To ask if anyone has ever cut off all their friends and started fresh in their 30s?

[ThisQuietRestart]

I wondered if anyone’s ever looked around at their social circle and thought “none of this feels right anymore.” Maybe people grew apart, maybe they weren’t supportive or maybe you just changed. Whatever the reason, have you ever decided to walk away from your old friendship group and start again from scratch in adulthood?

If so, how did it go? Was it lonely? Liberating?

Not all in one go but my closest friends now are the ones I made in my 30s.

Not all but most when I was about 30

We just wanted different things and I wanted friends I had more in common with.

I make friends all the time. I’m 47 and have a whole load of friends I’ve made in the last 5 years as well as ones I met doing a hobby longer ago.

I don't think cutting everyone off is very pragmatic or mature, but there's certainly nothing wrong with focussing your energy on making new friends and furthering the connection you have with interesting people who aren't yet close friends. I have a few friends from my childhood who I don't want to see all the time and who wouldn't be great every day friends, but that shared history is special and it's nice to have people who remember the same things from childhood as I do.

When I got into my 30s I realised my friends and I had grown apart (I always preferred quality over quantity, so this was a small group of 3 other people). When I hit 33 or so I realised I had nobody to talk to about serious stuff during a really hard period (apart from my husband and dad, both of whom I love dearly, but it is also good to have others to talk to). I joined the gym and a local club. I have acquaintances at the gym as stuck with that but dropped the club after not finding like-minded people. I joined an app for friends and have been on “friend dates” and meeting people that way. It has been partly liberating as out of my comfort zone and also a way to meet people I may not come across otherwise. Even if it doesn’t work out I still learn something about myself or others. A couple of years later I have made 1 good friend with a couple of others I meet for a chat occasionally, however, I live in a remote area so population is limited and likely to have more success on such apps in towns.

It takes time but friendships are an investment as an adult. So much easier as a small child:

”Do you like this shiny thing I found?” “Ohhh, here’s a shell I found.” Bam, friends.

I haven’t tried this method as an adult but I’m not sure it would work!

Following with interest

I was once told that friends are for a reason, a season or a lifetime and it has stuck with me. In my 40s now, in hindsight I can see that there was a big shift in my friendships in my early 30s. I’d thought that if the friendships had endured til then from the school/uni/etc that they’d last but there was a significant reshuffling. It happened on a number of levels from the divide of the kids/no kids, leaving behind the party years of my 20s and the friends who only fitted in that context, vastly different earning/career paths influencing relatability or differences over how you spent time together, and generally becoming different people.
I would say don’t burn any bridges, some of these friendships ebbed away for a time but later came back. There were a few that ended more dramatically or abruptly and whilst it wasn’t without reason, it wasn’t the best way for it to go down. Focus on finding friends who fit with your life now, as you don’t have the level of shared history the friendships can seem more fleeting.