To be disappoited that the only time i ever hear from my uni/work friends is via multiple recipient facebook jokes and quizzes

[lucyellensmum]

Thats it really, since i left uni and work to have DD, my friends sort of kept in touch, then it fizzled to a few close friends, now i don't even hear from them. Yeah ive been a bit rubbish about socialising, but i just can't do the whole pub til midnight then find a way back home (i dont drive and used to rely on DP to pick me up but of course can't leave DD now). but the odd email, facebook message, meant just for me, would be nice, you know, just to acknowledge that i still exist!!!

Don't get me wrong, ive made a few friends at mother and toddler group, but no one who i could have a laugh with like my old mates, it just doesnt foster that type of friendship does it.

bloody hell!

Ah, ive worked it all out for myself. I really am invisible aren't i!!!

You could always contact them first?

god tell me about it, it's so easy to fall off the social radar - as the childfree don't understand that meeting for a lunch at a set time with a newborn is like asking you to take a day trip to Jupiter, and then once you have got past that stage, you've got out of the habit of socialising. try not to take it personally, they probably imagine you are too busy in mummyville for them, and try and take the bull by the horns, and e-mail or phone the ones you most want to stay in touch with.

Do you make the effort?

I have some friends who I see a lot and it's easy and no effort required. I have other friends who I don't see so often and I make a real effort to phone/email them very regularly. It's a 2 way street and friendship does sometimes require effort, especially if you lead very different lives far away. It's worth making the effort yourself.

love the name bang. I do contact them, but that is the only time i get a reply, i know they are all really busy, but not so busy they dont have time to spend hours doing quizzes on facebook.

I know this happens all the time, it just makes me sad is all.

I have an old friend who is crap at staying in touch, apart from multi-recipient rubbish joke emails, unless her life is starting to go wrong.
But I email her relativly often, just so I know that it is not me being useless, but her.

How about inviting 1 or 2 of them over for dinner and drinks at your place, then you don't need to worry about transport or babysitters etc. Since having ds this is pretty much the main source of my social life!

I think this sort of thing happens to most people. If your Uni/work mates don't have children then they probably have very different lives to you now and different priorities. When they have kids they will probably understand but i do think that most new mums go a stage where they adjusting to their new life. It won't be long before you have new mum friends who uderstand what your going through and the laughs you have with them will be just as good as the ones with your old mates but just a very different type of laughs.

When i first had my dd i remember going out a few times drinking in town with my non-dc friends. I was bored by 11pm and having a hang over the next day while trying to look after dd was nasty and nights out with them just fizzled out just because i was naturaly leaving my old life behind and entering a new one.

Now i have made some new friends who have dc the same age as mine and we have lots of fun which usually consists of lots of talk about our kids different stages of development they are going through, walks and m&t groups. Very boring if you don't have dc but exciting if you do.

Oh don't get me started on this one!!! TOTALLY sympathise. I had just 5 friends on my facebook account and yet I would open my e-mail to about 20 messages a day from silly quizzes to short hi I've written a message on your wall. Friendship is a 2 way street but it's horrible when you're the one making all the effort and you begin to wonder if it's worth it. People DO get busy but you shold never shut your friends out of your life. Aquick letter or e-mail hurts no-one or call. Everyone these days just lives through text messages or facebook/myspace and it's not exactly healthy is it?? Can hardly moan about our kids with computers and tv and games consoles when the parents are just as bad?? ! I closed my Facebook account in the end. I was fed up with people telling me they were Sooooooo busy but could spend all day on the computer. There's another website called Netmums where you can meet mums in your area. I found that helpful. I have the same problem. I can't get anyone around here for drinks in the evenins or weekends because they're with hubby and kids and during the day they work or have a huge network of friends and family because we live in a town that I moved to 8 years ago and they all grew up here. Contrary to popular belief you can spend years trying to cultivate friendships but then it all goes out of the window the minute they decide you're of no further use to them or they send their kids to a different school or your kids fall out!! Best to go through your list of friends and decide who you want to keep for sure and then REALLY make an effort with them. Close your Facebook account and they'll have to send you a personal message! I had a wonderful friend but I really had to make an effort with her. When I was going through a really bad year and basically gave up we virtually lost contact. Now I feel sad that the friendship just isn't really there but I simply feel too fed up to keep trying because if your friends aren't there when you need them most then they're really not worth the hassle. It is a 2 way street as we keep saying - but if you're always there for them and they're not there for you.....

well said kitti, that is exactly how i feel. It is always me contacting them and then the few that do make the effort to visit, always seem to make me feel like a charity case. Its probably time to move on - it happens, im sure im just as guilty of it as the others. I guess i just have more need of friendship than they do just now, you know, them having lives and all

Kitti, i believe that as you go through life you gain friends and you lose friends. Everyone goes through different stages in their lives at different times. I remember leaving school and everyone promising to all stay in touch but the reality is you all go off in different directions. Then there's Uni where you can spend 3 years having a blast with lots of new friends you have made but again you all leave Uni and go off in different directions.

You can go through lots of different jobs along the way making good friends in them but then you soon move on to another job, saying you'll keep in touch with the old work mates but your new life takes over with new friends in your new job and so the cycle repeats itself.

Everyone also has kids at different times in their lives too and you make new friends doing that. Then if the kids all go off to different schools, you lose touch from the people you were friends with when the kids were small.

Sometimes along the journey you may find a couple of friends who you just stay good friends with throughout everything you go through but i do think it is unrealistic to expect to keep in touch and stay friends with people from Uni/old jobs/playgroups. You might bump into people from the past from time to time and have a chat but you can't expect people to stay in touch all the time even if they say when you leave that job or their kids go to another school "we will have to keep in touch."

It's like Chandlers "Well this great, i'll give you a call and we will do it again sometime..." line. You say it with good intentions but it rarely happens.

I had uni friends and in the end, I realised it was all me, making the effort etc etc. I let them go. Makes me sad, but what can you do ?

It's true but sad when you meet someone that you really think is a frienship worth keeping. I've had lots of friends that we simply lose touch because we've moved on - but every once in a while you meet someone who you think this is a person i like not because we have kids together, not because we work together, not because of such and such - it's just a frienship that's there and I think if you make those sort of friends you want to keep them - it is hard when you have that for a snumber of years and then suddenly you just become another facebook friend!!! Oh dear - I've hijacked this thread - apologies!!!!! I just think that people rely too much on Facebook/Myspace and it's damaged the true meaning of friendship - it's difficult for a real friend to suddenly accept becoming a vitual friend when you know that your friend's list of 500 friends only contain 5 that she actually knows!!! - despite me being a pathetic loser with no friends anymore I think I managed to take the thread back to it's original problem - FACEBOOK - Argh!!! Burn the computer

It happens.

Facebook is shit by the way, leave it alone.
If you actually read their 'privacy' agreement youd never have told them your name, let alone thrown a sheep at anyone.

True friends will call you and email you. Leaving facebook will stop them being lazy.

I can't get in to facebook.

you're not missing much. Im sure it is fantastic for when you are at work, procrastinating, but when you actually have a choice, you coudclnt really care two shites about vibrating someones hamster!

LEM, I sit and wait for messages, then I reply the second they come in then I get a reply about like oh a month later, I should wait a few days to reply but I just can't, I am so desperate and friendless that it is embarrassing.

sad innit cherry, but you have to look at it this way - we have our children and that cancels it all out