To be surprised by the amount of people on here who have no family and no friends to rely on

[fossilgap]

It always strikes me as odd that a couple only have each other and nobody else to call on , and this has been the same for years on here, it’s not a new thing.
Of course with the family, this could be by choice, but surely everybody has a mate or two left unless you live in total isolation

Exactly.

And it's hurtful.

So smug OPs like this serve no purpose other than to make the smug befriended posters feel better about themselves.

@AnxietyLevelMax youve hit the nail on the head

Well my mum is dead my dad is elderly . I have 2 close friends one lives 200
Miles away and the other is busy with work and her own family. Can't see why that's unusual?

Just imagine not answering the door or phone though! 😆😆
An online forum gives some of these seriously weird fish a voice though.
I guess because they don’t really have much of a voice IRL because its tricky to get your point across when you keep doors closed and leave phones unanswered 😂😂

I've not read the full thread but DH and I didn't have many options when our son was small. Both families lived a distance away although my mum did come when we both had flu at the same time, and used to help for a few days in the holidays and also helped during the staggered start at school (which thankfully only lasted three weeks in our case). DH's parents were too elderly to help.

I didn't have many school mum friends but did have a couple of people I could have called upon in an absolute emergency - thankfully we never had one.

It's not easy to make school mum friends when many school mums are cliquey and/or work themselves. And I'd never have called on work colleagues to help, not that they always lived close by. They did help me get home on time when trains were cancelled though.

So we weren't completely bereft of help, but I can completely see how hard it can be to find the help, or feel you can ask. It probably also depends where you live - some neighbourhoods and areas are friendlier than others.

You come across as pretentious op.

This can happen to anyone through no fault of their own.
Not everyone has a rock solid family behind them, and friendships can soon disappear if one party has a change of circumstance.
You need to learn some empathy.

What seems strange to me is how all these people with no friends just their DH. How did you actually get to meet him? Or is it just internet dating? Everyone ive had a relationship with I've met while out socialising.

Or did you used to have friends then ditched them once you were coupled up

I agree with this. In both my DC's classes, if I was really stuck and they needed a lift to school, I could ask in the WhatsApp group and someone would go out of their way to collect them for a day or two.

I find it surprising when people say that they couldn't do that - but I may be judging based on my SIL, who refuses to join the WhatsApp groups for her DCs' classes because she can't be bothered with the other parents, who, according to her, "Don't even have jobs" and therefore she has "nothing in common with them". She then wonders why she's stuck when she can't do drop-off some day. It would also never occur to her to offer the same favour to someone else, though.

I think making friends is a totally different thing, and much more difficult; I can totally understand why even someone very outgoing and friendly would struggle, never mind someone quiet and reserved (like me).

I have experienced this and it was very painful. I felt stupid like how could I not see this was a one sided friendship? Plus when you get something serious and you simply can’t go out, even if you desperately wanted to. It’s like you were of no use anymore. My friendship couldn’t recover either.

We didn’t meet online but at a work conference. I had work friends and other friends. Now 15 years later, I WFH all the time (fully remote company, nearly nobody in England), my friends have moved away, are no longer friends, moved back to their home country. I struggled to make school mum friends due to pandemic and work. (Always working FT couldn’t host play dates or coffee dates). I have friends but nobody close enough to help with a lift to school and too scared to ask in the whatsapp group.

I’ve been thinking about this recently op.

In the far past we would’ve lived in communities with all of our extended families down the road or across the field. We’d have a village’ to call upon. Now we live in nuclear families isolated from extended family as we are all so spread about. It’s sad really.

We used to live in DP's hometown and had no-one. ILs are young (late 40s and very early 50s), in good health and have plenty of free time, but were not that interested in seeing us, and were often visibly uncomfortable at even a visit from us and kids. I worked from home so found it difficult to make even the 3 friends I eventually had over 5 years.
Now living near my hometown, we have my parents who are keen to be involved and spend as much time with the kids as possible, plus an extended family who are always happy to see us and a good amount of friends.
It really is possible to have no-one but your partner, I found it incredibly difficult, miserable and isolating living near DP's family, nowhere near my own.

Not surprising for a lot of us. My own reasons:
moved hundreds of miles from home town
work full-time and don’t wfh.
never did school runs due to nature of job.
carer for parents on both sides until they died
hundreds of miles away from siblings
parents not British so no British extended family
Had a child who had a late diagnosis of ASD and many co- morbids and hasn’t got friends.

I don’t think it takes a huge feat of empathy to realise that not everyone has parents and family who can help with childcare, not everyone works part-time/is able to do school runs , a lot of people have responsibilities beyond their own children and their job and that not everyone is as lucky as some of the people on the thread who have a great deal of support from family.

Can you not actually go out locally. Join clubs quiz nights etc! Leave any kids with DH? So you actually make local friends.

Again why are people only going on about kids and childcare? The whole thread is about friends to rely on. Not necessarily anything to do with bloody kids. When I was in hospital a month my friends all rallied round. Bringing me food gossip etc. I've helped all of them out at various times etc. None of it has to do with kids though and think the point of the thread is being diverted

But others who you have not considered might be happy helping you out? I'm a Sahm and always available for pick up/go to school/etc and I have offfered my "services" especially to single working mums. It makes me happy to be useful and I love being around children so it's a winwin. I think some are too afraid to bother others when in fact it can be a pleasure to help out if you can.

I agree with this. In both my DC's classes, if I was really stuck and they needed a lift to school, I could ask in the WhatsApp group and someone would go out of their way to collect them for a day or two.

I find it surprising when people say that they couldn't do that

I guess your DC didn't have complex needs and were not ostracised by the rest of the class (and mums). No invites to class parties, no play dates, not even the other mums want to talk to you. People can be very cruel esp to DC who are 'different'. It's not really that hard to imagine why it's not really as simple for some people.

I actually think it’s quite surprising that your surprised op. There have been stories forever of bodies being found in homes and no one missed them. The lady in London who was wrapping Christmas presents before she died, they must of been for someone but it was over 2 years before her body was discovered.

There was another lady who had schizophrenia who had alienated her family apparently, obviously not by choice, but again it was years before her body was found at home. These stories come out all the time.

We also live in a society now where people work longer hours, further distances from where they live, fill their free time full of events and activities making it harder to make new attachments and friends, or even notice other people.

I’ve always been a sociable person who no matter where I live would know most if not all my surrounding neighbours by sight as I’d take in my surroundings. Not these days, there are loads of houses around me that I would not have a clue who lives there, I might know which car belongs to which house but couldn’t pick out the person who lived there. I remember during lockdown wondering who all these people walking past my house were, they were neighbours who I’d never seen before because they were obviously busy people who were never home, im a SAHM so home a lot, I’m also the go to house for couriers as most know I’m happy to take parcels in and still I couldn’t tell you what some of my neighbours look like.

I do know the elderly lady who use to live behind, she had slowly alienated everyone in her life with the exception of her daughter who tolerated her. Her son, daughter-in-law, son-in-law and grandchildren all cut her off so after her lovely husband died she was all alone. She had a nasty fall, I saw her one day through her window looking all battered so knocked on her door to see if she was ok. No one knew about her fall she’d tried to dress her cuts herself. Her daughter was on holiday and she had no one else to call. She kept telling me she was ok but I couldn’t leave her but struggled to know what to do. I remembered her husband was buried through the local church and she always had a Jesus is risen sign in her window at Easter so figured she’d had had some connection with the church. The parish priest knew her, but even he wouldn’t go to her because of some reason. He was able to make contact with her son though and he arranged for someone to see her and take her to get checked. If I hadn’t have parked outside her house, which I don’t normally do, then who knows how long she’d had been like that. She couldn’t remember when she’d fallen or what she’d eaten but the bruises and scabs were at least a few days old. She was eventually moved into a home about 6 months later.

The sad reality is, there will always be people who don’t have others in their lives for many reasons.

Agree with this too for people I know in real life. If anyone at my child’s school said they had no one they could ask for a one off help with drop off or pick up then they would be mistaken. I would drop off or pick up someone’s kids even if I didn’t actually know them and take them home (as would many of the parents we know across all years of the school). Not only have we all done that in the past but most of us have also taken other kids for inset days, snow days or similar to help out.
In our case though it’s a small school with a catchment that has kids walking no more than about 10 minutes to get in and it’s no hardship for most people to pick up or drop off an extra en route. Many of the parents work from home in professional jobs with flexibility and it’s common for at least one of them to be part time. Most people know enough other parents that even if they don’t know you they will know one of your friends so it doesn’t feel like people are strangers and lots of the type to offer help also volunteer with cubs/brownies/sports/in school so you know they have dbs checks too. All that helps people feel comfortable giving &/or accepting help and the more people offer then generally the more comfortable people feel asking.
In general though I can see how people struggle as if it’s a bigger school with a dispersed catchment, parents with less flexibility and less connections. Also not everyone’s kids are comfortable to be picked up by someone they don’t know well and not everyone feels comfortable with someone having their kids for any time at all unless they know them really well.

I find it shocking and worrying how prevalent this is tbh.

I think there are people who struggle with this through no fault of their own and due to circumstances beyond their control: distance from their friendship groups, issues such as caring for sick or disabled children or anxiety or depression.

Bur there’s also a sizeable subset of people who seem to actively espouse the view that not only do you not need friends after you are married but friendships are a distraction and a burden. I thought people were joking when I first read this on here but a lot of people actually go out of their way to avoid having friends. I call them the “my little family” people: they seem to shut the world out.

I find it really worrying that people think like this. I don’t know if it’s a COVID hangover or just harking back to an era when women were basically expected to prioritise their husbands over everyone else and “modestly” shut themselves away.

Friendship is one of the greatest gifts you can have and a powerful protective factor against loneliness and anxiety, not to mention abuse and neglect. No spouse, however wonderful, can give you everything.

My family live on the other side of the world and I don’t really have any proper friends. It scares me that I have no one to turn to in an emergency. I’m an introvert and probably autistic and have always struggled with friendships. I’ve had friends at work from time to time but it’s a job where people usually move on (and move away) after a few years so most of these have been transient. Made a few friends through NCT during mat leave but everyone went their own way after going back to work and mostly lost touch and never got much further than surface chit chat with them anyway.

Now I have a toddler and work almost full time so wouldn’t have time (or energy) to form new friendships or take up a hobby to meet people even if I wanted to.

I am currently in a relationship but I have a history of being single or in abusive relationships so because of that I have prioritised my children and my friends and I have lots of close friends. So I wonder if I have needed friends more because I was single most of the time.
If I had been happily married then maybe I would have felt less need for friends.
Also, I missed a lot of events when my children were younger as I had no babysitter as I was a single parent. I also hated leaving them. Now they are 15 and 17 years old and I'm making much more effort with friends as my eldest lives away during the week (raf) and my youngest wants to go to uni at 18 so I know I need to make a life for myself. So maybe people have more/ less friends at different times in their lives.
There is so much to juggle in life that I am not surprised people lose touch with friends.

Think yourself lucky then.

I am estranged from most of my extended family and the rest are pretty toxic so are the last people I would depend on for emotional support.

You are very fortunate to be surprised at this.

Yeah it’s super easy to make local friends. A lot of people don’t want any more friends. People also go in groups to quiz nights. I have kids, a busy job, a volunteer role, a DH who often travels, I go to the gym and sometimes I am tired. I wouldn’t even know what club to join to make friends. Plus a new friend doesn’t mean I could ask them to drive my child to
school at 8am or call in an emergency.

I enjoyed having friends at different times, some were close. It was nice doing interesting things together and having fun. However I am now quite content to be on my own and wouldn't seek any new friendships. I am not unfriendly, just not bothered about starting anything up.