Does anyone else not really have any friends?

[Hernamewaslola22]

Wondering if it's just me. I have friends at work and 1 or 2 out of work...we very very rarely do anything together. I spend most weekends completely alone. I feel like most women have these big groups of girlfriends.

I also wonder if part of itnis thar, if you help a stranger, you're not setting a precedent. That stranger isn't going to call on you to help them again.

@SeaweedSundress I think a stranger in a crisis that they can literally see is likely to help and I’m glad that you got help

but if I had to go to A&E or something I don’t think anyone would help. Especially at night. I hope I never have to find out I guess though lots of people do just have to go alone.

I didn't say it was 'better'.

@GreyCarpet

I didn't say it was 'better'

No you didn’t say it was better but you and several other people on this thread have suggested it’s easier to read and more straightforward.

Firstly I don’t agree with this because men’s motivations for dating (as another poster mentioned) is often incredibly hard to read and can range from looking for a wife to a quick and easy extramarital shag with everything in between. And often extremely dishonest.

But also surely it’s very obvious that persevering with a more complex relationship which isn’t about sex (in whatever form) is likely to be more rewarding than one which is? And surely it’s got to be worth more?

My Mum would be mid 90s if she were still alive, but was quite the opposite of your mother. She always felt it was really important to have your own activities / friends / life as well as your dh, your dc, and your work.
I can honestly say I've never heard anyone voice your Mum's ideas, and I chat to lots and lots of different people.

Totally agree with this.
I have tried to say similar on many of the weekly "I haven't got any friends" threads, but I've not managed to articulate it as well as you.

I agree wholeheartedly. However, they might just mean that it's easier to meet men and to figure out what men are looking for, which is true.

Yes...for me it's easier...not better. I have no particular interest in making male friends nor do I value men over women. I just always found it really easy to find a boyfriend...and really difficult to make female friends. But in terms of friendship I much prefer female company

It really, really isn't 'standard'

I have found the same.
Men (on average) tend to make poor companions compared to other women. You can't talk about anything deep with them. Anything involving feelings either annoys them or scares them.

Well, if you’d asked me that at the time, I would have said there was literally no one to help. It turned out there was. And I didn’t think the situational friend would turn out to be so great either when I was really scared about my surgery and the two people I would normally turn to weren’t there. People can surprise you. In good ways as well as bad.

I did once have to go to an and e by myself at 3 am, in horrible pain, and it was pretty miserable, but I ended up holding hands under a cubicle curtain with someone whose face I never saw.

My best friend and I parted ways recently due to her constant lying. I had a group of friends from uni but I was the only one who went onto have children and it caused us to drift apart.
So at present zero friends. Lots of acquaintances through the kids school etc but no one who’d give me a birthday card or I could have a coffee and chat with.
it makes me sad. I’m very busy as a single parent but when the kids grow up I think I’ll be lonely and it will be too late.

i have loads online(support groups etc) but lost "physical ones" winter 20, though no fault of my own as my way of life was taken away from me overnight
my ex left us for my (ex)friend(he went our for McDonalds and never came home, found out next morning he's moved in with her) and as he was the driver the home education groups we attended for years was taken away from us as i don't drive and was 30 mins away by car i had no means of getting there, same with a disability group we attended regularly
for years were out 3-4 times a day to various places and groups and made great friends and connections
as i couldn't attend they wained off

the kids suffered as well as their friendships was taken away

then i had a breakdown in dec 2022(caused by SS as i was fighting a false FII case by a corrupt SW)
im still not 100% recovered
twin that with a unexpected ADHD Inattentive diagnoses april 2023 at 42 and half ive had a tough few years

I'm also a lone parent/carer to disabled kids that need 24/7 care and i get zero help

Thinking about it I do think that "being open to making a new friend" is a thing for some people. I've known lots of people both here and in real life say that they just focus on "their little family", surely that's the very definition of not being open.

It's also complicated by the very different definitions of friendship. For example people that go to a group once a month as their night off from the kids. This can be very fulfilling for them and they may consider others in the group friends. To a person joining the group looking to make friends that would also see them outside of the group these people are "not open".

Yes the "my little family" and "I don't like drama" has become an MN trope. Personally, none of my friends have brought drama to my life, and I am not content with my little family! Also, my family is not content to spend all their time with me.

I mean you get the odd toxic friend but surely if you find that you can't have friends without it all descending into "drama" you need to look at your own behaviour.

@NewName24

OK maybe standard isn’t right. My point is it’s much more understandable for a woman born 80 years ago than one who has lived through feminism. As most of these posters have.

Agree with this. I really dislike the use of the word “drama” as a catch all shorthand for people disagreeing or sticking up for themselves.

Friendshops and relationships involve some friction sometimes. Walking away from the because there’s been a difference of opinion is childish and counterproductive.

God yes. The “my little family” trope is so toxic.

The “my little family” people are often the same ones to complain they don’t have a “village” if a partner falls ill or leaves or even if they just want a babysitter or some help 😬

Yes they are always apparently incapable of making the connection between dumping all female friends when they get married or pregnant because it’s “too much drama” and waking up 20 years later lonely, bored and isolated because they only have one other adult to talk to.

It sounds harsh and there’s sometimes more to it than this with friendships but a lot of the time women are their own worst enemies.

The problem is the more people who see ditching all their friends when busy with families as normal the harder it gets for those who don't have families or who want friends as well as their family. If making and keeping new friends becomes this hard slog requiring loads of effort then more people will give up on it (and I'm guilty of this) making it harder for those that don't.

I was thinking about this thread in relation to another current thread whose OP had it taken down earlier today for fear of being outed in RL.

This other thread was about a woman in the OP's friendship group who was a sort of smallscale TikTok lifestyle guru, but who had posted a deeply insensitive weepy video clip about 'grieving for her son' when her son was just off at university, but the son of another friend in the group had actually died recently.

Despite this, the OP insisted in her OP that the Tiktok video friend was 'sweet' and 'well-meaning'.

Until she got a slew of replies saying that this woman was appalling, after which she suddenly did a 360* and said 'I KNEW I was right to think she was awful!' and started saying the friend who posted the video was 'without kindness' and that everyone was always asking her why she was friends with someone so awful.

With no indication whatsoever that she'd just changed her mind completely on her opinion of someone, because a bunch of strangers on the internet said this person's behaviour was awful.

What made me think of this thread was that this OP, who expressed herself in incredibly sugary language (everyone involved, until she changed her mind, was 'super kind' and 'totally selfless') had clearly never had any form of civil disagreement with any of her friends, face to face, ever. Her sole social mode appeared to be either breathless, over the top compliments, or, once she'd had her mind changed by the internet, complete condemnation. All of it online, none of it face to face or on the phone.

It's like making and keeping friends being a social muscle you need to keep exercising or you lose it -- negotiating potentially difficult territory with friends is also a muscle you need to train.

I think the 'making/keeping friends as muscle' analogy is useful, generally.

It's not that making and keeping friends is some terrible slog, like an ultramarathon in minus 40.

It's like recognising that some form of exercise is necessary in our lives to keep us healthy, that some people find exercise easier than others, and do train for marathons, while others are more 10,000 steps a day level. Some people have exercise built into their day because they have an active job, others have to seek it out, and work harder to find the opportunities, just like some people have 'built-in' socialising, whether because they have families who get along very well, or sociable jobs with colleagues they like etc, while others have to go out and make opportunities for friendships. Regardless, it's much better for our health to do it.

Most of my friends are male, and my two closest friends are male. i have a group of 3-4 women who i can rely on, but far more male friends.

I don't get on with traditional female groups. couldn't think of anything worse than a girls bottomless brunch, girls night out or anything. i like mixed gatherings. I've been to more stag do's than hen do's!

Well, I'm a 52 year old woman with lots of female friends who has never been to a girls' bottomless brunch, and while I've certainly been on lots of nights out that have been numerically all-female, or mostly-female, that's more a factor of who's around and wants to go out than some kind of exclusion on chromosomal grounds. I don't think most of my married friends had single-sex stag or hen dos. DH and I didn't.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think that what you are describing is in fact 'traditional'. Not for 2024.