To think I'll be a bit of a "loner" for the rest of my life?.

[Isitameproblem]

I go through phases, but clearly I like the idea of having friends but not the reality.

I ultimately find friendships complicated (or maybe the only two that I have are), I have no real desire to use my free time to meet new people, and I work remotely so I don't have the daily interaction.

It doesn't help that I've moved quite a bit, (moved the UK 16 years ago) and have worked remotely for the past 13, so I really haven't had the chance to meet anyone through work

Is your health care free in your home country? Maybe fly those 3 hours for private treatment instead of flying home?

The NHS has given wonderful treatment to so many people who could not have otherwise afforded private. To be honest private can even fail, and has done for a family member of mine, with huge misdiagnosis, which resulted in a prescription of an incorrectly prescribed medication they should have never ever been on in the first place.
I'm delighted I don't live in America with scam insurance companies, and people dying rather than go to hospitals to accumulate huge amounts of debt. The NHS has been deprived of proper funding for years, hopefully this is slowly changing.

So make your friends somewhere other than the school gate? Which is just a random cross-section of people who have children aged between 4 and 11. Who are unlikely to be receptive to you fulminating about burning down the NHS, ‘crying wolf’ antisemitism, and the UK being ‘decadent’ and not offering ‘quality of life’ — have you noticed that everything you’ve listed as an ‘unpopular opinion’ is negative?

It may be less that people don’t agree with some or all than that they don’t want to stand listening to diatribes. It’s draining, like listening to Mad Malcolm from next door complaining about the buses not running on time and his gammy leg. Especially if, as your child says, you also make faces a lot.

If you feel strongly about these things, find a way of getting involved in activism, which may put you in the path of kindred spirits, or consider going to live elsewhere, if the UK makes you so vocally unhappy? Is there nothing good that you feel strongly positive about, for instance?

From your posts as a whole, it sounds as if you haven’t ever gone out looking for like-minded friends, and your negativity and inability to make initial small talk are putting off the few people you do meet. DH’s niece’s longtime boyfriend would say similar to you , but the real reason he has no friends is that he sees other people as there to be an audience for his self-congratulatory monologues. He has zero interest in anyone else.

I’ve moved a lot, and one of the first things I do anywhere new is look around me for ways to meet the kind of people I like. Obviously sometimes you’re disappointed, or someone you like isn’t interested, and some places are richer than others in terms of potential friends, but if you want fruends, you will have to put more effort into it, and be more interested in others, rather than complaining about ‘masking’.

Maybe, but we're not in a city or any proper urban area (the biggest one is 20k inhabitants but even then I find it small). Mind you my home city has 25 million.

The NHS is really a post code lottery. I have had pretty poor care but friends have had life saving care. I vent to DH but it is not a subject I raise in public.

Immigration is another hot button topic. I am second gen and DH is first gen. I dont talk about this except to very close
friends. It's a deeply complex issue.

In today's times I think most people want light, fun conversation. Things like cancer scares might be best saved for therapy ( and yes, that too is v hard to access).

It is yes! It's a constitutional right, same as education so my Uni was free too (and my parents).

Which country are you from? Why did you choose to come to the UK if you evidently dislike so much about it that you want to burn things to the ground?

I mean I'm fun too, believe me! I really liked watching the Substance (or the A24 film type). I really like alternative history books/films, and anything involving the nuclear era (like Fallout). Or things like transhumanism (i.e. Severance or Pantheon).

I love my music, but it's a bit niche.

I find the most fulfilling and enriching conversations with my 17yo DSS .

I don't think any of the above is particularly niche but I get really INTO it. (The music maybe as I haven't met anyone IRL that likes my favourite band!)

Well, I did the same, in that the NHS didn’t manage to treat a debilitating, ongoing issue over eight years, but as soon as I left the UK, my new GP set things in motion, I had ultrasounds and three day surgeries and now it’s completely fine, and this was despite all this being during Covid.

But I recognised that the NHS is a postcode lottery and that while I was fortunate with where I lived when I gave birth to DS in London, by the time I became ill, I was living in a rural area with a massively overstretched GP surgery. I didn’t stalk about uttering diatribes about burning down the NHS to slight acquaintances at the school gates. Or criticising the UK’s quality of life, which doesn’t come across well from a foreigner, even one who’d been living there for decades. When I realised the place wasn’t working for me any more, I left. I remember the good times, too.

If I had known about the NHS I would never ever ever have chosen to study my masters here.... That was the domino effect that made me stay... Got pregnant, got married, got divorced, got remarried.

I don't think I'll stay here super long term, but at the same time it's where I've lived my proper adult life, where my children may or may not stay. So I think it would depend on them too if I stay after they graduate from uni or not.

Personally I think there are going to be times where even if you work on your social skills, join the groups, try volunteering etc. it still won't work out for you because you don't meet the right people. Loneliness is a problem that doesn't always get solved and the next best thing is learning to live with it.

I do have the advantage of being in London admittedly.
Several of my friends love The Sentence.
My DH loves Severance and I am going to watch it soon.
I love alternative history and discuss it while volunteering at a local heritage site.
All these are perfectly ok to talk about, and I would love to talk about them if we ever met!

You have the option to go back though, if your home country is great, then surely you'd want to take your children there. You sound close to them, similar opinions, etc. A 3 hour flight is short. You wouldn't be far from your adult dcs, who may even want to come with you, if they hate the UK as you do.

I mean it's not terrible, but if I could I wouldn't choose to live here. I've lived away from home for so long, that I don't know what would be the best "fit".

Like I've said, I've worked in isolation and most of the 13 years I've worked here, most of my colleagues weren't British, so I don't necessarily fully understand it as a society, I see it through the eyes of my husband's (and their families).

But I can't because a) first husband would not let me, b) second husband doesn't want to be away from his other children, thus waiting til they graduate

Well, they'll have dual passports, I assume, not really your husband's choice when they're 18, which they will be if in Uni. It doesn't sound like you and your husband are on the same page if you're so unhappy here, and he isn't? You can go back, nothing stopping you. It doesn't matter how long you've been here. You have that option which a lot don't.

No they actually don't. My first husband would not register at the consulate, so I can't get her a passport. So that's a no-go until she decides she wants it (and does it via a different route).

BTW when I worked at the most cosmopolitan company all foreigners liked to bitch about the UK. In my expat Facebook group at least 70% complain about the NHS those who don't acknowledge it's a postcode lottery.

Just to say it's a fairly common topic to discuss amongst non Brits (IME).

You see this irks me. I'm very much in the "if you hate it so much, go home camp (only if you have that option, obviously). Don't further drain our already underfunded, understaffed health service. Which country are you from?

I've always had problems maintaining friendships. I'm ok doing things by myself, I'm quiet, but I have strong opinions, but I don't tend to express them. I find the whole thinking of ways to meet up thing tedious. My network is tiny. I'm not in an ethnic minority though. I like doing things my way on my terms. However since getting divorced I think I do need to make more of an effort to join some kind of community. The only thing about not working at friendships is that I will be forgotten if I get ill or die.

@Isitameproblem re the thing about Spain, I think people genuinely have issues retaining information - even people who care about you simply cannot retain information. Could it be that? I have a really good memory and it took me a while to realise that people would forget important stuff.

For politics, there will be people who agree, but there are certain things that you can't say in public. I also think it's a great shame that people can't just agree to disagree but unfortunately, that's where we seem to be now as a society.

With your other comments, I'd be willing to bet that lots of people love your favourite band and clearly lots of people loved The Substance. I haven't seen it yet.

None of this stuff seems like a big barrier to friendship to me.

I do think that you probably have to meet a hell of a lot of people to make one friend. Or you have to be very lucky. Doesn't sound like you live in a situation where you can meet people randomly?

But I pay my taxes?? I'm a high earner too, so I pay way more into it than I actually use it. It's a simple financial fact. If anything I wish I could opt out and not use it, but alas I can't!

I didn't come to take away from your welfare state. Again quite the opposite... When I was made redundant and actually needed some help, I got told I would only get £300, how helpful! Even though again I've paid my fair amount of taxes.

When you balance it out, I've definitely paid more than enough, so if anything the public services are benefiting from my taxes. It goes both ways.

Again, you now have the option to leave the UK. Your dc/s are in uni. It seems you're throwing obstacles in the way.

But they're not in uni? One is 5 :/

So ask? Ask British people questions about aspects of UK life you don’t understand, rather than fulminating about the NHS, or complain no one is interested in your ‘niche’ interests?

And what non-British residents in the UK moan about online is a completely different issue to whether you saying you want to burn down the NHS at the school gates is likely to make you potential friend material? Or does ‘not being rude about the country you’ve chosen to live in to its citizens’ come under the heading of ‘masking’ for you too?

I mean, obviously you can criticise a country to people who from there, but when they’re your friends, and in the context of an ongoing conversation. Or, if you want to fulminate why not find some way of making friends with other foreigners?

btw are @Isitameproblem and @Lentilweaver talking about alternate or alternative history and what counts as the latter now?

I just think of my offbeat history reading as ...history...but that's definitely alternative rather than alternate.

I would be pissed off if I met someone who launched into criticising the UK and told off an Aussie guy who launched into that while sitting next to me on the Tube!!