to feel like a failure due to lack of friends/social life?

[emkana]

I've been living in the UK for nine years now. I have one very good friend here who I see about once a month. I have a few other friends who I see regularly during the daytime but hardly ever in the evening (they are too busy). Apart from that I have acquaintances, quite a few. Dh is somebody who is quite happy spending time mainly with his family (me, our children, his brother and parents), if he does socialise then it's work-related and doesn't involve me. We don't know anybody that we socialize with as a couple - there used to be people, but they all moved away - over the last four years or so I have lost about four friends due to them moving away, and the friendship obviously wasn't deep enough to keep up after they moved away.

I feel like such a failure. Back home in Germany I had a large circle of very good friends, and I still see them and we have a great time when I am at home. But here it's just not happening and I don't know why and it makes me quite miserable. I am a SAHM, but I do do things like going to toddler groups/being on the preschool committee etc.

I just have these thoughts that everybody else is having this fantastic social life, dinner parties, the lot.

I just don't know what to do anymore!

[expatinscotland]

you know, a German friend of mine recently moved back to Munich from Edinburgh.

so of course before she left, we met for a hike and then a meal.

and we were discussing cultural differences and how we came to become friends.

and she pointed out something i had not noticed.

she said, 'EIS, you were the first person i met here who suggested doing something else besides getting together to drink. I mean, don't people play board games here? Have hobbies other than watching football or going to drink or shopping?'

this had all been lost on me, but then, i am not a very observant person.

[Nightynight]

emkana, do like the rest of us, and find a narrow group of your own nationality to socialise with, recreate little Germany in the home counties.....

expat, oooh dont get me started on the drinking culture! I hate it. Germany fab, but put your children straight into private schools, save yourself the grief. Also, Bayern is officially against multi-culti following depressing speech by new leader yesterday.

[hatwoman]

emkana - I have an ok social life - but it revolves almost totally around friends from university - so I feel like a failure for having made pretty much no new friends for the last 15 years - and I dread to think how I;d fare if I moved abroad. I haven't made any close friends though NCT/toddler group/school; barely any through work - a couple of former colleagues but they're occassional dinner type friends - not part of my normal life iyswim. So although I do have a life I sometimes feel like a real saddo who hasn't moved on and who can;t make new friends. not very helpful but you're not alone on this!

[1dilemma]

Fave Brit pass time is shopping def.
For some it's all they ever do.
Except watch TV of course.
Then others are fab, baking, hospital visiting, boy scout leading, flower arranging, school reading community minded wonderwoman. Seems like more and more of former and fewer of other.
Offered to work part of Christmas tonight and everyone was saying but don't you want to go shopping?

[1dilemma]

very nuch agree with time money and grotty house stuff you can have one but not all 3!!
I'm curious please tell me about sledging, grown women on tea trays sliding down slopes? or being pulled behind horses on huge wheeled things?
What do they do in the summer?

[Nightynight]

They are out on the hill opposite our house with pre-Kindergarten toddlers when it's snowing. Sledges are the traditional wooden variety, or plastic tea tray type things. Dont knock sledging, Ive sledged on the rodelbahn at Oberaudorf which runs all the way down a mountain!

In summer they go nordic walking. Ive seen them, as I fly past on my way to work

[Nightynight]

you know, I never bought any of that Keep Sunday Special stuff at the time, but it has really had a bad effect on life in britain. it is now so hard to avoid sunday shopping. In germany, you are forced to spend time with your family as the shops arent open.

[expatinscotland]

lol!

the ex's brother is married to a Northern German girl, Astrid.

she remembers the sledges of old being quite dangerous!

[1dilemma]

Oh they have their kids with them
Sounds like fun I just thought you ment it wa a mummy only thing like coffee

I'm sure sledging is great but I come from E Anglia!!

What I call hill most people don't notice

[Nightynight]

yes, I guess it is. Germans have a much more cavalier attitude towards danger than british people though.

[expatinscotland]

they do! she didn't consider any of this unecessarily dangerous until she moved to the US and had lived there a while.

[1dilemma]

Agree SUnday is just another shopping day for so many.
As someone who oftne has to work antisocial hrs wiht no choice I feel sorry for the staff, they prob have no choice too and have to work Sundays the whole time.
I'm not sure we were really suffering from the lack of shopping oportunities though
I almost did a double take when I read expats hiking sentence so unusual to hear a phrase like that (but I am in London)

[lljkk]

I empathise with the OP, too. The hard part is lack of support, I think, it would be very difficult to ask any favours, even little ones, and I lack people to confide much in. I've had phases in my life when I had a solid circle of friends, but there's been a big dearth in the last 4 years (tied in with moving house twice). There's only one local family we see much of -- we laugh with them about how different we are but we respect each other's differences and I can be myself more with them than with anybody else.

Most other people I don't live up to their standards in some respect, my house is too grotty, I don't have the same perspective on the world, they don't like my parenting style, or whatever. The worst thing is that I'm chatty with many people, including mums of similar age children, so I often hear details of their nights out -- I'm standing there thinking, "Why are you telling me this if you didn't think to invite me!?" Recently, it struck me that maybe their insensitivity is precisely the reason we weren't meant to be close friends.

But I've plucked up courage to sign up for 2 group meals out in the next month (first opportunity in last 3 years, still quite welcome, however late!). Will be a nice change on the nights, at least.

[hazeyjane]

I am billy no mates too! Moved twice in last two years, had 2 babies in the meantime, really miss all the friends that I made as a new mum, and live too far away from all my old school/college friends (phone bill is huge though!). It doesn't help that we now live in a small village, and it seems as though most of he people here have lived here forever, as have their families, so everyone knows everyone, apart from us! I have always lived in big towns, and London for a long time and miss the variety of people.
Strange the way the thread has turned though, because also in last couple of days dh and I have been talking about how unfamily friendly this country is, and because we will probably have to move again in order for dh to find a job, we have talked about maybe leaving the uk, of course then I'll be even further away from my old friends!

[micegg]

I think this is quite common as I have made similar postings before. It used to make me feel down before I saw how common it is. I used to be part of a big 'group' via DH. On the surface it was all very nice. Always a party on, a dinner party, etc but underneath there was loads of back stabbing and bitching. Very immmature I know but when you are steeped in a situation you dont always see it. I hardly see these people now. DH does but he goes out much more than I do. To start with (and despite all the back stabbing, etc) I felt left out. But now it doesnt bother me. I see them when DH and I go to a party or something but dont get involved in any of the rubbish. I suppose what I am trying to say is that sometimes things are not as they seem. As far as making friends through DC. I have learnt to be proactive by contacting people through another mum based web site and talking to mums in my area. I cant say I am that close to anyone in particualr but I get on well enough. You cant force a deep friendship its either there or it isnt so I have learnt to go with the flow.