. I moved 200 miles from my uni city and still saw a few of my friends regularly, say 2-3 times a year until I moved abroad. Now I'm back in the UK I still see 3 of them at least once a year. They live 200 miles away and we're 43. We all have young kids.

FattyPedalsFuriously0hPipNo · 20/07/2019 22:17

Is this place where you have moved to a bit mediocre to where they are? I think if one person has moved away from the rest then it makes sense for you as one person to go to them. If you have been with b/f all this time why haven't you taken him to where they all stay so they can meet him?

Beautiful3 · 20/07/2019 22:28

I spent 8 years making friendships from work over 20 miles away. As soon as I left, (as i had enough of the commute) I never saw them again. They didn't realise how far away I lived?! Lesson learned...make friends where you live now.

MissB83 · 20/07/2019 22:30

I think you're better to focus on making new friends where you are. I have moved away from where I was living a few months ago and whilst some people have been great others have been incredibly flaky, and they just aren't worth your effort.

Flupibass · 20/07/2019 22:42

When I left uni my closest friend said to me, “well that’s it, I don’t keep in touch with my old friends I just move on” . I was so shocked , I felt cheated that I’d put so much time into a friendship and we’d had so many shared experiences, and that that was just gone, I felt bereft. But that was quite a long time ago and since then I’ve made good friends who I’ve kept even when we’ve all moved to different places. Try not to expect anything of them, keep loose contact, and I’m sure at some point in your life they’ll come back.

SuzieQQQ · 20/07/2019 22:42

Why don’t you just tell them how you feel? That you feel a bit lonely and are disappointed you never hear from them. If you are doing all the inviting as you say, then it won’t be news to them they are being flaky. Then if they still don’t make an effort I’d give up and find some new friends

Sciurus83 · 20/07/2019 22:48

Some you will keep, some you won't. Bit to be honest visits are rare in that time of life, more like meeting up for joint activities. I have moved a lot, and am now hundreds of miles from my older friends and got sad when it had been years since some of them came to visit. So I invited them all for my birthday, sometimes people just need to be told a time and place and you're only an hour away, just ask them I'll bet you will be surprised

TheHandsOfNeilBuchanan · 20/07/2019 23:45

I've still got a good group of uni friends scattered around the UK and farther afield, it can be tricky to get together but we do manage. Use doodle is a great app for scheduling, you just as many dates as you like and everyone ticks the ones they are available for, at the end it tells you which dates most people if not all, can make.

HellYeah90s · 21/07/2019 00:00

There comes a time when you have to stop the chasing OP and let the friendship fizzle out, they obviously don't mean that much to you if they are not exactly bothering.

I am still close to four of my uni friends, even though we have lived abroad or different parts of the country, we always try to make the effort and see each other, at least a few time a year. One of my friends is travelling abroad for a long weekend to stay with me and she is bringing her family.

That said many uni friends often die out, you have a great time partying, getting drunk etc together and then when you become sober go your seperate ways it dies out. I had a few other friends that I had a good time with but we lost contact after we left.

ittakes2 · 21/07/2019 00:58

You are the one that moved - no I would not expect visits.

alittlerayofsunshine · 21/07/2019 13:04

@FruitFriends

I am in 2 minds here.

My kids left uni, (4-5 years back,) and still see their uni pals - even though they are dotted all over the country. There are 2 groups of 6 or 7 (for each one of my DC.)

They see them all at LEAST 2 or 3 times a year. (And 2 or 3 of them even more often than that, maybe 6 times a year.) Their mates come and stay at their house, and then they go stay at theirs.

The 2 groups of friends of my DC, (from separate unis and different times,) are even pals too now. So a couple of times a year, all 12-13 of them will get together. They all went to London Pride the other week, and stayed in 6 Travelodge rooms.

On the other hand........

I do agree that if you do decide to move away, that you should not expect the people you moved away from, to keep visiting you. I know several people who moved 40-50 miles away from their home town, and complain that their family and friends never visit. (Or just once a year maybe.)

Unfortunately that is how it seems to go. When you move away, you have to accept that you're on your own, people will very rarely put themselves out to visit you, and you will be the one visiting them.

Not fair? Not right? Maybe. But it does happen.

Flip

Swipe left for the next trending thread