To feel more lonely after going out with my friends?

[Pigling]

I've come home feeling really sad. We often meet up on a Sunday night but I didn't make it last week. I just felt a total outsider. Everything that was said didn't match my thoughts or values and I just kept thinking "I have nothing in common with these people". We've been mum friends for years and I'm thinking that no friendship lasts forever but they all seem fine, it's just me. I don't think no friends is better so I don't know what to do or think 😞

I’d see them one or maybe two at a time. I find people much harder in groups

What has changed? Surely you had stuff in common before?

You can’t force a friendship but I’m curious to know why you feel distant from them suddenly.

What kind of things made you think you had nothing in common? How often do you see them? I’m far more awkward in group scenarios, even if it’s with old friends

Our children have grown up and gone to school, we've all gone back to work, we don't see each other as much - things have changed and the need for close support has waned - we're not braving soft play or days out together anymore or commiserating about how hard it is.

I'm quite an odd-bod anyway- I like sci-fi and sword and sorcery so I don't always fit in well with other women or share their interests.

It might be that you’re not being yourself with them. If you’re masking to fit in, the inner, real you will feel isolated.

That’s growth - happens a lot, unfortunately. I’ve experienced it before but found new friends though faith recently (was a very strong atheist before) and am enjoying my time with them.

My stance on this is to not expect friends to fulfil all your needs. It doesn’t matter if people don’t align with you on everything. Enjoy their company for what it is e.g. a bit of a laugh and chat and escape from domestic routine.

If you want people to enthuse about sci-fi and fantasy with, you need to seek them elsewhere, but it doesn’t need to be either/or. You can have both, and more.

I have a friend I go walking with who is very different from me but we both like walking, an old work friend whom I am poles apart from politically and socially but whose company I love because she’s lovely, and a bunch of women I’m in a book group with, some of whom I get on with and some of whom I only communicate with because they’re in the same book group as me.

It would be different if any of them were being nasty, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the problem for you.

There's a common saying that friends are 'for a reason, a season or a lifetime'.
My DCs are adult now, and I am still in touch with one or two people from the baby stage, but drifted away from most of my antenatal/mother & baby group friends when the children started going to nursery or school, as really I didn't have that much in common with them.

It sounds like these were your friends for a season, and now you need to make new connections with school mums or with people who share your actual interests.

All the women I know who are into sci-fi and fantasy are ND. Some are ok in groups, but definitely more comfortable one-to-one.

You only ever had one thing in common with them, which was the fact that you had kids at the same time. Did you meet them though NCT classes or something? There’s really no reason that you’d automatically get along with people just because you’re all mums of kids the same age. It was a friendship of circumstance, and now that circumstance doesn’t really exist any more and the friendship has run its course.

The fact that you like sci-fi and fantasy is not the issue, provided you are capable of talking about other things. Liking a certain genre of fiction shouldn’t be your entire personality. I love fantasy fiction and I also love football, which none of my closest female friends are into, but it’s not a barrier to friendship because there are other things we have in common.

I know exactly what you mean.

It's a horrible feeling.

The older I get, the more I feel like this.

I went from being a social butterfly.in my teens and twenties and early thirties, to raising young children in my mid thirties.to mid forties. Now approaching late forties and I just want to scuttle off home and be comfortable.

I'm less tolerant of people who don't actually care much about me.

Make new friends.

I know exactly what you mean OP, you have my sympathies. I've been there with a group of long-standing female friends, where most times after meeting I'd feel disconnected, agitated, misunderstood and just, I dunno, like we had nothing in common anymore and that the friendship had run its course. I'd outgrown them. I was getting softer, more open, more compassionate whereas they'd often be the opposite. I didn't enjoy their company anymore, so we split up (long story).

Most friendships where you meet through circumstance just fizzle out. I agree with others that perhaps meeting 1:1 with them might be better? I think as we age we become more sensitive to how interactions and social occasions make us FEEL. Lean into it and decide whether these friends are still worth your time and energy.

Oh my gosh it is such a relief to read this and realise that I am not the only one going through this - a weird sense of isolation when in company with long standing female friends - I come away feeling completely unseen and disconnected - it's awful, existential really. Starting to think that I have just changed too much and need to find new friends but at the age of 55 it's hard to start again

@Lilifer never too old or too late to find new friends, imo. I chose quality over quantity a couple of years ago and have no regrets, though it was hard and hurtful at the time (acrimonious split).

Time is precious, and time spent with friends should be nourishing, nurturing, interesting, fun snd/or validating and uplifting if you ask me. Not every time, but most of the time. I love learning from my friends, supporting them, making them laugh. If I'm coming away from an evening out feeling empty, unseen, or despondent, it's a sign to spend less time with that group...

SF&F fandom is completely dominated by women and has been since the original Star Trek. Have you considered hanging out with other fantasy fans? If you go to a book signing with a fantasy author, 90% of the attendees are women.

I'm dreading the school years (just coming up for me), as I don't always gel well with other women, I'm also a sci fi fan, love reading and films, and love to have good in depth conversations about silly stuff or interesting topics, going to the hairdressers and just talking tedious small talk bullshit is my idea of hell, I cover it well but I'm hoping to meet some like minded mums along the way.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you OP, maybe they just aren't really your crowd, they were while you had more things in common (early years of children), but now you don't really share the same interests anymore. What do you do when you meet up? Could you suggest a games night once a month, or some activity that you'd all enjoy doing, rather than just meeting up for a chat etc, we have friends that we do that with but we tend to keep it to once a month or so so we have plenty to talk about.

Could you find more like minded people through other hobbies or shared interests to plug the gap?

Come sit by me.

love to have good in depth conversations about silly stuff or interesting topics, going to the hairdressers and just talking tedious small talk bullshit is my idea of hell

This cliché really annoys me: it’s so misogynistic. Most women love in depth conversations about silly stuff and interesting topics. Just because sci fi and fantasy aren’t interesting to lots of us doesn’t mean we only indulge in “tedious small talk bullshit” at the hairdresser. So reductive and arrogant.

Last time I was at the hairdresser we talked about Elon Musk and what’s going on in the US, the pros and cons of electric vehicles and heat source pumps, the comparative merits of Sheffield and Norwich, and whether it was better to be experimental or stick to what you know, with particular reference to hair styles but touching on a wider philosophy of life.

I’ve felt EXACTLY the same as you about my school friends OP I could’ve written this post!

I agree NO friends better than mismatched ones

Thanks everyone ☺️ I don't think I'm brave enough to drop out of the group but I feel better about it now and you've given me some good suggestions for different things 😊

I haven't heard that saying before but I love it.

This. If you no longer enjoy their company, then step away and make friends elsewhere to whom you feel more attuned. I do agree also about liking sci-fi and fantasy not being your entire personality — plus lots of people of both sexes like that kind of thing, so don’t think it makes you some kind of oddity,
.

This makes sense. It seemed that your friendship was based around the children as opposed to who you are as people.

I have mum friends - and friend friends. My mum friends are people I probably would have never crossed paths with and have little in common with if you remove the children. Whilst my friends are my friends and we can spend days on end chatting or sitting silently together because we just get eacother and are one and the same. You need to invest in new friends.

The good news is that you have hobbies - are there places you can where you can meet people that are like minded?

I'm not a mum but had a similar experience recently. Met up for dinner with a group of school friends. We used to have some brilliant times in our 20s, nights out, laughing etc. We're all in our 30s now and doing different things. I was sat there feeling so disconnected. Not one person asked me a question the whole time I was there and I just couldn't connect with their topics of conversation.

Apart from one or two people in the group, I realised I wouldn't miss seeing these people regularly. I wouldn't leave or shun them but certainly won't put loads of effort into the friendships anymore.

I've now invested in other friendships and started going to a book club too.