Its hard making friends as a single woman in your 30s

[tropicalroses]

There was a thread on here the other day about how many presents you receive. What struck me was the disparity between people with families who would then also maybe have 2 or 3 friends who were also close enough to be gift givers, versus the single women who didn't receive anything from children and partners, but also who don't have the close friends. I think some of it may be that as your friends hit the life stages of married and kids the single ones drift away.

BUT, there was also an article in the paper at the end of last year about how isolating country life can be when you're single. The author pointed out that being a single woman in her 40s made other women keep her at arms length to keep her away from their husbands. So they might meet for a coffee, but never be invited to a BBQ or round for dinner.

The comments under the article said many recognised this too. To me it seems hugely unkind- but since I read the article I do recognise it more and more. I moved to a new village recently and whilst I have my dog walking pals, any suggestion to deepen the friendships are batted away. I know its not because they don't like me- if they didn't then we wouldn't meet so regularly!!

I guess over the years I am starting to feel more lonely. And whilst my family would say get out there and do more and meet more people, those friendships never seem to go beyond the gym walls, or the dog walk. I really am starting to think as the article suggests that other women see you ask a walking risk.

My question would be, why isolate yourself in a village if you want to make friends?

You need to recognise that your choices have consequences and prioritise.

And... join things full of other singles. There are plenty of single people in their 30s making friends. Just not by doing what you're doing.

And... why make this about the women? Are men flocking to be your friend? If not I guess they're not very 'kind' either.

This. I moved to a village in my 30s, with a DH and a baby whom I took to baby/toddler groups and who later went to school in the village school, and as a socially-confident person who’d never had any issues making friends previously, and it was the loneliest period of my life.

It had nothing to do with my marital status — it was just an insular place with very few incomers, where most people had grown up together and didn’t really have a concept of ‘making friends with a stranger’.

You're just limiting yourself significantly by moving to somewhere with fewer peiole.

I don’t think I agree with the motive attributed in the OP.

I see my friends on my own. I see couples friends with DP. He sees his friends on his own.

I am not “keeping them away from my husband”, I am socialising with my mates and he with his. Just because I enjoy someone’s company doesn’t mean she and DP will get along, nor that I need them to meet and approve my partner (nor my partner approve my mates).

I have meals out with friends, or go to the cinema or theatre, go for walks, meet for lunch - loads of things that aren’t inviting them over for dinner. I also exchange birthday presents. But I maintain friendships on my own, I don’t rope a partner or spouse into it.

Honestly I think friendships are the first thing to go when people are juggling too much in life. I'd probably feel guilty starting a new friendship deeper than a few coffees atm because I know I just don't have the time to maintain it! I focus on the few close friends I've always had (though we've also drifted apart a little) and that's pretty much it.

Women in their thirties with jobs, children and partners are generally really busy. I had to keep making younger friends without children in my thirties when I was single. I’d just keep trying different things thst you enjoy until you meet people with time for new friends, maybe in the nearest town.

Are you near a city OP?

you basically need to find your own kind.

im in a ltr and in my 40’s now, but i remember this before i got married.

i think you

So I met a man when I moved here on a dog walk, the dogs got on well and we would walk probably 2 or 3 mornings a week. His wife came with us on a walk in January and I haven't seen him since...

Have you had close friendships in the past? School, uni, jobs etc? Your phrase about acquaintances batting away efforts to deepen the relationships is interesting. Can you give an example?

Well I think if you want to make life difficult for yourself, then create a story about jealous wives, while ignoring the obviousness of your choices having consequences, you're free to do that.

You have decide what you really want and do things likely to make that happen.

But I don't isolate myself, I see plenty of people and do lots of things. And have done over the years. What I can't do is break the wall between the activity and the rest of life. So for example I go to a class at the local gym we all get on well and have a chat and a giggle, one of the women invited a group to the pub for her birthday, but not me- when I mentioned it she said it was all couples so they didn't think it was my thing.

So go to activities populated by singles.

You just need to think this through.

I grew up in a bigger village, everyone already knew everyone and had long established networks. I moved away almost 30 years ago but still end up chatting on the main road as it’s the same faces though just older if I go back. London schooled grew up commuter belt to London DH couldn’t quite get his head round it at first.

I would never choose to live in a village as an adult and I have no desire to move back to the one I grew up in.

It was just like Hot Fuzz when they chase that lad and Nick Frost already knows the culprit because it’s Jackie’s sisters brothers cousins lad or whatever the relationship was. I bought a gift in one of the small shops a couple of years ago back home and it was a lad who I had gone to school with behind the counter , who had been expelled, you could tell he was still a bit of a bugger. I bumped in to another ex school mate in the chip shop that night, I remembered him as he was still the shy heart throb he had been at school. Then another the next day in a restaurant who was very drunk and kept hugging me.

What @Crichel has written is true of many villages, not all I’m sure but many. There is an incredibly strong local accent where I grew up. It’s an instant give away, I do not have it but slip in to it a bit when home. Woe betide the few Londoners who have moved there, despised would be the word I would use. They moved in or just after lockdown, some are selling up now and don’t like rural life.

But what are you actually interested in and what do you spend your time doing? You haven't got children and it sounds like your job isn't so taxing it takes up all your time (you haven't mentioned it does, anyway).

If I had no kids and was less tired, I'd be doing :-
swimming at the lido - and joining the choir and knitting/ bake sales crowd there at weekends they are all between 30 and 80!
Go back to the lino printing course I did at Camberwell a few years ago and get more qualifications on that, there were also a few chatty people around as I recall
Be a trustee of a few local charities and do stuff with them or be a magistrate or clerk a parish council or something
Visit my uni friends in the various places they are around the world, one lives abroad, one likes the Edinburgh festival so we could plan to do that, etc
Join a band even - that might be a laugh, I reckon there are adverts for that sort of thing out and about.

All those are not very villagey (except the local charity I guess, and there will be a village drama club or yoga group or something surely).

I feel like expecting to meet friends through dog walking is quite low key. For new friendship, you need a shared activity that is both fun and challenging, with some emotion to it, that matters to people; plus you need regularity of access to the people; plus you need "weak ties" (ie a gang of folks you aren't massively friends with but will say hello in the butcher's and ask when the next meeting of the drama society is, etc). This is quite a well known formula for friendship.

In short I think people with plenty of friends get them because they first try to be interested in lots of things, and they go "thing-first" not "people-first" as it can be a bit smothering to feel someone is "people-first". But then when they come across people they are generous and warm and make others feel good and as though they'd like to be drawn into the other person's exciting world.

I moved abroad in my 20s and new no-one.
I made the effort and joined a few things and made loads of friends.
4 very very close friends and 2 best friends.

Honestly I think it's hard making friends as an adult, full stop. I have 'friends' from gym classes, we see each other every week and chat loads but although we keep saying we'll organise some drinks it never happens. Any new friends I've made have been either through work or through DH, so from that point of view it would be harder as a single woman. But I do also understand the criticism from PPs... The jealous wives schtick is a bit Samantha Brick.

What about your old friends from before you moved? Do you keep in touch? Are they too far away?

So I had close school friends, and we drifted apart in our 20s as people got married and had kids, the group has actually reformed now around the ones who had children.

I went to uni overseas, so I have close friends there but we see each other twice a year or so.

As an example of what I meant by batting away, when I moved to my new village everyone was really welcoming and and there are two ladies in particular on my road who come in once or twice a week for coffee. I mentioned we should do christmas drinks and I'd be happy to host. Anyway it was decided that we couldn't find a date and were too busy. But it turns out one of my new friends actually hosted a christmas gathering for our road in the run up. She still knocks on my door for a coffee and chat and invites me round to hers- so I cant think its because she doesn't like me?

Having said all that OP I do remember recently going to visit a friend in her village for a special event and her friends were all couples, and I'd come from the next town, without my husband (!!!) and they literally all seemed surprised why I'd come, in a baffled but polite way. And I walked up to a group of husbands talking at one point and introduced myself, like you would do if networking for work, and they looked actually shocked. Actual nervous laughs.

So you do have a point that in some places social customa are weird, mired in conservatism. I'd get outta there and come back to somewhere nice that likes fun 30 year olds of every background and marital status!

But why should I need "my own kind" for those saying go to singles events, why?

On one hand people are telling me I am crazy, creating a narrative about jealous wives. On the other people are telling me to go to a city and find single people to hang out with? Why? If I am not a threat, and me being single isn't an issue (which for years I didn't think it was the problem), then why am I being kept at arms length and expected to find singles?

For me both can't be true.

But it turns out one of my new friends actually hosted a christmas gathering for our road in the run up. She still knocks on my door for a coffee and chat and invites me round to hers- so I cant think its because she doesn't like me?

But she was hosting a gathering for people who already knew each other, something that had probably been arranged for a while. You can't expect to just be invited to everything. By continuing to see her for coffee I'd expect you'll be invited next year, but this is probably another symptom of village life. It's harder to be accepted as a newcomer.

Because people like to build relationships based on common ground..? I don't think it's about being single or going to single events, but about people who are single or childfree being in the same stage of life. I don't have kids and really enjoy spending time with my single or childfree friends (more so than my married with kids friends) because we have more in common.

As in my second post, OP, it's both. You need.both people with a less narrow and conventional mindset ( ie not villagers who think you only should socialise in couples) and you need people with time and a wider range of interests (ie not young mums in their 30s, which by definition rules out a high proportion of married people your age).

I don't think it's that they think you personally will steal their specific husband (though maybe dog walking man had a crush on you, who knows). So it's not "threat" so much as crushingly dull folks.

Think yourself lucky you have a better perspective and go and find some more dynamic people. They are more likely found in cities, and possibly more likely found among people treading less conventional paths through life than marriage-job-babies-dog-house.

Sorry never finished that thought!

was going to say I think your 20’s and 30’s are the most difficult times to make new friends.

people are often busy with young families or busy jobs and there’s a lot less time for friends generally.

people are also set in their ways generally. And lazy. So if they’ve lived somewhere their whole life, they stick to those friends.

I’d also agree that the couple thing is tricky. My DP and I have discussed this. His friendship group still all meet as couples and he is fully welcome. I said it was nice they still include him as the single man as I’ve found with some ( though not all!) groups, I’ve never been invited to couple things when single.

His theory was it’s because the women organise the social events so they always include him as he’s not a threat! That’s his take - not mine, so it’s interesting that men notice this dynamic too.

The answer? You need to find other single women. Join groups and look outwith your small area.

Of course both can be true.

If they tend to socialise in couples, you won’t be invited because you aren’t in a couple. They doesn’t mean they are jealous or wary of you around their husbands in the slightest! It means the dynamic is pairs not a group of individuals.

Do the things people do on their own and take it from there. Book groups, the gym, choirs, classes, volunteering, etc. and eventually friendships form. But you need to do the thing for its own sake, not to mine it as a resource for friends.

Look, what you're doing isn't working. So you need to do something different,

You can't change other people. You can only change what you do.

If spending the rest of your life bitter, plaintive and isolated is what you really want, great. You're set to achieve satisfaction.

If it isn't, do something different. Something more likely to achieve the outcome you actually want.

It doesn't matter 'whose fault' your current situation is. It doesn't matter that other people behaving differently could change it for you. The only control you have is over your own actions - and to change those you first need to change your own thinking.