Sad beyond words

[Wantachangefor2024]

Soo this feels pathetic and I can’t confide in the friends i have for fear of guilt tripping them or outing myself out to being so pathetic but i am lonely beyond words. I’m 35 and all of my friends are married, live at the different ends of the country, busy with stuff going on and I broke up with my partner two years ago and been single since and the loneliness I feel. Having no one to discuss the day to day with. All that conversation has ended with him and my friends. They are too bogged down with their own inner circle to have that talk and time for me. And I get it. I’m not jealous or resentful, just gut wrenchingly lonely. How does one make friends at this stage of life really?? So I’m posting here in case anyone else is in a similar boat and from South Yorkshire.

Thank you @Littlejellyuk your advice has been really helpful and @Soberfutures im going to check that out x

It’s highly likely that these “friends” have been meeting up a lot without you purely because you aren’t a couple. Some women who are married think they have some special status.

Just wait until their divorces start happening.

I Didn’t raise it with them as I’d be setting myself up for an argument against a group so sure to lose. I’m sure they would have made me feel awkward and say I was being over sensitive so why bother?

you don’t seem to really like these people op

Have they ever visited you post operations, during recovery?

I can picture that. I don’t want to bash them. They are what they are. I want to manifest and create a life where i have friendships based on mutual respect and equality. We treat each other well. I just need to find them!

You think your friends might be smug about being married and think they have special status?

You think that if you’d raised how hurt you were re oasis they’d have made you feel awkward and it would have ended in an argument

and you regard these people as close friends? Op you don’t seem to like them and if how you describe them is accurate…. Then they are indeed throughly unpleasant

I could have written the first part of this, have isolated myself further for similar reasons. How did you come out of it if you don’t mind me asking?

@Wantachangefor2024 I am in the same position but worse off as I have no parents. I would say if your parents are alive do take advantage of that and get love from them for cheer and spend time with them. I know that's not your total solution but love does make you feel more positive about yourself which in turn is attractive to friends.

@2021x can I ask you how you came out the otherside after isolating yourself? ow did that happen? Was it natural, passage of time, you started to feel better or did you 'force' yourself to do something?

I'm in a 'self isolation phase'. Dont want to derail OPs thread but within a 6 year period, everyone I loved died including parents. My social network collapsed. Grief/ depression was and still is a big part of it but I've found myself more and more feeling that I don't want to be bothered and barely leave the house.

My mindset is people are annoying, I hate everyone anyway, they won't like me, I don't want a relationship and it is too difficult to make a new close female friends as it takes years. I never used to be so misanthropic. I get that in that mindset there is no chance anyway.

Feel your pain OP but if you arent reclusive thats a good start.

That’s understandable but don’t isolate for too long as it becomes the norm. There are good people out there. You have amazing strength to have been through all that and keep your chin up and self preserve yourself by taking time out. Sending hugs

I agree, I have a friend who always includes me even if he's going with his wife and children. He'll always ask "hey do you want to come? We're all going". I'm never treated as the poor single person or the 3rd wheel.

If you don't have space for 2nd job what about volunteering. If it's female friendships perhaps look at clubs and organisations that are female centric. Girl Guiding, Girls brigade, women only book clubs etc They usually are a max of a couple of hours unless you like it and get sucked into other roles

Nami's Life on Youtube follows a 30-something woman in Tokyo cooking, cleaning, working going on days out and enjoying her own company. Her videos are lovely

https://www.youtube.com/@naminokurashi

It’s a bit cliche but joining a hobby class which involves natural chat - crochet or another craft. Our local gym has classes and people stay for a coffee after sometimes. Walking the dog I’ve met a lot of people who I could form more of a friendship with if I felt lonely. Honestly, find your thing and you’ll meet people more naturally.

How are you feeling today, @Wantachangefor2024? Don’t forget to take good care of yourself.

OP said " All that conversation has ended with him and my friends. They are too bogged down with their own inner circle to have that talk"
So no gossiping with friends

But obviously I want that gossiping and chit chat. Volunteering is well meaning but it’s not friendship.

I know it's really hard OP - I have been in your exact situation myself and it can feel soul destroying. We need to be so careful not to let it destroy our souls though and continue to value our own intrinsic worth. You are definitely worth making friends with. If yout girlfriends are now bogged down with partners and children - and sadly having children, and sometimes even just husbands/partners is so all encompassing that they do just disappear - then there's nothing for it but to get out there and make new friends. You might reconnect with your old school friends when you're older and they're not so immersed in kids

I'd suggest being really open to meeting different types of people. Yes you're more likely to feel a connection with people a similar age, but not always. A dear friend I've made at my sports club is a 70 year old chap, and by extension his lovely wife, as well as people in their 20s and 30s and a few nearer my age (I'm 50). Both sexes, though I have more affinity with the women of course. And then there are the two close friends I made at a choir. It does take time, and for a long time I'd tearily think "they're not my friends, they're just people I know". But when I've needed friendship and support in the last couple of years (from Covid actually), they have really been there.

But volunteering can turn into friendship OP. I volunteered for Citizens Advice for 10 years. During Covid we all had to work from home, in isolation, and missed the social interaction of being in the office. Six of us worked on a Monday and one of them suggested having a virtual coffee morning once a fortnight to catch up with each other, which we did on a Thursday morning. Once all social-mixing restrictions were lifted we continued these coffee mornings in each others' homes - it's been over four years now and I'm hosting this week. 😊 My friend volunteers for three different organisations and he's developed loads of genuine friendships from this work.
Volunteering is just another way of connecting with other people OP, but over a shared aim, and some of those connections have the potential to turn into friendships. If you don't even connect with other people in real life, how can you ever hope to make friends? I think you need to look at this differently OP because, at the moment, you seem to be shutting down any ideas without even trying them.

ETA: Oh boy do we gossip and chit-chat every other Thursday morning! 😂 And we have a WA group where we share news in-between meeting.

in this case, volunteering is just a way to meet new people. And you will meet them! People who volunteer give a shit about making the world a better place. They also have spare time. Perfect combination for friendship.

That's a great post. I know I was pooh poohing the volunteering suggestion earlier in the thread so apologies for that.

Are you interested in wildlife OP? The reason I ask is because our local wildlife trust has a great network of volunteers. I'm loosely involved in it and and many of them have become really firm friends. Loads of them are young women too.

I think that gyms are not particularly good places to be making friends. I suppose it might be different if you were say doing classes but if you're just getting your cardio in and lifting some weights you're not going to be having enough interaction to make friends. I would like to make more friends - I didn't make mum friends as I was always working fulltime and long hours - but I think people think married people with families are all about spending all their spare time with the family when we'd like to go out for lunch or whatever. So don't discount friendships with people who are coupled up as it were. They might be far more receptive than you think especially if their children are young adults.

I think people think married people with families are all about spending all their spare time with the family when we'd like to go out for lunch or whatever. So don't discount friendships with people who are coupled up as it were. They might be far more receptive than you think especially if their children are young adults.

Speaking as a single person, if you’re married with kids and you want more of a social life, I think your best bet is proactively to let friends/acquaintances know that you are up for doing stuff at the weekend (or whenever) and that you don’t just view that as family/couple time. Don’t wait for people to ask you. Personally I gave up asking coupled friends if they wanted to do stuff at the weekend quite a long time ago, given that the answer always seemed to be no or reluctant. If someone has a family I do assume as a default they won’t be up for socialising much and I don’t invite them to stuff, but that’s because that’s the message that people with families tend to give out in my experience.

Volunteering is a good shout but make sure you volunteer for something that genuinely appeals to you. Then you will be meeting like minded people. People who volunteer in my experience especially for things that involve kindness as part of the volunteering tend to be generally nice and kind people. Not all obviously but many.

So don't discount friendships with people who are coupled up as it were. They might be far more receptive than you think especially if their children are young adults.

I don't think this is true sadly if you are a single woman. You might get an occassional cup of coffee or isolated meet ups with the wife but a deeper new friendship won't happen between a single woman and a married couple or a woman part of a married couple. Socially for some reason couples rarely socialise with 'new' single female friends. I think there is a subconscious deeply rooted idea that all single women are desperately in the market for men which causes a block on welcoming a single woman into a fold of married couples who socialise together. If married couples socialise with any single women at all they tend to be very very long standing friends of the wife that pre-date the couple formation (her best friend from school type). It's different for men - a single man (new or old friend)will cheerfully be included in dinner parties with couples, a single woman never unless she is there as part of an attempt to fix her up.

You don’t say one single positive thing about this group of friends Op…. From them being insensitive, dismissive and even you being so sure that it would end in an argument of you ever raised your feelings and you would be made out as the unreasonable one.

Throw in fact that you didn’t see them regularly anyway and not local to them….. just let this friendship fizzle out. It sounds as though it was close to that before this anyway.

Don’t go looking for a close friend that you can “gossip” (really?) with “, as you’ll come off as way too intense. Just be open, friendly, take risks ie you be the one to make the first invite out to a coffee.

in your shoes, because I’m a runner, I’d join a running club and an evening language course (I recall the one I was in 12 years ago but super sociable, loved it!)