Bored with close female friends

[Vijia]

We are a small group of 60 year olds and I have to confess that I am feeling guilty for not wanting to hang out with them as much as I used to. I feel awful about it enough. Please can I have your honest opinion?
Ok, so, I used to have a lot of time for dog walks and hearing my friends out about their problems at work and be very good at listening. I wasn't working at the time SAHM until my youngest went to university.

My friends would say I needed to slow down and stop hanging out with my adult DC, doing things like biking and surfing with them.

They would comment about my weight and fitness but not in a good way.

Lately they have been saying they are tired a lot and can't walk as much as they used to as they are slowing down, being the natural part of growing older.

My adult DC have come back to live at home after finding the London rent too much and often invite me out on really fun camping trips, wild swimming, climbing, mountain biking, surfing etc.

I am getting fitter and absolutely love it that they invite me and have so much fun.

I have also started working full time so I enjoy spending weekends actively after a week in the office.

I have found that I don't want to spend my precious downtime with people who bring me down and niggle at me and I avoid saying what I am doing at the weekend now and it is easier just not to touch base with them anymore because I don't want to bore them with what I am getting up to.

They prefer pottering in the garden in the summer and watching TV and eating loads, they are all overweight and have niggly knees and backs because of it.

I don't feel I have anything in common with them anymore but I would love to meet other like minded people my age but do they exist?!

I have forged great relationships with my DC through these activities and no one talks about age.

Am I being unreasonable to have dropped these good people and will I regret it in the long term?

OP "I really don't identify with other 60 year olds that I know any more. Perhaps it's because I have recently got a new full time job so I am back to what I was like pre children and family.

I don't feel ready for slowing down and I feel a new lease of life."

I also find this interesting because when my friends started having kids, I was bored by it, I have no interest in children. But if you want to keep a friendship, you listen to what the other is interested in. I hope your full time job goes well, but do you really want to lose friends just because you have a bit less in common? Isn't part of friendship taking an interest in your friends' lives?

i'm 46 and looking forward to stopping work by 50 but I wouldn't think to criticise you for your choices.

I used to work part time and I was unfit and frumpy.

And you were fine with your frumpy, sedate friends back then, but now you’re a steel-buttocked fun machine with a FT job, they’re way too old and boring, despite being ‘close friends’?

"My friends would say I needed to slow down and stop hanging out with my adult DC"

Did they actually say that? I find that hard to believe tbh?

I am surprised they want to hang out, your original post comes across and judgey and smug.

Your living your best life, sounds like you aren't letting your age slow you down or becoming the thing to stop you living life to its fullest.
Keep on doing new things, but don't cut off old friends, but do make new ones when the chance emerges.

Yes you are right, I have become more judgey and less patient with entrenched woe is me attitudes when so much can be changed if we really wanted to, it's definitely an attitude thing that gets me.

I am not exact steel buttocked 😂but I have a positive attitude, a healthy diet and plenty of exercise has been good for me so I wish I had like-minded friends.

Yes their attitude was your adult DC won't want to hang out with you so slow down or you'll end up injuring yourself.Tsk tsk.

Basically being more motherly towards me which I get comes from a good place but I don't want to be told ooh you shouldn't be doing that at your age all the time which is why I have stopped saying anything to them..

Balance is key you are right. They are very loyal and I am grateful for having them in my life so I can see how impatient I have become, thank you for opening my eyes. It has definitely helped me see the bigger picture. I can see I have become more self centred after years and years of being the person who does everything for anyone..

not sure what you're trying to say with this.

again, we all go through phases in life.

I think you need to find a balance. It sounds like you are very happy with lots of things going on and that's brill , but you also sound a bit manic about it and insecure. Just be careful that you are being kind. I'm overweight and do know all the things I could do about it. I have friends who are the same , some averagely sized and many who are megs into fitness . None of that matters at all when we are together, we make each other laugh and support each other , but if any of them started lecturing me or spouting about how I could change when we are together I would be devastated. Be very careful . It's not that easy and you should know that .

Sadly having a positive attitude and taking lots of exercise doesn’t guarantee a healthy old age - people I know in their 60s have had some weird and wonderful dices with death over the last few years so I wouldn’t be too smug. But I remember my elderly DM and her neighbours - the only subject of conversation was who’s been diagnosed with what, when he/she is getting their scan/ op/ new medication/ follow up with GP etc and I promised myself to have wider interests than that.

You sound incredibly pleased with yourself. It’s ok, I was too, very pleased and slightly smug because I was so active and youthful compared to my FB “friends” who weren’t doing half of the exciting and cool things I was doing! A nasty long term back/shoulder injury brought me down to earth with a bump. I put on weight and was in so much pain I couldn’t even drive or sit in a hairdresser’s chair for the time needed to get my youthful highlights done 😁.

Keep your own counsel for a bit about your activities if you don’t like their responses - maybe they are a little jealous, people are only human after all - but don’t dump them just yet, you never know what’s round the corner.

I don't think you have to drop anyone , friendships can be different groups with different interests . I have dog walking friends and friends who don't have dogs , friends who'd I'd go to gardening shows with and others have no interest .
You may need your quieter friends happy to have tea and cake if your climbing / skateboarding results in injury and you have to recuperate.

A lot of people have no friends I think they'd love a chance of having some . I certainly wouldn't be binning them off . Your kids may not be doing the climbing etc once they have partners / kids. Peoples priorities change .

I think there's room for all of them in your life, do the active stuff with the active people, and have a sit down and a glass of wine with the sedentary people, it's not either/or - I'm not sure dumping people when they have physical decline is the way forward

I find your thread quite odd. 3 of my friends now do live swimming. Including 1 of my closest friends, who is incredibly active and never sits still. Whereas I choose to do absolutely nothing, as little as possible. Hasn't been a problem so far.

I would be wary about dropping old friends and building a life around your dc. Yes it’s great that you all get on so well, and there is no reason not to do things together, but at some point your dc will
build independent lives, and at some point you also physically won’t be able to do what they can do.

keep the right balance between your relationship with your dc and your relationships which are independent of your dc.

They prefer pottering in the garden in the summer and watching TV and eating loads

Sounds good, I'll take your place.

The older I get, the less tolerant I am of the woe is me attitude too.
I’m very fit and active and have friends who aren’t at all. I spend time with them but there is no doubt when they are complaining about a health issue which is clearly lifestyle related yet they talk about it in terms of it being ‘just is what jt is’, I do feel a bit eye rolly.

Honestly, I find it a bit depressing to be around people who don’t want to explore what’s possible so I do limit time in some ways E.g. weekends away now just a night together.

We’ll literally all be dead in the next few decades and I’m very aware of that so try to make the best of life, every day. I am at a point where it’s important to me to do everything I can to stay healthy and fit. I openly don’t want to be decrepit in my 60’s - which I know no one does, but often people don’t want to make the sacrifices as to how you actually achieve that and prefer to live in an ‘inevitability’ mindset.

im not so much judgey judgey, more that I find some people as they age contagiously depressing and given time is limited before you have proper elderly status, yeah, it’s hard to chose to spend your time with people who are generally not cognisant of any agency they have over their health and don’t push their bodies and minds to stay age appropriately fit and healthy.

And I’m absolutely sure my attitude to life brings up stuff for them too…hence the comments that I get said to me! Similar to what OP describes

I think if your old group of friends were genuinely kind and considerate then you’d still want to have them in your life even if they’re not quite into the same things as you, but they don’t sound very nice. So the gap is even wider. You’ve just drifted apart and that’s okay.

Also you can do as much zip-lining, parachute jumping, etc as you like, but the fact you are doing this all with your returning Uni dc seems odd. There's a very fine line between a healthy mum and son post Uni relationship, and a very fine line to where it becomes unhealthy, you are living through then vicariously, or it's too full on. and I'd tell you to calm down and share/spread your attention between other activities/friends. Are you sure you haven't been ott in news of activities and thus friends were right to tell you to calm down?

It sounds really strange that all of your 60 year old friends are like this. I'm 53 but have a group of friends who are late 50s early 60s ( we all met through a support group and became great friends ) and they are all just as active as they were when I met them 20 years ago. We all go on camping weekends together and long hikes. I'm going coasteering with one of this summer. She turned 60 this year and has a tick list of new activities she wants to try ( she also did a parachute jump a couple of years ago)

It sounds like your friends have worked full-time for decades while raising children - they’re now tired and ready for a slower pace. That’s not lazy - until now they have been MUCH busier than you, for years. Coming home from a full-time job to toddlers and primary school children who need full-on attention and care and then having all the housework etc to do in evenings and weekends, alongside making time for friends and other family is exhausting, and not at all comparable to working part-time and coming home to teen children who are largely (physically) self-sufficient. It’s also nothing like working full-time and coming back to independent adult DC at home who hopefully are actually lightening the housework etc load for you. I’d feel a bit shit and annoyed if a SAHM friend who I’d been friends with for decades got a full-time job once children are finally at Uni and also got into fitness etc became so clearly judgey of me wanting to finally have a bit of a slow down and enjoy my garden in my 60s. You’ve had different lives until now and so want different things; that’s ok. It’s not ok if they’re making negative comments about your fitness, but that is probably a bit of defensiveness knowing that you’re clearly now thinking of them as fat and lazy. It’s brilliant you have such a new lease of life and all this activity will go a long way to keeping you healthy and young for longer than you would be without it, and joining rambling or climbing etc groups would be great to add to your friendship circle, not abandon those who’ve been there for decades and now (finally) want a different pace of life than you.

You need to keep some friends. Your adult children will not always want you to tag along with them.

It's great you go out with your kid, I mean that, but I think you agree you need your own friends too, whatever age they are.

You can go on the internet and field wild swims and go alone and meet people of a similar age and mindset. Same for other things you like, there are lots of forums for niche hobbies X

It's great you have fun with your kids but in just 5 years or so they may well be settling down and starting families so they may start pulling back from those freedoms x

How long have your adult dc been at home. Surely soonish they should be off, with partner, putting deposit down on place ideally? Job taking them to London / another city / abroad.