Is friendship becoming a rare thing?

[HettyMeg]

I have a few good friends, but we don't see much of each other due to living in different parts of the country, having children, life moving in a different direction, and they are all individual friendships rather than a group.

Recently I've been thinking about groups of friends from school, uni and then in my 20s (working hard and playing hard). All three groups have fizzled out and I find myself feeling nostalgic for simpler friendship times. While I count myself lucky to have good friends, almost all of my friendships are separate, one on one friendships. There is no group, which makes it harder to arrange to socialise and keep those connections going because I so rarely get out as I have a young child, as do many of my friends, plus my nearest friend from my pre baby life is a minimum of 20 minute drive away (I have met a couple of people locally but friendships are still starting out). I also feel Covid has affected some of our friendships because people have become more used to staying in. Some have lost contact altogether.

I miss having a laugh with someone and it being normal and easy to meet up. Everything has to be arranged to a ridiculous degree. Everyone's life is busy busy busy all the time.

Has friendship changed in recent years?

I don't know what I'm really saying, I just miss my friends, am struggling to keep connected with them and also struggling to make new ones. It feels like friendship now is a mix of carefully planned lunches, the very occasional very planned night out, and whatsapp messages/liking things on Instagram. Approaching mid 30s and wondering if this is just life.

YANBU - friendship has changed these days
YABU - it's life... get over it

I haven’t voted as neither of your premises reflect my own opinion or experience.
I have 4 wonderful friends. We all have different, busy lives. We ALL make time for each other. Sometimes that means we go for a few months without seeing one another. Sometimes we see one another twice in a week, chat a lot on the phone, WhatsApp, and then very little for a few weeks. I don’t feel friendship has changed, but our situations demand flexibility, and the important things are that we are there for each other, and our friendship gets picked up no matter how much time goes between contact. Just my experience, but I hope that you find or rediscover friendships that are more intimate and supportive, OP. Mine have literally saved my life, and I know my friends feel the same way about me.

@Raineth

My DC’s classmates come and go every year, and it’s just standard that chikdren are popped into a summer playscheme witb a load of strangers, told to play together all day then never meet again. We teach children that friends are a temporary convenience, interchangeable, replaceable. There’s so much less connection.

Hmmm.... but your perspective on this depends massively on your outlook on life and where you want to be.

Not everyone wants to remain friends for the whole of their life with people they were at primary school or summer club with. I would have hated to remain in the village I grew up in for my whole life, would have found it unbearably stifling if my entire social life dated back 40+ years.

Obviously some people like having a small and close-knit social circle but some people really don't. There will always be a subset of people who want to leave their home town and spread their wings. For these people the children they are at school with are mainly temporary friends and that's not in itself a bad thing.

I don't think it's great to make people they have to remain stuck in the same social world that they occupied at age seven for the rest of their lives. Learning adaptability and the skill of acquiring new sets of friends will serve people well in the long run.

I also think people move around so much more that it can be hard to easily maintain friendships, which I think are usually forged on proximity as well as common interest.

Maybe life is so busy for people now. I didnt find hobbies helped. One is lovely once I do all the arranging it. We do coffee outside of group. Def hard as we older. Neighbours nice but we all back working.

I think for women there is a very short window in our lives when we don't have caring responsibilities. So, we have our kids to look after. When they're younger, you might socialise with mums you've met at babygroup or the school gates but when your kids are older, those playdates and coffee mornings fall by the wayside. Teens take up more time than you think. Then once that stage is over, you may have elderly parents to look after...then after that, you may become a grandparent. This probably didn't affect women so much in the old days when people knew their neighbours and women were at home rather than working...they had caring responsibilities but could still pop round to a friend's for a cup of tea. Now, most women are working and squeezing their caring responsibilities around that. Organising a meet up with friends is way down the list of priorities.

Friends wax and wane sometimes, it's just life. Right now I have so much on and so many people I need to see it's hard to fit them all in but I know very well unless I was organising then I'd never see anyone.

Some people I drop when I realise they never return the effort. Some friends you just give space to if they need it knowing you'll be there for each other if critical. All my friends are equally busy but I also connect different friends and groups so I might book a spa day and invite loads of my friends even if they don't know each other. By the end of it they all have one more friend each for example. Host things, arrange things, book things it'll all work easier over time but in the meantime just try and enjoy it

It’s like I wrote this myself

I don't think it is "these days".

Friendships change as you are at different stages of life.

In my late teens / twenties, we were out all the time - a big group of us that ebbed and flowed a bit over the years.

That then becomes impractical when you have small dc. You don't have money, or time, and if you manage some of both then your friends can't co-ordinate it at the same time. You are also exhausted.

It goes round again though in 15- 20years or so, when your dc are independent, and you don't have to make any arrangements when you go out, and you rekindle old friendships and have time to nurture new ones.

My struggle is more about the how we spend our time together.
Sadly mostly they just want us to sit on our asses and not do anything.
And to make it worse, it seems 80% of the time is spend just talking about their partners/dating/kids.
It’s so mind-numbingly boring that I’m amazed none of us isin’t braindead by the end of it.
And absolute worse is if they try and scam you to be a babysitter.

I have tried and tries to suggest to go somewhere, do something, but to no avail.
It makes me so sad and disconnected.
I’m left to wonder what even is the point…😢
I miss the old times.

I feel you there OP. I've gone through a lot of groups of friends purely because of bitchiniess, some my part and some others part. I'm currently going through a friend breakup with group of 3 other women as they are immature and bitchy and I simply can't stand it, so they've decided to do their own thing. Sometimes it just doesn't work as a group or sometimes you have to accept groups don't work for you. I've accepted I struggle in groups as people tend to prefer one or two in the group and one always gets left behind.
But since covid, friendships have dwindled massively I believe. It's a common theme and not sure why. I believe it's hard to find a good friend.

No.

Also to add, it is possible to make new friends. I recently made a friend who lives on our estate she created a 'wine' club a year or so ago and it dwindled down to us two having the most in common and wanting a new friendship. She is 16 years old than me, married with three children and I'm twin in my twenties, not married without children and it works for us. If you put the hard work in you'll see it through.

I miss having a laugh with someone and it being normal and easy to meet up. Everything has to be arranged to a ridiculous degree. Everyone's life is busy busy busy all the time.

This is just about getting older and moving onto a different stage of life though, isn't it? When I think back to my time at university, I had a big group of friends and we all basically lived in each others pockets. We hung out every day but that was because we all had endless time on our hands. Nothing had to be arranged, beyond texting to say "let's meet at X pub in an hour" or "we're at X's flat, come over!" because none of us had any responsibilities. Once you people have jobs, partners, children, elderly parents to care for, businesses to run, houses to maintain, of course things will have to be arranged. I don't think that's about the friendships themselves so much as it's about the loss of freedom that comes with adulthood.

I definitely have different groups of close friends. I meet people for a mix of coffee/breakfast/drinks out/drinks at home.

When we meet we arrange the next date or two. That saves back and forth texting later on. We very rarely cancel/back out at the last minute.
I’m an introvert really and quite happy to stay in a lot, but even if I can’t be bothered I will make the effort. I think developing close friendships takes work so I treat these meet ups as a real commitment. I had one friend who met me for drinks recently before a date (as I was in her diary first 😆)
I think it’s so easy just to stay in, and then things lose momentum a bit. Of course your best/long term friends you can always pick things back up, but that’s only the case with a handful really.

I wonder if people make less effort because we've got access to more in home entertainment. A generation ago if you were bored in the evening or weekend you'd be more likely to have to go out and be around other people to seek entertainment.

Now you've got more options I think people are pickier about who they spend their time with. You have to be even more compatible maybe otherwise why not just get takeaway and watch that livestream.

Yes definitely. We also have social media so we can interact with people in that way. It's quite sad isn't it.

The other week DH and I went out for dinner on a Saturday night. We walked past loads of pubs and bars that we used to go to nearly 20 years ago when we first met. On a Saturday night back then, they were absolutely rammed. Now, it's like a ghost town. We couldn't believe how quiet everywhere was.

I'm guilty of this as anyone. I can't help but prefer staying in and making my own fun over say traveling to that pub in another town to meet up with that group I'm not really gelling with.

I agree that this attitude has increased since the pandemic. but I still only ever come across it online (probably because IRL all the introverts are staying in their houses where I don't see them!) I've stayed just as close to all my real life friends as before covid.

I do have a couple of friendships where I feel like I do 99% of the organising - which I'm fine with - and then the friend complains that I'm the only person from our old group who's stayed in touch with them. When you're no longer in your early 20s there's usually a certain amount of active planning involved in keeping relationships going, unless you're neighbours and can just pop round to each other’s houses on the spur of the moment - I think some people don't make that transition, and then assume their friends have lost interest because they're no longer hanging out spontaneously all the time like they used to. But equally there's a good deal of luck involved in making new friends, especially if you've moved to a new place where you don't know anyone.

It's a pity that Friends Reunited doesn't exist anymore. I connected with 2 people from my infant school, and now we meet up and exchange messages on Whatsapp.

Agree takes effort. People get stuck in ruts. I like meetups just be nice if they arranged it next time!! I do alot alone as found women wouldnt commit sigh.

This! Very true!

I think this hits the nail on the head!

Also what type of support network you have. We don’t have any family help with our children from either parents due to illness/ location. So hubby and I take it in turns to see our friends. Date nights are practically non existent.

i have a few close friends but due to moving a lot in my twenties and no longer being a party girl (i don’t really drink anymore) a lot of my big social groups dropped off.

I just don’t have capacity to invest the time I want into friendships at this stage of life between helping care for my elderly mother, my young kids and work.

It’s sad as friendships have always meant a lot to me but I’m trying to practice acceptance rather than resentment right now. It’s hard to be a good friend/ fun when you have so little left in the tank!