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.

It’s a funny one. Moving around is why I have quite a lot of good friends - despite not seeing them all a lot - but conversely, moving around is probably why I don’t have a tight friendship group.

I have friends here and there and some of them know each other from uni or socialising etc, so we can meet in 3s or 4s sometimes but I don’t have a friendship group as such.

I would agree with this. Friends scattered but friends none the less. But no tight group.

Also when moving and living abroad, 'locals' didn't often invest in the friendships, it was often ex pats (from UK and other countries) as we were in the same boat. I couldn't blame them, they were used to us coming and going so it was always kept quite superficial.

@Duckduckgoose24

Yes definitely, I lived in an East Asian country for a couple of years and all of my friends I met over there that I still keep in touch with were fellow foreigners from the UK, Australia, and mainly the States.

It really isn't. Pre-industrial Revolution and mass transit, sure, but since then, it's very, very common.

That's very recent in terms of human history. I don't think we can change as fast as that.

Think everyone so busy now. I find unless I chase friends.. that gets tiring too. Wends fill up fast too. Meeting school mam friday

Yes, it's recent in terms of human history, but I don't think it's so recent our relationship patterns haven't had time to catch up.

I have lots of people I get along with, colleagues etc… but no, I don’t have any friends and certainly none who I socialise with.

I’m ok with this though and prefer my own company, so it doesn’t bother me. I get two days off a week and it would annoy me to have to spend time meeting people on top of everything else I have to do, so I’m quite content.

I'm not convinced that our relationship patterns really have caught up, loneliness seems endemic and our advice on how to make friends obviously isn't working for many people. I think technology to keep in touch has probably helped in some cases though.

@WhatNoRaisins

I’m not sure about that. If you think back to agrarian communities maybe but certainly since the 19th century people have had to move around for reasons.

Almost the entire population of the US has immigrated there (or been forcibly moved there).

I don’t know how long it takes for evolution to catch up with human psychology (probably a lot longer than a few generations) but I think migration and moving around are fairly established human habits.

@Getmeahobnobstat

I get two days off a week and it would annoy me to have to spend time meeting people on top of everything else I have to do, so I’m quite content.

Blimey: This is so exactly the opposite of how I feel.

But surely some of those migrations would have been groups of people moving together. Or nomadic people who would change location but stick with the same group. I think that's a different thing to people or even small families moving alone to different places and having to try and build up a social network from scratch.

I get that we can't just go back to an idealised version of any time period though.

Not just you OP. x