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.

Yes op its difficult. I met a few through kids sports. People so busy now or cancel at last minute. Puts you off doing things. Ive few school mam friends too

I thought the definition of a true friend was someone who you could turn to when you were in dire need and they would help you without question, regardless of where or when. A lot of people I know say they have endless friends but in reality they have met them maybe only once. They are just casual acquaintances.

On that basis I have no friends. It doesn't bother me.

I think that you can criticise a trend like people ditching all their friends after starting a family without blaming the individuals.

My perspective is a bit different. My parents both worked and both thought that spending time with friends was really important. My mum is now in her 80s.

There’s a very negative vibe “out there” and a tendency for people to spend a huge amount of time doom scrolling and she is picking up on that too. I have never talked to her about it. She raised it independently.

I have actually had a teenager say to me that to some extent the Internet has replaced friendships.

@WhatNoRaisins “I think it's a bit of a spiral, less people seek real life connection, the options get poorer, more people give up on seeking real life connections after finding the opportunities are actually really limited.“

that’s definitely happening to me and the local community centre have said that no one attends anything anymore, so most of what they run has closed down.

The managers are looking for other jobs because it’s a matter of time before someone turns it into flats. I moved here last year but they tell me this is a direct effect of lockdown, in their view.

I haven’t been on this thread from the beginning so I haven’t read all of it.

I definitely struggle because people I thought were really good friends disappeared into their little family in lockdown and didn’t come out.

I can only assume that’s what they always wanted.

I am now in a position where I feel self-conscious trying to meet people.

Definitely lacking in confidence to do it now and also wondering if all that happens if I try is - well, nothing.

If the prevailing culture is that people find friends unimportant, I don’t think there’s any point trying to fight it.

Obviously, one person can only see things from one perspective.

But my perspective is that if social media is any barometer, people say that they’re lonely, it gets discussed a lot, but they don’t really want company unless it’s finding a partner and having children.

On the flipside, the people who told me I would end up very alone if I didn’t want a partner and or children may feel that they were proved right.

but mum has had a couple of stays in a care home, and a few hospital stays - and it didn’t look like many children were visiting their parents.

I'm not sure that 'helping unquestioningly in dire need' is actually very useful as a test of friendship (because most of the time, most people are not in dire need and require different things from friendships -- what would be the point of someone whose company you didn't enjoy, but whom you knew would drive you to A and E at 3 am if needed?), but, even if it were, those friendships don't emerge out of the blue. suddenly, when you're in need! They've been built up gradually, over time, and once upon a time they were just recent, casual acquaintances.

I met two women on the first day of my MA in the late 90s. One I immediately warmed to, the other didn't particularly appeal to me, as I found her blunt and confrontational. Guess which one I've just come back from holiday with, and whose children are my godchildren, and to whom I've always remained close all these years on, after many moves on both our parts? You can't always tell which acquaintances will become friends, and which friends will stick.

If the prevailing culture is that people find friends unimportant, I don’t think there’s any point trying to fight it.

Obviously, one person can only see things from one perspective.

But my perspective is that if social media is any barometer, people say that they’re lonely, it gets discussed a lot, but they don’t really want company unless it’s finding a partner and having children.

@EmeraldRoulette, but I don't think the prevailing culture is that 'people find friends important' -- judging by the regularity of threads about loneliness and longing for friendships on Mn, often from people who are married/in a relationship, and some of whom have children, it's very much a live issue. And one that doesn't appear to be solved by being married with children, either.

I do think Covid caused a proportion of people to stop using their social muscle, and some of them drifted out of existing friendships and friendship networks, and then never went back to working that muscle back to full fitness because it felt too hard, as with any kind of unfitness you start to tackle.

And of course there are all kinds of other contributory factors, some of them no fault of the lonely person. Sometimes a person is a poor fit for their environment. If I'd stayed living in one particular spot where I (despite being socially confident) never made friends in all the time I lived there and did all the usual things that have worked well in other places, I would have been lonely. People with chronic mental or physical health conditions can struggle with friendships.

Having said that, two of my friends whom I think are best of anyone I knew at seeking out and maintaining friendships are lifelong single and childfree, and both have had complex longterm illnesses.

@MidYearDiary I really apologise if I am being thick or if I am being too polarised in my thinking. I can’t tell if you are blaming me for my situation or sympathising with me 😂

Why would I be blaming you for anything? All I know is what you said in your post. I'm sorry that you feel self-conscious about trying to make friends.

I've made some new friends doing a regular beach litterpick recently, and I'm also planning to join a cinema club in my city, which shows arthouse films with a glass of wine and a chance for discussion afterwards. Another thing I don't currently have time for, but which sounds great, is a local community arts project that does a annual Halloween parade looking for volunteers to help make costumes and floats.

I wouldn't necessarily write off the friends who dropped out of sight during Covid -- it may be that they are trying to get back on the social saddle and would welcome a proposed coffee?

@MidYearDiary ”I wouldn't necessarily write off the friends who dropped out of sight during Covid -- it may be that they are trying to get back on the social saddle and would welcome a proposed coffee?”

no, they have been extremely clear that they “don’t have time” for that and they adored lockdown.

I almost didn’t post here as it’s so depressing to think about it all (I’ve posted extensively on MN about this). So I am sorry if I misinterpreted your post. I have tried literally everything and as other posters have said, you become damaged and strange so that probably colours my interpretation of posts. I’ll bow out now.

I've also lost friends to "busyness" Emerald roulette. It's not your fault but I think it can make you start to doubt yourself when it happens. It takes a real toll on you when you keep trying things and nothing seems to work.

Don’t bow out of the whole friendship thing, @EmeraldRoulette — I do know exactly what it’s like when you start to doubt yourself. I had that very lonely period of years when, despite doing all the right things, no one wanted to be my friend. Looking back, it was just an environment where the kind of person who would value someone like me just didn’t crop up, but I did feel like a leper. For years.

Fortunately, things were immediately much better after we moved, despite being just before Covid. In fact that says a lot, doesn’t it, that I immediately encountered more friendliness, despite a global pandemic getting in the way?

I'm not always convinced by that saying wherever you go there you are. Sometimes a place can be the wrong place for you.

That’s absolutely true in my experience. On paper, the place where I was so lonely was a perfectly fine idea. In practice, rolling tumbleweeds in terms of friendships. And I was exactly the same self that had never had issues making friends before or since.

I’m in my mid thirties and I’ve got friends who are the same age but also much older than me. I go for days/evenings out with women and men in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Due to my volunteering and attending support groups for people with MH issues I’ve met a wide variety of people. I recently went to a 70th birthday party and except one other person, I was the youngest one there. Doesn’t bother me though, I enjoy their company and we all have a laugh.

What is a girl's bottomless brunch? I can't help but imagine it's women eating brunch in their panties, but if course that can't be right. Does it mean a drunk brunch, as in a bottomless glass? If so I would hate it too, but not because of the sex of the company.

You really couldn't think of anything worse than going out with a group who are all women? Surely that's hyperbole. I'm curious as to what exactly men bring to the table that makes it better. Perhaps you like talking about sports? In my experience that covers roughly 50% of most men's conversation, with about 30% being sniggering childishly about sex (and how hot this or that woman is) and only 20% about current events and other topics. There are, of course, a lot of exceptions, but that's the average male age 18-60. After 60 the sex talk nosedives and the sports talk is often about golf. 🥱

Same @Multicolouredstars . Well, I'm much older than you, but I have friends in their 90s and friends in their 20s. I have friends who are like me and friends where the only thing we have in common is the thing we do together. I am never closed to being friendly, and never closed to the idea of going along to something (except where it is the odd thing that I have already tried and really not liked).
I think if you rely on one part of your life for friendships, then when that part of your life changes, you tend to drift away from that group of friends. From when your dc are at school, I think it is hugely important that they do something (or things) outside of school, where they meet up with different dc. It makes all friendships less intense as no-one is relying on 1 person, or one small group of people to meet all their needs, so therefore isn't upset to hear Friend A went out with friend B but didn't ask you (as you see so often on MN, where people make it an issue).

Nope I'm South East UK and permanently single if anyone wants to PM me.
I like cinema and theatre..

Yeah, I agree with this. I regret staying in the town I live in for so long. Will move when I retire to meet different people but keep in touch with the few friends that I have

i always thought that was what introvert and extrovert meant, but I learnt on one of these self-awareness management course things that it is slightly different.
If I recall correctly, it is more about getting and taking energy. So for example, extroverts are energised by other people’s company, whereas for introverts, other people’s company is draining.
So I thought I was an introvert because I don’t have multiple friends and social occasions and generally feel like I don’t fit in, so to speak, but I went into this course early and started chatting away. When we did the personality test thing, I came out as extrovert, which the facilitator said was not surprising because I had started interacting right away.
Reflecting on this, being around or with other people is just much better for me mentally. And yet, I am a single parent and I work full-time, so it has been very difficult to sustain a social or non-work/non-children-related life for myself and the pandemic just knocked things on the head completely. And it is a bit of a viscous (sp?) circle because when I am actually out, aside from with close friends of which I have a couple, I feel a bit awkward because people have families and friends and functioning marriages and plans and I am like 🤷🏻‍♀️what do I contribute here to this conversation? So I come across as more introverted sometimes.

I suppose we usually talk about draining energy in a very negative way. It can be neutral, spending time with others is energy draining but I'm perfectly happy to use some of my energy to spend time in good company. Neither an isolated life nor a life where I'm never alone would suit.

@NowImNotDoingIt

Assuming most of it is self inflicted is akin to what was she wearing and how much did she have to drink. Shit happens. Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Being smug about it is not a good look.

Not sure if this is aimed at me?

Look clearly it’s not all self inflicted. Some people genuinely struggle with social stuff and others have had circumstancial factors. Life gets in the way.

But I don’t think it’s smug to point out that there’s an obvious correlation between people who celebrate the withdrawal into the family and the people who lament the fact they have no friends.

I also think, as I have said here many times, the celebration of the retreat into isolation which flies under the fig leaf of “being an introvert” is profoundly toxic and actually quite dangerous.

You can’t avoid the loss of friendships altogether and you can’t force people to like you. But you do need to keep the “social muscle”. You need to maintain at least the outlook that allows you to conceive that it’s possible to make friends. And this celebration of “introversion” (not actually introversion at all but misanthropy and anxiety) acts as a brake which prevents people keeping this social muscle alive. And we really need to call it out as the dangerous rubbish it is.

I’m just in the middle of reading Friendaholic by Elizabeth Day and how we all approach friendship differently. She talks about her own experience of some amazing friends and some not so great ‘frenemies’ over the years. Also, how some people are quite happy with just one or two close pals, whereas she felt societal pressure to have loads - and that didn’t always work out well for her. I did wonder if any of these individuals recognised themselves as some fairly outing details!

Exactly. I’m at base an introvert, but a sociable one. I’m socially confident, have longterm friendships, my friends are very important to me, I’m good at arriving somewhere new and figuring out how to encounter the kind of people I like, my friends enrich my life and I definitely need social interaction, BUT being around others, while I enjoy it, does drain rather than energise me, and I need lots of solitary time to recharge again.

Introverts can of course be shy and socially awkward, but they don’t have to be.

Even if you are an actual introvert as opposed to someone using this as a cover story to be antisocial (which is the vast majority of people in my experience) you still need relationships. You still need some social contact and the ability to use that contact in a positive way.

It’s turned into this sort of social cachet to prove how much of an introvert you are, a bit like celebrating your counterculture credentials in the 60s. It’s just another trend which will pass when people wake up and realise it’s not so much fun to have no friends.

The trouble is it’s the people who desperately need friends who are influenced by this crap.

Are you me? That is exactly whst I am like. I saw it described as being a non-shy introvert. Being amongst people holds no fears for me, I can talk to anyone, love other people's company and especially my friends but time alone to replenish is sacrosanct. If I thought I couldn't get decent chunks of it then that WOULD make me anxious and unhappy. I am separated for 8 years, have my children half the time and to be honest,vthat set up probably suits me pretty well. I would never live with a man again.