to think that not having friends isn't that unusual

[faginssidekick]

AIBU to think that this isn't actually all that unusual in this day and age when people have moved away from their families, have smaller families and work such long hours or have a long commute? At the school gate people (pre covid) seem to stand on their own and not engage with others and children going round to other's houses to play seems to be a rarer thing than it used to be a few years ago? Mine were always in and out of other's houses when they were younger as we lived in a road with a lot of similar aged children but that doesn't seem to happen any more. Obviously that's before this year and covid.

I have a group of friends since NCT ,and we have grown close over the years .I also have some chums from walking my dog ,one of whom I went on a day trip to London with.I think friends are a good thing to have really .Someone of a similar outlook and female is great!

Why? Why would you actively choose not to have friends? And do you think your committed relationship will provide all the emotional sustenance you need?
I don't feel I've the time emotionally with the DC and I've a close knit family who take up my time 3x Dsis one Dsis phones 5 x times a day. I wish she'd find a friend
I use to have lots of friends when I'd no DC my friends were my family now we've DC my siblings are friends.
I'd like to have separate friends in the future when the DC grow.
Friends are polite family are cheeky.

@thepeopleversuswork I can make friends perfectly well. And I make lots of effort to contact friend, but when it's just me who gets in touch first all the time I get pissed off and don't contact and god knows they must not think to contact me.

Erm, depends what you count as friends vs acquaintances really. The school parents are more acquaintances although I like some of them enough and have been for a drink with a couple of them. Old school and work friends from different areas - stay in touch but meeting up is rarer (I'm normal life). Pre lockdown I saw friends a couple of times a month, perhaps seeing one for a coffee and kids playing, and another for a drink.

I enjoy my own company but no, I would not be happy with no friends at all and I make the effort to stay in touch with people who are important to me.

I also think some of the disconnect comes from how individuals define friends vs friendly acquaintances.

I think this too. I only have a couple of people I call friends but they are of "help me hide the body" variety. I can totally rely on them and have a relationship of genuine love and trust.

I see posts about people described as friends but often they read more like they are about acquaintances, to me. It's made it clearer that how different pople define a friend can vary quite a lot.

It also depends on how you grow up. I'm an only child, my mum had a big family but outside of that had 2 friends she'd known since her 20s, but barring going to see them once or twice over 10 years or so, contact was Christmas cards only. My dad had no family and 1 friend he used to see 1-2 times a year. My mum had lots of acquaintances, people she worked with, school mums, neighbours etc, she couldn't leave the house without people starting conversations with her, my dad was also very chatty, but didn't want or need friends - they were each other's best friends, they didn't really do socialising or nights out as they found it boring. I was brought up to be very independent, enjoy my own company, and that 'friends' would come and go, but my parents would always be there whenever I needed them.

I did my time going to pubs and clubs in my youth but those nights out often weren't fun, 'friends' would either be bitching or become a liability getting drunk etc, there would be a row, trying to organise taxis home...I'm quite glad I'm now old enough to stay home and not worry!

EmeraldShamrock

I do get that its difficult to make time for socialising when you have kids or a job (or both). And its inevitable that it will become harder to integrate people who are at a hugely different point in their life (such as single, childless friends) if you have loads of kids.

What I am struggling with is that mindset that you see on here (on this thread in particular) which suggests that having friends is an exhausting optional extra which tends to fall by the wayside once you have a spouse and children. Like a hobby you no longer have time for.

Or that friends are essentially mainly liggers who want stuff from you all the time.

None of this chimes with my experience at all and I think its really sad that people feel like this.

I am a LP and maybe that's influenced my outlook on this but I literally couldn't have coped with child-rearing without friends. My friends are totally integrated within my child-rearing network and I spend "family" time with them just as much as with my child alone. I also have a partner (who is not my child's dad) but there's way I would swap him out for any of those friends or think I could let them fall by the wayside because he is in the picture.

I just think that however secure and happy your marriage is, its never going to fulfil all of your emotional needs.

Also you need a breadth of people in your life and a breadth of outooks. This is what makes life worth living IMHO.

@Venicelover I think there is a difference between someone you know and like but don’t have a deeper or more intimate connection with but I think it depends on the person as well. Some people enjoy large groups of friends to socialise with as you describe in your post. All these people are your friends and then you have close more intimate friendships as well as the various groups of people you hang out with.

I suppose for me I just don’t find those more casual friendships satisfying. I had a friend from uni I used to meet up with but I always felt like she was trying to shoehorn me into an hour slot or while she did something else. After a while I realised that this was the way lots of people conduct friendships but for me it just felt superficial like I was only getting warmed up when it was time to say goodbye.

It must come down to personality type and your needs. I’d rather be in my own company than spend 30 minutes with a someone once a month or be shoehorned into there day. I am an introvert and my social needs aren’t great so while I do enjoy friends and do have them I don’t really get much enjoyment from casual social groups. It’s even the same with big family gatherings what’s the point when it’s all just meaningless social chit chat.

Of course this is just my take on it, not trying to do competitive aloneness or looking down on social butterflies just stating that I honestly don’t much enjoy casual socialising.

@thepeopleversuswork also a lot of these said friends are now dotted all over the country. From school they've moved else where or the people i met in uni were from all over and have gone back to all these places. I was so excited to have my son and go to baby groups and meet a new set of people but alas covid ruined that.

My experience of 'friends' as a single parent wasn't great. I remember being told when I asked for help (once) that I expected too much of friends and should get myself a partner to do stuff for me!

I have honestly found that most people I've known as friends/ acquaintances, the more time I spend with them the more they become a drain, ending up helping them endlessly with one thing and another to the detriment of my own family, and getting nothing in return other than comments like the one above.

MrsMarrio that's totally understandable: I also have friends scattered all over the UK (and overseas) and it is hard to keep in touch, even pre-COVID.

But its not forever! Friends move away and then come back. You can keep a friendship up largely online -- I know people will disagree but I have lots of people I can't see at the moment but who I message all the time.

IT just seems really sad to see a friendship as "over" because its not in a currently active phase, is all.

I only have a couple of friends now. I’m happy on my own. DH is much the same.

@thepeopleversuswork yes I totally agree, I had a best friend from y7, she moved to Bristol and I to Newcastle for uni and she was my maid of honour at my wedding when we were 25, but it was all one way so one day I just thought you know I'm not bothering to get touch first this time, it's been 2 years since. I though with my son being born I would have got a message or something. Nope just a like on Fb announcement.

. And I make lots of effort to contact friend, but when it's just me who gets in touch first all the time I get pissed off and don't contact and god knows they must not think to contact me.

This is me,i got pissed off doing all the running.So i stopped.They didnt bother getting in touch,neither did i.

@BorderlineHappy maybe we should be friends 😂

I think it's really sad to look around and see that you have no friends.
I have friends from high school (left in 2000) and I mean friends with whom we share life, go away, keep in touch. Friends from Uni (left 2004) who against I still see and share life with. Friends I've met through work that I've kept in touch with.
I think it must be rather lonely to have none of that

I think it's really sad to look around and see that you have no friends.

It really isn't, I promise.

@Bluesheep8

*Why? Why would you actively choose not to have friends? And do you think your committed relationship will provide all the emotional sustenance you need?

Genuine questions: I'm struggling to get my head around this*

I choose not to have any friends because I feel as though they take more than they give in terms of time/attention/energy.
Don't get me wrong, I have colleagues at work who I get on brilliantly with, I'm very well liked at work. I just don't accept any social invitations or respond to any requests to get together outside of work. I'm just not interested in all that and don't have the energy to give.
Having been in the same relationship for almost 25 years, I'd say my emotional sustenance is pretty well catered for.

Sounds exactly the same as me.

I think some people need to have a bit more of an open-minded interpretation of what a friend is and let go of some of this.

Yep, I agree with @thepeopleversuswork, many adult friendships are far more fluid than the intense BFF’s and close friendship groups that teenagers/young adults have - and they’re certainly not like monogamous romantic relationships.

I know and completely accept that my close friends have other sets of friends and socialize with them without inviting me, etc. I do the same. It doesn’t undermine our friendship, I care about them and can turn to them in a crisis.

I’ve also found that the more laid-back I am about making by friends, the easier it is. Most people you meet will end up as friendly acquaintances; occasionally there’ll be a spark with someone and they’ll become a friend if you make the effort. Either outcome is fine with me.

@Readandwalk well this happened to me and I can assure you that many of my friends disappeared! Hardly any bothered to text or call. From what I understand this isn’t uncommon at all.

I’m always surprised when on programmes like Don’t Tell the Bride, the bride has a dozen - twenty women at her hen party. I couldn’t have made more than three so I didn’t bother with a hen party.

I’ve had quite negative experiences of friends as an adult, although as child/teenager/uni student I always had a small group of friends.

Most recently, I was friends with a work colleague and she’s blanked me ever since I got signed off work with pregnancy related illness.

@Dopplerscale, the groups of friends I mentioned above are not the sort you describe. They are not casual friends, most of them I have known for 30 plus years and we are in regular contact via various methods. I know them and their families very well and they know mine.

We actively want to make time for each other and look forward to it, there is no sense of having to do it or it just passing time or shoehorning it in. They are not large groups, most of them are groups of four or less, so that we keep the dynamic we had when we met in whatever circumstance brought us together.

Nor are family gatherings ever 'meaningless' we all love to get togther as we don't do it nearly often enough due to busy lives and distances.

It is horses for courses I expect. I love my own company, and that of my DH and immediate family, but I also enjoy the company of like-minded friends with whom I can share the good times and bad times.

AmICrazyorWhat2

"I’ve also found that the more laid-back I am about making by friends, the easier it is. Most people you meet will end up as friendly acquaintances; occasionally there’ll be a spark with someone and they’ll become a friend if you make the effort. Either outcome is fine with me."

This is really true: I've noticed a lot of posts on here where people get the hump with a potential new friend because they haven't texted back by a certain deadline etc. "I asked for a coffee and she said she was busy" etc. It's all a bit too much like online dating far too much too soon and its totally the wrong way to go about it.

Friendships aren't like the start of a relationship. They are open-ended and casual and fluid. Some go on to be life-long partnerships, most don't. The ones that don't are no less life-affirming because they don't go on to last forever.

But if you approach all of them as if they were a putative marriage they will all fall at the first hurdle. Friendship is supposed to be easy and relaxing, not an arranged marriage.

@MrsMarrio maybe we should

For WhatsApp to work you need to know people's mobile numbers which suggests a certain amount of friendship already.

Not really, my old rugby team team had a whatsapp group to help organise training, lifts to away games and other club related stuff. People were added as the squad evolved over time and more often or not those new members knew only a handful of people but via the WhatsApp group were made to feel welcome and included. Invariably the group involved organising social events, beers down the pub etc so real friendships were forged.