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.

[quote gottakeeponmovin]@fags
You have to sometimes make the fist move - sometimes you will get pushback. Don't you have any numbers for the mums from school? I find school the hardest because I work full time but surely you have made friends from work. It sounds like you are scared to make the first move but if you want friends you are going to have to dive in and see where it goes
On the other point I have a very happy relationship, 3 kids and a full time job but having friends definitely enhances my life. It also means I can go out and have a babysitter already at hand 😀[/quote]
No, I don't have any numbers for any of them. As for work, I do odd hours and very rarely work with any of my colleagues as I'm not there when they have their lunch breaks, they do nine til five and I cover their lunch breaks and work until early evening.

@DillonPanthersTexas

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.

How do they get added if their phone number isn't known then ?

@KnitFastDieWarm

an almost competitive disdain for the concept of friendship seems to always emerge on these threads, but i know from personal experience where it comes from. my otherwise very normal but quite introverted parents didn’t (and don’t) have friends beyond one another. growing up, i found it hard to make friends as there was always an unspoken sense in the family that friends were unnecessary, an annoyance, or unreliable. it was entirely unintentional on my parents’ part, but the result was that i had to teach myself how to make and value friends as a teenager and you g adult, having never seen it modelled as a positive thing.

as a shy and rather friendless kid, i liked to feel i was ‘above’ needing a group of girlfriends or people to do things with - looking back, i was really just sad and envious of those relationships (and i’m seeing quite a lot of that in this thread, tbh)

I’m proof that it is possible to develop the knack of making friends if you want them - I’m now in my mid thirties and, despite being an introvert, have a few very close friends and a wide circle of acquaintances. i am very confident and love meeting new people. i feel bad for people who don’t have friends; they add so much to my life.

My goodness, I could have written those last two paragraphs myself. I'm also "proof" that it's never too late. I feel as though the older I am and the more comfortable I am in myself, the more open to friends I am, and the easiest it is.

@SleepingStandingUp "I have to say the biggest concern of I met a man with no friends would be that there's no one else he'd go to for anything
That might sound selfish but who would be talk to when it's me he's annoyed with? Or if we split up? Or of I died? I don't want to be anyone's entire emotional networks"

Perhaps "he" has tried, perhaps "he " has tried many times with people and had nothing back. Maybe your concern should be for how people treat the person you meet. The onus seems to be a possible issue with the person you meet and not the "people"they meet. Maybe you could meet someone amazing but people have let him down and those new connections he tries to make are too busy with family and existing friends to spare him any time! Maybe he has invited many for coffee and dinner but they are all too busy living their best life!!!

It is very easy for once very popular, in demand people to find themselves alone. Circumstance, thats all. Relocation, divorce, separation, death , can all render previously full lives into a tumbleweed wilderness. Perhaps not look at what your potential partner has done wrong and more how people have treated them!

"That might sound selfish but who would be talk to when it's me he's annoyed with? Or if we split up?

Yeah, that does sound selfish!

"Or if we split up?Or of I died? I don't want to be anyone's entire emotional networks"

I think he will be fine. He managed this long without you!

I suspect BiL has no friends. There are aquaintences through his hobby and allotment, but he's never invited anyone to things like a birthday BBQ. His wife has friends and family and those friends seem to be enough for him. There is autism in the family and for a multitude of reasons, I suspect that he is on the spectrum.

I have some "soul" friends that seem to transcend time, distance and life stages and those disappear when we have intermittent meet-ups.

Most friends are lifestyle friends fading into good aquaintences, people you get on well with even for years, but centering around a point in common and drifting apart when that moves on.

MN will attract more people without RL social connections than the usual distribution through society.

@Frequentflier agree.🍸

FrequentFlier Have found this thread v depressing. Especially the posts abt actively trying to avoid ppl who ask you out for a coffee or invite you over for dinner. An eye-opener. I will just say that parents die, partners leave or die, and children will most certainly leave.

Whats really sad is that so many people on here don't seem to realise how unusual or unhealthy it is. They are convinced its the norm.

SnuggyBuggy I just don't get how else you'd arrange to meet in a group. Spend ages phoning every single member of said group every time there is any sort of change of plan?

Erm, in normal times, you meet at other peoples' houses, or at events. Or arrange holidays together. I often go on group holidays with close friends, sometimes its been as many as 14 people, with the eldest being a couple in their fifties.

So in the former case, you would have a vague invite to "come over and stay this weekend" on whatever means was chosen (eg FB messenger) or "pop in for dinner and stay over if you're passing" in which case I might phone if I was. Or the holiday would be arranged in advance with the dates agreed upon. Or at the sporting event itself, there might be an invitation to "X is having a BBQ tomorrow, if you feel like going along". Lots of people manage to meet up in groups, and theres plenty of methods of communication, I can't think why you find it impossible to imagine.

As I mentioned before, we all originally met either at university or through partcipating in sport.

I do wonder if it is how people see connections. I grew up with lots of solid friends both at school and university. But one day, my closest friend ghosted me. Then life got in the way of the others. We all lived elsewhere, only a few of us had children, and it felt like a void developed between those with and those without.

So now I mainly have people I chat too but I'd not call them friends. I could look to develope them but I can't see how friendship can develop from a coffee every month or so. I work full time often extended hours, play a sport and have children. I barely get time with DH let alone friends.

My old connection, it is now on social media rather than phone calls. Can I really pick up the phone after a decade?

I don't socialise in groups and having heard the tales from some of them l'm quite pleased about that, l don't think l would enjoy it.

I have a couple of people l class as proper friends and quite a few mates that l would do stuff with the kids with but not really people l would confide in.

I find with my friends we tend to work out meetings between us rather than one person acting as a host and inviting us. Someone will suggest something like a meal out and we discuss restaurants and good dates until we come up with something that works for most of us.

I can think of one ex colleague who I'm still in touch with. There might be more. A couple of uni friends, who are lovely and have kept it going at times, one of them likes a vid chat which I would never instigate (I don't like them!) but they're funny and it's always nice to hear from them, and we can chat for ages. My most commonly contacted friend is one who now lives on the other side of the world - a rare NCT mate, imagine that. Our kids have the same birthday, she moved when they were wee but we clicked, I have often wished I met her pre kids. I think if you don't meet people you can send stupid shit to and who really get your brain, it's tricky. When DS was at school I chatted to anyone, and I consider one or two special gems, you need good people when your PFB goes off to school. Now he's not there, I still hear from them occasionally but school run huns (as my friend calls them) are a bit like school friends, there because of circumstance. I'm chatty and easygoing, but I have few solid mates, and none from school (with one exception, who I grew closer to after we left).

I do have an ex who had no friends and was anti-social. God, he was draining. A lot of the time, he wouldn't do anything except have sex. He made an effort to be part of our friendship group for a few years before he go together with me but then dropped us all. Gradually, the stuff he did reduced until he gave up working and sat in his house all day. He dumped me, twice (stupidly went back with him because he was very good looking). Would only see me once a fortnight towards the end.

He actually cheated on me and he will probably do the same with my replacement, in case he thinks they're getting too close. She is on benefits too. Its very sad to watch someone decline like that - to go from a degree qualified professional to non-working and barely leaving the house- and I am certain that any MH professional will confirm that having no friends is really bad for your health and tends to lead to behaviour like that, if unchecked.

There are people who make the effort to respond to invitations to meet up and then there are people that just don't make the effort. It feels like trying to exert blood from a stone and you wonder why you are bothering when you get nothing back.

I'm surprised some people on this thread have got any friends at all let alone multiple friendship groups if the lack of insight they display here is an example of how they act in RL.

How ridiculous to tell a partner to get some friends, or to be concerned that a man has no close friends? You do realise that a lot of men (women too but I think more often men) have few or no friends? And even if they do, men often don't discuss serious matters with those friends, because those friendships are based on banter and lads chat etc. It's in part why male suicide rates are so high, because men have no one to talk to, and why men benefit from having a SO in their lives.

As to why men don't have friends - as I said upthread, if you don't play team sports or go to the pub or similar, or work somewhere with people who socialise out of work it's quite hard for men to meet potential friends, how else can they do it?

The same way women do?

I think there are more people without "friends" these days.
People socialise at work, where we spend a lot of time. Then commute can take a while of your life. Children's events and so on.
I like sitying at home with my coffee and the TV on the spare time.
I have never been the type to have someone over for tea, because I grew up in a farm, so quite isolated from neighbours. And they were all busy with the farm's work. So I am used to it, to see people on actuvities or outdoor events, but not close friends that you share your life with.

How ridiculous to tell a partner to get some friends, or to be concerned that a man has no close friends? You do realise that a lot of men (women too but I think more often men) have few or no friends? And even if they do, men often don't discuss serious matters with those friends, because those friendships are based on banter and lads chat etc. It's in part why male suicide rates are so high, because men have no one to talk to, and why men benefit from having a SO in their lives.

How ridiculously unfair to expect a woman to be the sole support and crutch to a suicidal man. Why shouldn’t the man have some friends to help support him rather than leaning entirely on his partner?

@CHiPS1971 I said it would be my concern, not I'd know that's what the issue was so avoid him. It's also possible based on this thread and others that he has utter disdain for people who need friends, or wouldn't understand why I wanted to see them instead of him, why I'd wanted a weekend with my friends without him. It's possible he just has gf after gf and it never works because he expects them to only want to be with him. Why knows. I didn't actually take a poll of how many friends DH had on our first date

@LadyTiredWinterBottom2

I don't socialise in groups and having heard the tales from some of them l'm quite pleased about that, l don't think l would enjoy it.

I have a couple of people l class as proper friends and quite a few mates that l would do stuff with the kids with but not really people l would confide in.

That's a bit like saying you've never eaten in a seafood restaurant because you've heard someone one tell tale of how they good food poisoning a decade ago from the shrimp.

@frequentflier many women meet friends through their children - baby groups, school pick ups, etc, which opportunities men often won't have. Many men tend to work in occupations where they are working alone/ unsocial hours etc. I certainly wouldn't pretend that men have the same ops to make friends as women.

Speaking for myself, in the last 20 years any friends/ acquaintances I have made have been through school, women's groups or work, if I didn't have access to those I wouldn't have been able to do so.

Shirley why is it ridiculous? Do you know men who discuss personal problems with their pals? Because thinking of men I know most of them have pretty superficial friendships, even those that do have friends. If my partner had serious problems I'd want him to know he could come to me and vice versa.

How ridiculous to tell a partner to get some friends, or to be concerned that a man has no close friends? You do realise that a lot of men (women too but I think more often men) have few or no friends? And even if they do, men often don't discuss serious matters with those friends, because those friendships are based on banter and lads chat etc. It's in part why male suicide rates are so high, because men have no one to talk to, and why men benefit from having a SO in their lives.

That's a bizarre way of looking at it: so you're saying that male suicide rates are high due to the fact that men tend not to build deep bonds with their friends which is partly true and that the solution to it is for neither men nor women to have friends?

Surely if you have no friends the solution is to learn to develop friendships skills and find frienships, as opposed to suggesting that its completely impossible and just hunker down with your SO (thereby becoming even more reliant on them to do all your emotional labour).

So unhealthy...

@Grenlei Personally I think men often have more opportunities through the workplace, so it balances out. Nothing so lonely as staying at home with babies. IMHO baby groups are a really bad place to ,make friends as you often have nothing in common except that you have babies! Same with school gates.

Anyway I have drifted away from my main point which is: that I have now realised that women I have approached for a coffee may have thought I was trying to borrow money from them in the long run:)

Grenlei

"Do you know men who discuss personal problems with their pals?"

Yes I do. Why wouldn't they?

"If my partner had serious problems I'd want him to know he could come to me and vice versa."

Of course. But that doesn't preclude him also talking to his friends. It's not either/or.

@SleepingStandingUp fair point.

I think female friendships can be some of the most powerful and enriching relationships we engage in. I’m a quiet person so I don’t have loads of friends, but I’m very grateful for the ones I do have.