To ask how many friends you have?

[thedaywewillremeber]

I was thinking today about it I’ve only got two. I occasionally chat to a few others but they aren’t friends. Has this changed as you got older? I used to a big group of friends till my mid 20’s

I have a few but I've lived in quite a few different places in the country, I've always made friends through work. Then I have a group of friends I've known since school.

Depends how you define it. I have three colleagues who I go out with regularly and we have a WhatsApp group that we chat in most days and see each other every day at work. They don’t know my deepest, darkest secrets though.

I have one friend who lives far away that I am in really regular contact with (never go more than a few days without a text from her) but we are only able to meet up a couple of times a year. We go years back and are very close. She knows every one of my embarrassing stories.

Then I have another handful friends who text from time to time and I meet up with sporadically for catch ups. We get on well but life is busy for all of us.

I often wonder if I’m sociable enough or not. I definitely don’t have the same friendships I had in my teens/early twenties.

Best friends = 2
Childhood friends = 2
Friends I text regularly, go for meals, girls nights, weekends away = 15
Friends I love but don't see enough = 4

Any of these people I could text in the middle of the night and say "come get me".

I've probably got 20+ acquaintances that I could message and invite round for a coffee and a chat with me. But wouldn't say they were friend friends!

If I text these people they would be like WTF!!

I'm 54 it would be interesting to see the ages of the people posting here. Do you have or less friends when you're younger? Especially with babies at home. That's the most difficult of times.

I had several large groups of friends until into my twenties.

I now have two besties, a couple of school mum friends, & about five other mum friends (am close with two of them). I also have my work friends who I love but we all work different shifts/have kids so it's hard to socialise.

A couple of my friends seem to have loads of friends & through the summer holidays would socialise with different people every day. I wish I was a bit more like that but I am a shy introvert & seem to have developed social anxiety as I've got older!

4 very close friends, maybe 10 close friends and God knows how many others I'd happily spend time with as hoc.

About 20+. I live in a village and my social life is bigger than it ever was living in town or being a student!

8 in total but 5 close.

None. My final friend of 20 years has made excuses the last couple of times we were due to meet up and has now ghosted me. So that's that :-(

2 best friends
6 good friends of over 20 years
2 nct friends of 4 years

I have one best friend of 26 years who is more like a sister, one very close friend from student days and two less close friends from the school gates.

I have no friends from work or secondary school (though I didn't work for a few years, then did work but alone, now I am part of a halfway decent team)

None, my sister is my only friend realy, everyone else is an acquaintance. In happy with it, I dont realy have time for friends just people I actualy care about

3 close friends ( one I talk to about anything but don't see often weirdly)

About another 10 ish good friends

I have a group of four friends from school who are close, and we do a lot together (or did pre covid). We all have partners or husbands and I class most of them as friends too as I have known them so long and get on well, although I don't have their phone numbers and wouldn't meet up with them for a coffee or anything.

I then have three or so more friends who are also friends with this group but I'm not as close to them (I wouldn't necessarily meet up with them alone).

I then have a group of five friends from university who I don't see very often but we speak and try and meet up as a group once a year or so (again pre covid!). Sometimes this includes the partners/husbands too so the group is bigger, but I wouldn't class the partners as my own proper friends as I don't know them well enough.

I have two other friends from university from a different group who I don't see often at all any more since DC, but they'd always be invited to things like weddings, big occasions. We check in every now and then.

I also have a few friends from workplaces (old and current) and then various people I've "picked up" through my DC. I didn't do NCT but I made a friend at a pregnancy class who I really clicked with and five years on we still meet up fairly regularly. Also a friend of a friend who I get on well with and has DC similar age to mine, so we catch up with the DC sometimes. Also a particularly good friend from an old workplace.

I count myself as lucky. I don't make loads of new friends often but I have several really good, loyal, amazing friends.

Big group of friends - 10 people - who we hang out with every weekend and holiday with once a year. I feel lucky because we're both very sociable so it suits us, not for everyone, I know!

Not many. The 2 or 3 proper close old friends don't live that close by so I don't get to see them as often as I'd like.

As you get older what drives friendship changes. Proximity & being in a similar "life stage" become more important. I have kids, so can't spend weekends travelling all over to see old uni or school friends - we have too much to do. I end up spending time with my neighbour, who's quite different to me and definitely wouldn't have given me the time of day in our twenties (she's "cooler" than me) but our kids are at school together. it's a convenience thing but who cares.

I also realised I've spent huge chunks of my life chasing friendships, and actually people want to be friends with you more if you basically ignore them

Now I wait for other people to make any least as much effort as me and it shows you who your real friends are.

None.

My friends are my work mates.
I’ve always felt sad that I don’t have siblings and I don’t have friends.

5 close friends from school, 2 from uni...then more casual friends with DHs friends, NCT friends, mums friends daughters...so 20ish?

Still a bit surprised I got so many as I didn't have many as a a child (hated my primary school)

None. By choice.

What are NCT friends?

Close friends: five and then I have two groups of girls who I see regularly (one from school, one from uni days). Used to have lots more but since children, don't see them anymore. Work friends drifted once I became a SAHM.

Im 56 and just dont 'click' with people anymore

I'm in my 30s I'd say I have 3 close friends locally and some other good but not as close friends. A best friend from uni days who now lives miles away but would still consider close. I would also class my sister as a close friend. Lots of people who I've been closer with over the years who are now occasional friends or good acquaintances as I've moved around a lot.

For me that's enough!

Three best friends (two from a previous job and one from school). A wider circle of about 8 more who I see regularly. If you include more casual friends and acquaintances (I.e. the Christmas party list) it’s probably about 60 people (but that includes my husband’s friends and everyone’s partners too).

I think it gets harder to make friends in adulthood, so I hang on tight to the ones I have. I would struggle to have to start over now, I think.

I’ve tended to keep hold of two or three friends from anywhere I’ve worked/studied and tried hard to keep in touch. In adult life I’ve also been part of a few very sociable workplaces, so I have a lot of friends now (in middle age) and that suits me well; stops me being too needy with any one person. I’ve been single for a long time so perhaps that’s a factor. I probably have about 10-15 friends I’d describe as ‘close’, in different ways.

None. At all. Not even anyone to message or meet up with just a few times a year.

I lost a lot of friends over the years.
People either drift away or you get fed up of being the only one who makes an effort to message people and check in* on people

This is what happened to me basically. I always seemed to be part of a friendship group that broke apart for whatever reason (people moving to different parts of the country, for example). I tried to maintain these friendships but eventually they drifted because we just weren't in each other's lives every day anymore. I also began to get tired of always being the one to make contact and initiate things, so one day I just stopped. Never heard from most of them again.

I'm quite shy anyway and it's just made me feel even more shy and wary of people. I've not made any friends at the school gates over the past 3 years - there's one woman I chat to sometimes. Apart from that I get ignored completely, despite smiling at others and saying hello. I just feel like there must be something wrong with me or my face just doesn't "fit". I think I'm quite ugly by anybody's standards, so perhaps that puts people off too.