To be feeling incredibly sad about not having a cohesive friendship group/wider circle of friends?

[FairTurtle]

I am feeling so utterly miserable about my social life and situation. Sorry for the vent.

I feel bad saying this. I do have friends - two close ones from university, and one really close one from elsewhere. A few others from here and there. I'm always able to make plans/see someone for a drink/go to the theatre/have dinner with someone etc. With the two uni friends, we socialise much more casually too, and hang out all day at someone's house, for example.

However, I was a bit shy at university and going through some personal stuff. Entirely my fault. But I didn't make as much effort to socialise broadly and haven't ended up with a large group of friends/wider network of people I'm in touch with. I'm in my 30s now and most people I meet seem to have a handful of close friends, but often they're part of a larger group and a wider social network of friends and acquaintances. Besides my two university friends, most of the other friends I have are just from here and there, and are individual friendships. I know I could host parties etc and get people together, which I have done in the past, but I don't necessarily think they'd all gel, and in any case it's just not the same as that feeling of affection that comes from the shared history large friendship groups have due to spending a lot of time in the same place.

I make a lot of effort to keep in touch with the friends I do have, but still feel incredibly lonely sometimes. It would be so lovely to have a larger group of friends, walk into a room with several people I know well, and be invited to more things, and just have that extended network of "friends of friends" and lots of people around.

Obviously I'm going to keep making efforts to socialise and say yes to things, maybe join a book club etc, but realistically I just don't see how I will be able to create that friendship group for myself from scratch. I don't have a partner and that feels like something I also want to change, but honestly the friendship thing is getting me down more right now. One of my close university friends, who is absolutely lovely, has such a wide circle of people she's in touch with from university and elsewhere, and her lifestyle is just filled with people and activities and stories. I feel so jealous and my life feels so small in comparison. But I don't actually feel like less of a sociable person, or less interesting, or less fun/likeable than her! It's all down to choices I made. University is typically the time you build these kind of friendships and networks that you're connected with long after, and I didn't utilise the time well in that regard, having come away with only two close friends and no acquaintances.

Not sure what I'm looking for really. Advice? Commiseration? Similar experiences? Positive stories of establishing close friendship groups later in life? Thanks for reading.

I have sometimes been part of bigger groups, but they haven't lasted a hugely long time, I mean a few years in a particular place or context but my more enduring friendships are all more one to one. Once many of my friends settled down and had children and moved to different locations, the opportunities to do group stuff has been very limited, I have had a few old friend group get togethers, but that's every few years, not of the intensity of university or early twenties life. I also meet up with mums who I've known for years, but again, this is once every few months, we find finding times everyone can do is quite hard.

I do think there's a bit of idealisation going on here by you- hardly anyone has come on and said they have big groups they socialise with for years, I'm not saying it can't happen, but I'm not sure it's the norm.

It sounds like what you are missing a bit is either a community (so like church, a MeetUp group who have a shared hobby or a social one) or day to day friends who might be around on weekends/evenings a bit more than your current friendships- and those are both things that can be achieved more easily than this 'group' which I'm not sure many people have in reality (except at university or early twenties with work).

Op it does sound like you want a community around you. So either join a sports club or some sort of social club, drama, music, dance, photography language class, even a church, whatever is available locally that you are interested in would help you expand your social circles.

One issue with trying to get a group of 4 or 5 out together is it becomes a nightmare trying to get a date that suits everyone.
So if your looking for a group it needs to be a existing group of people.

I also think if you are early thirties and you would like to have a relationship, then now is a good time to think which groups or MeetUp socials or speed dating events would work for you. I do recognise the problem that if you have lots of individual friends, then it's ok to go for coffee individually but you aren't going to then organically meet people and make the kind of connections you'd like either romantically or with friends either. I think you have to be a bit more intentional about it- so my friends have done well joining things like running club, rowing club, walking club, less men in choirs but lots of friends. Things which have both a hobby and a social element (sailing). My worry with a book club is it's lovely to cement friendships in that group, but if you are looking for a partner, you may want a wider group with more dynamism in it.

I think the workplace used to provide a lot of this friendship and opportunity to meet partners, less so since working from home/hybrid came in and less when you start to enter your thirties and others settle down- so you are right that things probably could do with a shake up on that front.

Other people don't make friends as 'backups' either, but they often have other casual friends/acquaintances in a slightly wider circle, which happens naturally if you socialise as a group.

"very happy to have 2/3 close friends."

Until one of them moves or becomes otherwise unavailable...

"One issue with trying to get a group of 4 or 5 out together is it becomes a nightmare trying to get a date that suits everyone."

It depends on the type of friends. If you are a group of single and childless people then you'll have quite a lot of availability. In my wa group, there are people who are sometimes away for the weekend or have a concert booked, but most of us are free at least either Friday or Saturday night most weekends.

And of course, we don't all always go. We have a group of about 7 or 8 and you only need 1 or 2 people to be free.

Yes group things are nice. Its harder now my friend is juggling elder parents. Harder to get people free. They a solid group they great. I found people flaky since covid though