Does anyone else find having friends stressful so don't bother too much

[girlfriend44]

Quite a few friends stress threads today. I also today unusually am abot passed off with a friend.
Does anyone find friends hard work and so you don't bother having any or worrying about it.
At times its like trying to maintain a relationship and you've always got to try and work out what the others doing or thinking?

Completely agree. The obligation and then people being shitty with you if you don't want to do what they do. I have some really good friends but they are only a small group. In my late 30's now and am VERY choosy about who I make friends with after learning the hard way that you can't just let anyone in the door.

I can honestly say hand on heart I probably have only ever met 2-3 people in my life who a) I truly clicked with and b) I could trust 100%. When I say trust I mean trust not to bad mouth me/get envious/have an agenda/get funny with me but not explain why. Unconditional love if you like. That is rare.

I had some great friends in my 20/30's loved my social life they I met dh saw less of friends because we were loved up/saving for a bigger house/having a baby. When I realised I wasn't seeing much of my friends a number of them had moved on and found other friendship groups. So now I have a couple of friends to do coffee with and two old friends who I see a few times a year. I don't really have time to invest in new friends but I miss that closeness

I am, and always have been, an extreme introvert. I'm happy inside my own head for the most part and, excluding family, can only handle people in very small groups 2/4 max.

I'm aware a lot of people confuse introversion with shyness - it's not shyness at all with me it's just that people 'exhaust' me. Within a small/familiar group I can be as robust and entertaining as anyone else, but I'm equally (if not more) happy inside my own head. However, interaction in a group takes a toll and I need a lot of me time to recover.

Family will contact me to say "We're doing this or that ... fancy joining?" Most times I just say "I'm all peopled-out .... maybe next time ...." They know that's most likely my answer but they are thoughtful enough to ask every time.

I did have a BFF, but the F part did not work out. She passed away when she was 28, and I've never felt the need to replace her - not that I could because she was one of the very few people who 'got' me. I loved her and was in awe of her personality being so different to mine and how we 'gelled' from our first meeting (she was 4, I was 2!)

Bottom line is: I like me, and I'm happy as I am without friends.

My friends are my family. I adore them. I am extremely lucky. My whole life I have had incredible friends.

Nope. I love having friends. A lot of Mumsnetters on here seem to almost resent having friendships though.

Some of these friend issues are boundary issues and not being able to say no

I have lots of friends but I’m closest to my Mum

I don't have a lot of friends, but there is certainly nothing stressful about dealing with the ones I do have. I am a fairly solitary creature, but cant' imagine not wanting to have any friends at all - that seems a bit sad.

The ones that make me feel like that I've weeded out.

I used to find this in my 20’s/30’s but now I’m older my long standing friends are the ones who don’t make me feel like this. It used to eat me up with paranoia being around certain friends but those friendships dwindled away. The only person that makes me feel like this now is a school Mum whose child my daughter is friends with, so there’s no escaping that one!

I find this thread profoundly disturbing.

Friends are probably the most important bulwark you have against some of the most negative things which can happen to women socially: against domestic abuse, and social isolation in particular.

I see this narrative frequently on MN and elsewhere which goes roughly "oh I only need my little family now, can't be bothered with friends, they cause too much drama". Not only is it appallingly smug its so dangerous to think like this.

Scary that people think just because they are now washing some bloke's pants they are too evolved to want to hang out with other women. And the fact that society still perpetuates this myth really frightens me.

Friends give you perspective on your relationship and family setup which it would be very very foolish to give up. A good friend will always know if a husband has become controlling or is just starting to limit you. Friends keep you sane and provide a lifeline. You give them up at your peril.

You don't have to go out with them all weekend every weekend. But keep your hand in. Finding time for a few coffees/drinks every now and then could be what keeps you sane in the future.

Exactly this

I've gone from having lots of friends to having absolutely none in the past couple of years. So sick of being the one to always make the effort.. so did a little experiment to see if I started backing off a bit would people make the effort with me. They didn't. They must have been pretty superficial friendships on their part, which I honestly hadn't realised. Now it's just me and my cat and I've made peace with that. No one lets me down at the last minute anymore or disappoints me when they make no effort for my birthday, as I always did for them. Life is very pared down and simple now.

I find a few friends only works for me. Men if platonic can be good friends. I stay away from bitchy or competitive women or drama queens.

You might like to look into whether you have traits of autism. Many women seem to be getting late diagnoses these days.
There will be people out there who you really won’t have to worry about how you come across with. You just haven’t found them yet.

I'm currently going through a friendship re evaluation phase
A supposed best friend of 20 years turned out to be an utter cunt and we stopped speaking, she took another mutual friend with her so I lost 2 supposed best friends I'd known for years overnight.

I still have other friends but I don't know if I can be bothered to trust people to that extent again.

Casual friendships only for me now I think.

I think there's two issues:

1. Finding friends whose company you genuinely enjoy and who you can trust
2. Having space in your life where you can meet up with friends without feeling stressed

I'm fortunate in that I've a good handful of friends where we care for each other, have a good time, are great company.

But I have struggled with finding time to see people. Work, parenting, family, housework commitments...and then socialising can feel like the one thing too much.

So, right now in this stage of life I have a 'love the one your with' approach to friendships.

By that, I mean I make my most effort connecting and catching up with the people who are already a natural part of my life. The school mum who I get on well with and see at the school gates and at all the kids birthday parties. Friends from church who I see every Sunday so it's easy to keep in touch in-between proper meet ups.

I have a couple of friends who lives far away who I make an effort to ring and message but for other friends who have moved away or who I don't run into naturally any more I've been OK to let us drift apart (Not ghosted just not initiated much contact)

I find maintaining friendships on social media hard work, but love face to face time, so this is what works for me.

I don’t think most people do see it as ‘oh I’ve got a man now, I don’t need friends’.

I do agree that good friends are a protective factor but, as lots of the responses here show, there are lots of reasons why people don’t have friendships like that.

I don’t have any close friends for a complex set of reasons. Actually I do have friends in some sense. There are people who I could call up and they would help me. I get on with people. But for a whole set of reasons I don’t do that (even when things are utterly awful).

A big reason is that I have ADHD and I know I’m pretty annoying so I don’t like to impose myself on people. Especially as I’m crap at remembering to be consistent in things. Another factor is that everyone is busy - with FT jobs and families and lives, so I am wary of getting in the way. Even more so as I’m a single parent and my life doesn’t really fit with everyone else who is better at relationships than me. I have a FT job and kids so my evenings and weekends are often just full of doing their stuff/life stuff so we can get through each week. And, finally, I live somewhere I’m not from and I don’t have any ‘roots’ here. I’ve been here more than a decade and haven’t made any progress in that area. It does mean that the people who are long-standing friends are generally hours away.

my life might be a bit sad in lots of ways. But that’s how it is. It’s not going to change. I have lots of friendly, but pretty superficial, chats with other parents at my kids’ activities or in the park. But my life is not organised around connections with other adults and isn’t going to be. Once the kids are grown up, I’ll do something like volunteer to fill my time.

No, not at all. My friends are adults and behave like them, not like school children.

l am that rare breed that is happpy in my own company. Same with relationships, l just can' t be bothered. l enjoy being at home, doing what l want to do when l want to do it, no interruptions.
l have grown out of my frienships, l live a totally different way of life to most, one others don' t understand, l am open to making new friends but l feel alot lighter for shedding my old ones.

I am almost identical to you but I have held on to my old friends though they all live far and aren't demanding. I definitely share your view on relationships!

@SudocremOnEverything

I take your point and I perhaps should have qualified that there are scenarios, such as where people are socially anxious or are neurodiverse, which make traditional friendships more challenging.

I also accept that when you have families and/or full time jobs, its much harder to maintain friendships.

But there is a kind of defeatism and a sense of retreat you see in so many of these posts. People describe friendship as "draining" or "toxic" and just give up on it, retreating into their nuclear family and stopping any attempt to maintain normal human relationships. There's almost a sense of glee about it in some of these posts, as if people feel freed by not having friendships. It's really pretty fucked up.

I think instead of just assuming its all too hard and quitting we ought to be trying to examine why as a society we make it so hard to maintain what are basically lifelines.

I'm not a fan of people who say everything was better in the past because it's blatantly untrue but I do think that modern life makes people very atomised in a way which wasn't the case 70 or 80 years ago. Far more people move away from the place of their birth etc which does make it harder. But we seem to have lost the respect we had for the importance of networks which aren't connected either with our professional or family lives and it really frightens me, particularly with respect to women.

I don't expect everyone to find it easy or to become social butterflies but I do think its hugely important for everyone to have a handful of people in their lives who are not their immediate family but who have their backs.

I have a couple of very good friends that I don't know where I'd be without their kindness and compassion during tough times.

However, following weekends away with friends, I also know that I don't need weekends away with friends 😂
A night out/lunch/coffee will do me thanks, everyone has foibles and a weekend of foibles ruins a good friendship.

This thread is sad.

I have friendships that have spanned decades. They aren't stressful and I can be my authentic self with them. If I don't want to socialise I can bail out and say I want to sit in my pants at home and not talk to anyone see you next time - and vice versa. No hard feelings and no pressure or stress.

I really love and value my friends. My life would be pretty lonely and sad without them.

Not at all. I have old friends (school days) in my home town, work friends and local friends where I live now. I only have 1 friend I find stressful but she lives a car crash life style and is only interested in talking about herself. The rest of my friends I love spending time with and I invest a lot to keep friendships going

I am pretty introverted and don't need friends I see regularly. But have a couple of far flung ones I mostly made years ago that I keep in touch with..we live too far away to see often but even a once a year week in a camp field maintains our friendship nicely.
Have another couple who I maybe see once a school term as we are all leading different lives but try to get together every few months. I can't imagine going out with friends daily or weekly because that's not me, but I don't feel lonely at all, and I'm in my 50s now and have always been quite content.
I do have my DD2 close by and we just get on very well so we meet up a lot just because we can. I did have 'work friends' but left work recently so suspect they will fizzle out fast! I do feel I have a few people I could call on if I needed support and hope they could call on me too, and that sort of friendship is great.