To feel as though I’ve no friends?

[Honestlynofriends]

Despite being quite young I feel like I have no friends. There’s maybe one or two people I would class as friends but they live very far away and are at vastly different stages of life.

I left school at 16 as most do. The pandemic hit as I was nearing the end of my degree, which I’d stayed at home for anyway.

I’m now mid 20s with a lovely DH, we’re newly married and have been together for coming up to 5 years. This year we bought our first home and we are expecting our first baby in autumn.

I/we just really feel as though we have no friends and I’m posting because I do sense it’s not very normal for our age. We are introverted anyway which probably doesn’t help and both have very demanding careers which mean we don’t have much free time and any we do have we spend with one another or visiting our families.

I feel like a fish out of water really at work as everyone I work with has always been 10+ years older than me, no colleagues my age. This has been the case from my weekend job, to my training, to now, my permanent salaried profession!

If you were or have been me, what would you suggest? I think being pregnant is making me extra aware of who we have and haven’t got in our network if that makes sense, so it’s possible I’m more sensitive to it and it’s actually somewhat normal?

Would you consider joining an antenatal group to see if you can make friends with anyone who is due a baby at a similar time? For some it works brilliantly although it’s not a guaranteed success.

I think many people find it like this nowadays. Do you think anyone at work or on your street you could get to know better? Maybe look at a pregnancy yoga group to get to know others, and once baby is here you might see the same faces at the park of baby groups and hit it off? I've had friends rave about the Peanut app, and there's another app for meeting other mum friends. You will meet so many people over the next few years, and once your little one starts school you'll be going to birthday parties or play dates and may make really good parent friends. Don't worry about it though, it sounds like you have a lot of life's blessings and I'm sure in your next life phase you will make good friends, if it something you both want - sounds like you're in the right place to

Where are you based? I have a 6 month old baby (and a 4 year old) and a high demand career and I’ll be your friend!