AIBU to think we simply don’t socialize like our parents did?

[Enchanted82]

I have been thinking lately about how much more insular and less social people are now compared to my parents era. I’m early forties, young family, lived in different places and always put friendships and making new friends/acquaintances a priority and I love hosting but I do feel lots of other families don’t seem to want/enjoy having people round or meeting up much at all!
in the 80’s my parents and friends parents were round each others houses, enjoying their company regularly but I don’t feel my husband and I have this despite being sociable people.
what’s changed?

For me I think it's lack of babysitters.

When I was a dc I was babysat by a teenager or grandparents.

Most couples I know now who I'd like to invite for a meal have no babysitters so can't come round together for a meal.

I watch teens walking down the roads together ... all with ear buds in, eyes glued to their phones, not talking to each other.

Society has destroyed interpersonal skills...

I think nowadays parents are far less willing to use paid babysitters than previous generations. I find today people are only willing to use family to babysit so if they're not available they don't go out.

I think the points raised about living further away from friends (especially with remote working now, and house prices meaning people moving out of where they grew up) and also smaller houses are really valid. It's cramped in most houses now with two families in them- they are being built smaller and smaller- a 1930s semi was much larger. I also think people were just friendlier with their neighbours- or older people are friendlier with neighbours still. Younger families are having to move into less desirable areas, away from their community that they were raised in, and perhaps don't want to be friendly with the neighbours or find it hard to build a community again.

I think this makes sense too. Everything is so expensive these days. Also people live further from their families so not always available.

We have these in my village and they've been going on for over 60 years apparently. Brilliant fun as you all meet everyone else in the village in the course of the evening. Hard work to organise but the people who plan it make it look effortless. I've met some great people and am staggered by people's ability to cook!

I remember once in the 1980s my Dad was doing a pudding course - home made rum truffles and home made ice-cream. (We had no gadgets to help with this) He wasn't a drinker. He got very anxious about his truffles, drank too much rum and fell asleep in the shower cubicle. 😆

Isn't it just different people/personality types.?

My GPs were very sociable and always had a houseful of friends and neighbours. My parents barely had a friend between them and were happy with that. When I was married with young children, I didn't have much time or inclination to socialise, it was important to me to spend the little time I had with my family, now they're adults, I've developed a very busy social life.

I am a Gen X'er and was on the rave / club and later pub scene, and the young uns now do not socialise like WE did. Most of the clubs are closing down

As for the older gen - when i was a kid, i remember my parents and grandparents both having a vibrant social life.

My grandparents were always out, at working mens clubs etc or to a dance.

God bless um

yes times have changed

@godmum56

they just curl up and go to sleep

I love my home but prefer to socialise away from it. Most families have both parents working these days which means we spend the whole week running around - working, keeping on top of the house, kids, washing etc. I dont want to spend the weekend running around after everyone when that’s all we do all week. Love meeting friends but for me its in a restaurant, picnics in the park etc, but I dont want to be the host. We work hard so i’d rather properly relax when I socialise.

People work a lot more now. My husband and l work way more, plus l study on top of working full time. Things get planned way in advance now -a couple we are friendly with need to factor in children going to their mothers, everyone’s work commitments. Plus after a long week not really sort l want to do a lot of preparation and then clean up afterwards

We socialise most weekends with friends/family. I have noticed some people don't socialise as much as pre covid. We tend to go to friends or they come to ours, more like our parents did. Rather than going out alot which we used to do pre covid.

My mum didn’t work and nor did any of her friends. Both me and my DH work full time. My job is very sociable and my DH has to socialise with clients quite a lot. We don’t have the energy to sort out the house, shop and cook. We also need to go to bed early as we are both knackered!

I once considered buying a house in a great street which was being sold after the elderly parent died.
The daughter (who was herself in her late 50s or 60s) told me that in the seventies, the street had a dinner party circuit where they'd go to each other's houses in turn. The dress code depended on the host but sometimes was black tie or lounge suits!
I think this points to how we've changed: we don't have inter-generational socialisation any more bar organised clubs and we don't want to socialise with anyone who isn't in our curated friend group.
I think it sounded amazing!

I don't disagree with anything that you have said, however is it a worry if/when your kids have grown and moved away?

If you have a partner it is inevitable that one day you or your partner will leave the other bereaved - wouldn't you be concerned if you hadn't kept up any friendships?

Not our experience. We’ve mostly all moved away from London now but still host “family friends” for overnight stays with their DC, or go back to town regularly to see old friends. We don’t do as much going out to restaurants etc because it needs babysitters and costs £££, but we host or meet up/visit old friends.

We don’t host the parties and dinners that we used to, but that’s because we’ve all got young DC. I hope to resume dinner parties when DS is older.

We’ve met new local friends since moving who we invite in for “play dates” (wretched term!) and lunches sometimes too.

There’s a few things at play - society is less formal so fewer sit down meal type get togethers, and people are hard up and tired with young kids, but by and large we still host a lot.

Well I had loads of friends and now I don’t because at some point life got hard. There was no “rallying around” and “being there for you” for lil’ old me!

I know I’m not alone. Having children with complex needs, a divorce, a mental health breakdown, parents needing care / passing away, losing a husband, losing social status - all things that loads of women have dealt and their so called “friends you can call at 3am!” have conveniently disappeared.

“Investing in friendships” seems like a bit of a scam.

Switching it around - isn’t it a bit fucked up to manufacture a social life for your own future benefit? I only learned people even think like this on MN. Seems manipulative.

@OriginalUsername2 I'm sorry to hear how your life has panned out and that your friends have fallen by the wayside.

I have a lot of friends at work. I genuinely like a lot of them and I hope to keep up contact with them when I retire. But I'm mindful that I don't live near any of them (I've a long commute to work) and I might not get to see them as much when I retire. Distance could prove to be an obstacle. And if we no longer have work in common, will we still get on the same as we did when we worked together every day? I hope so but who knows? Some of my retired colleagues are busy minding grandchildren that have been born since they retired. So while technically they've retired, they still have commitments.

I'm aware that I'll need to cultivate additional hobbies and interests when I retire and build up more of a local social network. Or maybe do some volunteer work or something. I don't want to be lonely in my old age - no man is an island and all that. I hope that doesn't sound manipulative or transactional, like I will be using these future friends/social networks. I've a lot to offer other people too.

Unless you planning on making friends 20 years younger then you your friends will also likely have died or become to disabled to socialise

I'll admit I'm somewhat transactional with friendships but that doesn't mean I don't genuinely like my friends. By that I mean I'm not great with someone who lets say is willing to call me a friend yet can't find time to meet up more than once a year (precluding long distance). I wouldn't consider that actually being a friend.

This, as it happens, has what a good friend of mine has done, she is early 80s, very sociable and has so many 20 years younger friends!

She says she prefers them to her 'old' friends, we keep her young she says!

I don't need to imagine the pace, I started work from college in the late 70s. We had to do everything by hand, send it to the typing pool, proof read it when it came back (no computers and spell checkers), return it if it needed to be amended then check it again. When it was all correct we would send copies to relevant departments. Much easier and less time consuming than doing everything by computer. When we got electric typewriters in the office we thought all our Christmases had come at once.

I worked for a major defence supplier and during the Falklands war we were just sitting around drinking coffee with our feet up having a chat. Everyone had to work flat out just to keep up. Amazingly it was physically and mentally tiring. If you think it was easier back then you are living in la la land. How condescending you are to think things were a walk in the park and to disparage your grandparents by saying they didn't work hard mentally. You think you are expected to perform like a computer, but you have computers to do everything for you. We had to work like computers because we didn't have any. There was a woman in the typing pool who was a comptometrist who did all the mathematical workings for the orders etc. she was a human computer.

If the computers go down at your place of work does anyone know what to do? A few years ago I tried to buy a mobile phone and they couldn't sell it to me because the computer wasn't working, I said its fine I'm paying cash but they couldn't do anything without the computer, I didn't get the phone.

Judging by a lot of the posts on this website a lot of work time is spent on social media, take that out of the equation and there would be more time to do actual work which is being paid for. You could then get home earlier in time to prepare a dinner party and make and entertain friends!

My parents hated people and did everything they could to avoid socialising. If someone called the landline, even me or a good friend, after five minutes my mum would say the bath was running and she had to go.

My life is the opposite, have friends over every weekend, go out and do stuff during the week, throw big parties a couple of times a year to make up for the fact that new years were spent watching TV on my own.

My in-laws do the coffee morning thing and I hate it, small talk bores me. Would rather be doing an activity.

The difference in socialising now is very often kid-based I think. I don't have kids and my friends that don't have kids I make plans with a day or an hour before and everyone turns up. My friends that do have kids I see maybe a couple of times a year, it requires planning 6 months ahead, and there's still a 50/50 chance they won't show up.

@Taytocrisps

I'm aware that I'll need to cultivate additional hobbies and interests when I retire and build up more of a local social network. Or maybe do some volunteer work or something. I don't want to be lonely in my old age - no man is an island and all that. I hope that doesn't sound manipulative or transactional, like I will be using these future friends/social networks. I've a lot to offer other people too.

Not at all! That’s exactly what I’ll do at the time I need it. And have done before. That’s shared company over a shared interest. Nowt wrong with that.

What I won’t do is worry about collecting up people now so that they’ll all be there for me in the middle of the night or in 10 or 20 years, or if DP dies before me, or my legs fall off.

It reminds me of that book “How to win friends and influence people”, which said (something along the lines of) you need to cultivate friendships with people with different skills so you always know a plumber, or a lawyer, etc. and you should give them little presents so they remember you 🤮