Just want DH to make an effort to get to know people after 15 years in our village

[Sillysausageandeggs]

We've lived in our town for 15 years. Over those years, the kids have made friends, I've made friends, and we are sometimes invited out as a family or couple to events. Despite not really having a great deal in common with people around here, I've continually made an effort to get to know the women/mums and over the years their partners have all gotten to know each other too. It seems like a lovely community feel... Until my DH gets in the mix. He just refuses to try to make conversation, he will go on his phone instead of talk to the other fathers or will make excuses to leave. It often seems to come off as rude, really. (Especially the phone thing) I feel like the outcasts. This isn't limited to the people in our town either. Over the years, he has done this everywhere we have lived and with every couple or group of people we've met. He is not painfully shy, either. Just odd! I feel like I am doomed to live out my days being the singleton at events/parties (which would be fine if I actually was single), being the one with the partner ignoring everyone, or living a life of isolation. This all became glaringly obvious at a NYE party at someone's house last night where he sat alone for most of the time, despite others efforts at trying to include him. Including me! Afterwards he just said "I just find most people boring". It's driving me mad. Unless someone shares one of his obsessive interests, he just won't speak to them. He has no friends nearby. AIBU to expect him to at least try to get to know people?

I find social events stressful these days. But it's not because I don't want to socialise with people. I just have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome plus complex PTSD as a result of childhood SA, and I have to put a mask on my face when socialising with people. This is because, unlike your DH, I wouldn't dream of being rude and not interacting with the people I'm with.

I find social events easier to cope with when we have them at our house, so I can be in the kitchen preparing the food. It certainly makes children's parties easier to cope with. I can ask guests if they would like tea or coffee etc.

Because I find them stressful, when they're over I'm exhausted.

I would find your DH very rude, tbh. You should make an effort when with other people, and if you're really not prepared to do that you shouldn't go at all. No one is saying that you have to be the life and soul of the party, but it doesn't cost anything to smile and laugh at the right places.

He reminds me of my DB, who doesn't have a clue how to act around people, and always looks very morose. In mitigation, though, he has severe MH issues.

Same here. We were welcomed so warmly when we first arrived in our village. I made loads of friends. DH made none. Not one. He was dismissive and judgemental of every single man he met. They all talk about cars and that bores him. They talk about cycling and that bores him. He doesn't understand that you have the dull conversations for months on end before you find the few people on your wavelength and court them. Upshot is, we have almost no friends as a couple and are very rarely invited to events where couples mix. I get invited to lots of girls' nights out but I think our DC missed out on those lovely casual summer family BBQs that everyone around us seemed to be having when they were young.

People use small talk to finds topics that both people would like to talk about, and this has been repeatedly explained.

Yes but this doesn't work for everyone. If you are shit at conversation, you never find topics both are interested in, even if you know a topic you both like (say you met at a hobby) you just can't engage the other person in an interesting way. It doesn't work - no matter what you say, you just get in response and people backing away.

No one thinks they are superior for being this way, clearly it's a personal failing. But we can't all be good at everything.

we have almost no friends as a couple and are very rarely invited to events where couples mix... I think our DC missed out on those lovely casual summer family BBQs

Are you sure this is your DH fault though? If you made lots of great friends, surely they would have invited you + dc to any BBQ they were hosting, whether or not they were friends with your DH?

I can understand him very well - listening to other people talking is excruciatingly boring to me - they could as well all speak a foreign language, it would be the same to me. i just don’t go to these sort of things. happy to do some hands on stuff (cleaning, helping with maintenance tasks), but i absolutely hate social gatherings

Sure, small talk is a means to an end in your eyes. That doesn't demystify it for those who find it difficult. Yes, we all know how it is supposed to work, but that doesn't mean everyone is confident with it, despite their best efforts. This has been repeatedly explained.

My mother was determined to make us socially adept taught us social skills and drummed into us “it’s not all about you ask others questions it’s easy to be shy everyone is” etc. As an early teen I was but it was actually invaluable and I am doing the same with my kids. Some people have these skills naturally it’s hard if you don’t and have never been taught. One of my sisters was naturally quite shy but overcame it and now has a job attending events with the rich famous and royalty which most would quake at!

I hate small talk too and do tend to give up on people if we never move beyond it. What I wouldn't do is go to an event anyway and sit with a face like a smacked arse, if I couldn't cope with polite conversation I'd withdraw.

As for people being OK being insular, I think the problem is many are OK with it until they aren't and by that point they don't have the connections

I know I'll get jumped on for this, but are you sure he's not on the AS? Asperger's maybe? I've got a BIL who's very similar, no friends and doesnt want any, (one of his Ds is the same) and a step grandson who was diagnosed at a very early age - no friends and doesn't see the need for any. Sorry everyone (hides behind the sofa).

I agree with Millie:

"but I think our DC missed out on those lovely casual summer family BBQs that everyone around us seemed to be having when they were young."

I can't bear small talk, like the odd other poster if it doesn't move on from basic pleasantries quickly I move on. Hate parties full stop hate how different people are when under influence. Happy in silence, comfortable in my own company.

I have found mine that I seem to have the ability to step up socially where the more sociable struggle.
I can easily deal with difficult and sensitive issues. I can deal with people in power without batting an eyelid. I can deal with drunk aggressive people. The more socially compitant people I know have some times found the extremes harder than me, I find the everyday drivel harder by miles.

@MsTSwift

Absolutely agree.
Your Mum was teaching you a very valuable life skill.

I remember once hearing how damaging it is to label children as "the shy one". It became self fullfilling.

Teaching quieter children to speak clearly, look people in the eye, shake hands, and never ever refer to them as shy, from an early age, helps them to become confident in themselves, and well practiced in dealing with people.

A great life skill.

My DH is exactly the same. We've lived here for 10 years and I know quite a lot of people through various activities. Most of them think I'm a lone parent, because I go everywhere with DD (12) and they never see DH. I find I really need a community, and local friends, but he doesn't.

It has made me really annoyed over the years that he makes zero effort. I suggested he go to Men in Sheds and he's refused point blank. Why would I want to do that? is always his comment. His only "friend" here is the elderly JW who visits him once a fortnight to try to convert him! (and he really looks forward to his visits so he isn't totally antisocial)

Maybe after 15 years of living in the same community he has heard all the conversations before and he is bored senseless by these people.

@sonetlumiere

Or maybe people can just invite the whole family and DH can stay home if he wants? It's an invite, not a summons. People can invite whoever they want but people don't have to say yes!

She can just say "oh, he doesn't really do socialising" or "it's not really his cup of tea" - other people don't need to get offended just because he'd rather stay at home.

He sounds like a miserable boring git

Oliversmum - im sure they're all equally bored by him. He does sound awfully dynamic and charismatic

I think people are misunderstanding the whole family bbq thing.

Different people different social settings :

it's a completely different thing, say meeting other mums with toddlers for a coffee,

compared to making better friendships with some of those mums and only you as a woman, going out for drinks with some mum friends that you actually really got close to.

Compare that with say a person who organises a family barbecue and say invites husband wife +2 children to play with and socialise with her husband and two children ......and other families of similar dynamics..... now that's a totally different party.

and if you are invited to that and your husband regularly refuses, doesn't attend, (or does so but grumpily, )then it becomes embarrassing and the person who is hosting the bbq maybe starts to wonder what's going on?

I'm loving the comparisons between introverts and extroverts on here, especially the suggestion that sociable people must be extroverts.

I've always been a shy introvert but I know plenty of neighbours and make an effort to socialize. It's like most life skills, if you practice it, you get better at it. Of course you don't have things in common with everyone, but for every bore (in your eyes), there'll be someone who becomes a friend...if you make the effort to speak to them in the first place!

I get where the OPs husband is coming from.
I live in a small village where everyone knows everyone and everything.
I moved here for the peace and quiet, not to participate in village stuff and gossip with neighbours.
When we were moving in, a neighbour came round to 'welcome us '( have a nosey more like ) she got as far as saying hello I'm whatever her name was, before being told that I was busy and sent on her way.
I don't understand why they do it. You're up to your elbows trying to organise your furniture etc and they think it's a good time to have a chat!!!
Then a couple of weeks later it was, knock knock, hello I'm ( whatever her name was ) we're organising whatever it was. Not interested.
After a couple of weeks of my peace and quiet being interrupted I had a lock put on my garden gate to put a stop to it.
I don't do neighbours and village shit. I have my own friends and social life, I enjoy my peace and quiet when I'm at home.

Oliversmum - im sure they're all equally bored by him. He does sound awfully dynamic and charismatic

I have been in the dh’s position.

Sometimes you get sick of hearing the same conversation over and over.

I used to try and make friends with the people who lived in the village I was in but in the end I stopped going out as it was the same conversations over and over.

FWIW moved back to London and suddenly had loads of friends and got my social life back on track.

@StrawberryIsMyJam that sounds like my idea of hell. Every bugger wanting to know your business.

When we next do a move, it will be rural or semi-rural, to avoid that kind of crap. Wife is totally up for that, In fact she is the one who suggested it, I'm onboard with that 100%!