My lockdown life exactly the same as my normal life

[OtissReadingtoomuch]

Anyone else noticed their lockdown life is pretty much representative of their normal life? I didn't hear from anyone prior to lockdown, and that is not unusual. Don't hear from anyone now either!

Have work colleagues, and "mum" friends, arranged with all of them to do garden meet up's in the summer hols. ( at mine , as usual and at my expense as always, because i never get invited anywhere as i am chintzy and house proud and people assume i will judge their homes even though i never have... nor ever will. ) If i do not organise socials , no one will , ones that i am party to anyway.

We are all fit as fiddles , no shielding family issues at all. I kept in contact since March, if i don't text, waiting for someone to take the initiative, no one bothers. All the summer garden meet-ups i was really depending on for social interaction, not happened. No one has contacted me to arrange. I have not followed up as i do not want to appear desperate and clingy.

I have been on my own now, with my youngest DC since, March. No family as i am NC, and i moved to a new area 9 yrs ago where everyone has their own friends and and family. I have been into work but i am not from around here and i clearly do not fit in, despite my best efforts and respect of local traditions.

I found lockdown a great leveller, but lockdown has ended now and i am still in "lockdown". I know i need to move back to my hometown but i cannot do that for at least 3 yrs due to youngest critical years schooling.

How can i continue to live a lockdown style life for another 3 yrs? I have effectively done it for 9 yrs already and i am getting older. How do i cope with another 3 yrs lockdown?

I hear you OP, I feel exactly the same.

I've tried too. Lockdown has made me realise that I am just not important to anyone. For the people I do know, I exist on the very periphery of their lives - I only exist when I am right in front of them, I disappear again when out of sight. No one holds me in mind.
I am tired of trying, tired of putting myself out there just to get knock backs, tired of rejection, tired getting hopeful that this person could become a friend only for them to not. I'm just tired of it.

I find it hard to know how to go on.

@nevertakethechillpill exactly!

I have no answer i'm afraid. I am just keeping busy ... alone ( with my DC's , eldest comes home regulary). Always trying to keep myself occupied, walking, netflix, diy, garden, reading, cooking and baking, days out with kids. I had a birthday at beginning of April, it went totally unnoticed, not a single card or gift, no knock on the door or window. When my youngest saw i had no cards or gifts they painted me a picture of our cat and put happy birthday Mum on it! It is the nicest thing i have ever received and still blu tak'd to kitchen door. My eldest's gift arrived the following day as he forgot, as was having girl friend trouble and hastily Amazon'd!

Things will get better i am sure. I personally am looking forward to moving away in a few years. All i can say to you is to you is stay strong, life always has a way of correcting itself eventually. Good days will come, we just have to be patient and try to make the best of where we are now and what we have now. I haven't worked out how to do that yet. There is a distant dim light at the end of my tunnel, i can just about see it on a clear day. By the time i leave it will have taken me 13yrs to get there.

My known 30yr plus friends have lost interest and i am fed up of travelling to see them all the time at my time and expense. I am not made of money and i cannot spare whole weekends as i too have a family and work. I am not spending any more hours on the m1, booking into hotels alone, absorbing that cost and being alone, just to attend events to see old friends that suits them and then travelling home next day. My old friends all live close together, are loaded in London, ( really they are loaded and since birth) ) have husband's and extended family. Most do not work but it is always me who travels and puts themselves out.

I have also invested personally very heavily where i am now , i have tried and tried and tried, but just do not have a history here. They have their sch friends, they have their family , i get that.

When i was in my home town i always welcomed newcommers in, introduced to them to my friends, helped them. Hospitality, days out, lifts , childcare etc. Oh the irony that all the people i have befriended, now have great friendships groups with my old friends and sch mums, drinking gin, socialising and popping in for cuppas. All visible and documented on FB.

Here i am alone! No one has embraced me at all. I just assumed people were people and we were all the same. I assumed my kind decent and genuine nature, generosity and welcoming spirit would help me make new friends.

I should not have assumed!!!!

Yes @OtissReadingtoomuch.
I have 14 more years here if I stay till the kids leave school! I could go back to where I used to live but I would have no job and even if I did get a job the long waits for after and before school care would mean I probably couldn't take it up! Its so hard if you don't have family to help out. I feel really trapped. I really do.

I hadn't realised it would be so hard to make friends, but everyone has their established groups already. Frankly, they don't need me and they don't have time for me.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland i am made up for you love. I had my children decades ago. I had no maternity/ baby groups while living here, my kids were too old.

I have lived here 9 yrs, longer than your 3. Unfortunately , i do not have the time to do all the committee things you do as i am a single parent , working full time and running my own home. I am also not on maternity leave. In fact i had 6 weeks maternity leave with both my children as had to return to work. I did not have much time for village committees then either.

I am so pleased everyone rallied your lovely single neighbour. She must be a much nicer person than me and all round good egg.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland
I also find that if you are generally kind and helpful, people reciprocate. I "made the first move" offering to help a fellow mum by doing school run for her son on my day off, she then offered to do the same for me on hers
Look, I've done this stuff - I am always offering to help people out. I used to regularly help another mum out if she needed help with childcare to fit around her meetings at work, now she has a different job I am no longer useful and she has disappeared. My texts asking her if she would like to meet up result in nothing.

Sometimes you can try and it just doesn't work out.
I had some mum 'friends' or so I thought. They all had their next lot of babies, set up a whatsapp just for them ( I was actively told I was not allowed on as it was for babytalk) - the inevitable happened and now they have formed close group ' the girls' that I am not a part of.

Your tale does not mean that others just haven't tried hard enough. It really doesn't.

It's a myth that people will always reciprocate. Sometimes you can do everything right and people still don't want to know.

Life is what you make of it. I'm new where I live and found coming out of lockdown lots of new in town people wanting to make friends. The Nextdoor app has introduced be to a dozen people all in similar circumstances and we are meeting weekly for drinks at the pub. I had to put myself out there to meet people as my kids are grown and no longer live with me, no more mum friends. I love dp but I need to be social ... get out there, I'm guessing you are single? How about dating just for fun then

Oh op I’m sorry things sound so rubbish. The only thing I would say is that my energy has been zapped by this whole situation. Dh and I have worked through without a break, we have had to regularly call and take supplies to older relatives who are usually very independent and self sufficient, none of whom are nearby, and we have barely even had time for dc, let alone anyone else. My circle has inadvertently become much smaller and you have given me a timely reminder that I haven’t been a particularly good friend, but it isn’t because I don’t care. It’s just that life has been so difficult that I have had to prioritise those who I feel are most in need, and myself to some extent.

As awful as this is, if you seem like a coper people will assume you are fine. None of my friends have particularly asked after me, but I haven’t told them how stressful things are and have just assumed that they have a lot on too.

I am sure there are people who do care about you, and would be mortified if they knew how you felt. That may not make you feel any better about things but this hasn’t been easy for anyone. I would keep inviting. Things will be different again when the kids are back at school.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland
" I also find that if you are generally kind and helpful, people reciprocate. I "made the first move" offering to help a fellow mum by doing school run for her son on my day off, she then offered to do the same for me on hers."

Poster, i have spent the last 20 yrs looking after all my mum friends kids and my own, while working.. Play dates, dinners, sleep overs, days out , cinema. School drop offs and sch collects from 0 yrs to 18yrs. Sch discos, Halloween discos, xmas parties, birthday parties, maths club, english club, after sch club, breakfast club, childminders, tutor club, football matches, dance club, rugby matches, science days at other schs, maths day at other schs, volunteered as parent helper using unpaid days leave and PTA. I have done whole gambit.

What am i doing wrong that you have done right in same time frame?

@nevertakethechillpill we had a cross post! My point exactly!

Maternity leave , village committee and 3 yrs in ...... my arse!

I don't think modern FT working life plus bringing up kids allows for much friendship-building. MY DH works looooong hours and I work FT. By the time I've done all the housework, shopping, cooking, garden etc (cos he isnt' here to do it) I just want to sit down and look at crap on the internet, or rubbisih tellyy, or read, or if DH is here, to spend time with him. Add in the fact that I'm a home bird anyway, and an introvert, and I'm actually really not that bothered about seeing other people very much. It doesn't make me a nasty unkind person though.

I think there are lot of people like me, so you could do with trying to find others in the same boat as you. If I were part time or didn't work at all I think I'd feel very different and would make more of an effort to maintain friendships as I'd have more time to.

You also sound like an extrovert who likes to always be busy and doing something, even on top of work.

The other thing I blame is commuting. No time to do anything during the week because of those extra hours in the working day and no point trying to befriend colleagues when they live and hour and a half away in the opposite direction.

@SnuggyBuggy i see your point but i live 18 mins and 2 villages away from my work colleagues. I can make into their village everyday for work and for out of hours socials . No one seems to be to drive 18 mins and 2 villages away to me.

Sorry I'm just mindlessly ranting now

Maybe it is a clash of viewpoints in that you can see life outside the village and your colleagues can't.

Our life is exactly the same.

Just no college/school for the kids but they really didn’t mind (and I home educated my eldest until he was 11 anyway so it wasn’t a shock to me having to do it again). Dh had been working from home for a year or so anyway.

Not much family, no friends and we could never afford to go out to eat, have days out or holidays anyway. So nothing really changed for us.

And OP - move to where you will be happy.

Just to say I found this thread interesting.

I am a single parent. I think I'm just a bit "different". I lived in a small town, haven't fitted in. I lived in inner City - didn't fit in because of all tight-knit immigrant families. Its been such an interesting read this thread. Though it doesn't offer "answers", as we are all so different, its been useful to me.

For the record, this thread has helped me. Having the courage to carry on being a bit "out there" even if relating to somewhat boring town-middle aged couples and families tightly held and happy in their own field. Realising life can also be what you make it as long as you don't apologise for it: we all know not everyone fits the mould e.g. being a single parent or from difficult or low contact / NC family.

"Life's for Living Thats Our Philosophy" - "In the Summertime" lyrics! I hope you find a way OP. Moving may be part of it. Or being more "courageous" where you are (in a very conservative environment).

^ to read that a bit jumbled! apologies . But I hope you get my drift.

@CurlyhairedAssassin i see your point. We are all busy. I don't think this is about "allowing" enough time for friendships, its about "making" enough time for friendships. I do not believe anyone has no time for friendships.

I say that as a full time working mum. I "make "time. I "make" time" always, but no one one "makes" time for me. It is a poor excuse. People "make time" for people. No one-is making "time for-me" , fair enough. They "make time " for others and those they want to see.

People " make time" when they need and want to. No one is " making time" for me. Its a bitter pill to swallow but i am swallowing it.

Being busy and having no time in my view is a tired and over used excuse. It is wheeled out when people just cannot be bothered.

@OtissReadingtoomuch I have been following this thread with interest. It does indeed seem to be me making most of the effort but luckily people do check up from time to time. However I think I am the general organised which I realise I don't mind as long as people are willing.

I actually asked some friends why they don't make the first move - an interesting reply was fear of rejection

In addition another lady said once someone invited her for a coffee and made her lunch. She never saw that person again as she felt unable to reciprocate the lunch!

I know one of my old friends was ashamed of her house

Also I feel if you are a confident person who seems self sufficient and generally takes "no shit" people think you are not easy going and hard work as they need to be on "best behaviour". I am trying to change this about myself .......

All the best to you OP- I hope you find your tribe eventually

@chopc i never used to be " no shit ". I am far from that over the years.

Any one who knows me prior to March 2020 would not know me as " no shit".

They will now!

OP, I think it is easier to get a partner than it is to make new friends once you get to a certain age. I really do. I moved to live in a village with my partner. He was already established (was on local committees and had been there for years) but still didn’t have ‘buddies’ to socialise with. We’ve since moved to another new part of the village and I felt really isolated as we are literally the last house you come to. DD doesn’t go to the Village school but instead the one I work at so she hasn’t made local friends either.

I do have friends and family I see regularly but I feel pretty isolated in the village. I don’t know what the answer is for you or me but you aren’t on your own.

@Wishihadanalgorithm "OP, I think it is easier to get a partner than it is to make new friends once you get to a certain age. I really do."

I hope so! I will be looking for one of those too when i move! 😍

Otiss do you not fancy looking for one now?

Will wait for youngest DC to finish sch first. Not long now!