AIBU to wonder why many posters find it harder to make friends than find a life partner?

[Thepeopleversuswork]

I'm baffled at the number of people on Mumsnet who struggle with the most basic social interactions and find making friends to be traumatic, but have found a life partner to settle down and have kids with.

A significant number of posters on here struggle with friendship or social interaction to various degrees, manifested in the extreme in the declarations that they "hate people", "don't want new friends", find friends to be too much "drama" and only want to spend time with their families. There is a classic of the genre running at the moment in which an OP has taken umbrage at a coworker making fairly mild friendly overtures to her as a gross invasion of her privacy. (But admits that she met her partner at work?) Or just at the milder end of the spectrum the huge amount of anxiety which making new friends seems to generate.

I genuinely don't understand why people who have managed to find an intimate relationship in which to have children can find the prospect of exchanging words outside the school gate or sending a text to a coworker so traumatic.

I found attracting a partner and building a relationship to be a far more fraught and involved process than making friends: there's so much more to lose, so much more vulnerability needed and the prospect of loss of face and self-esteem in the process of dating is far greater than in making friends. But texting someone (platonically) to ask if they want to have a coffee seems to spiral posters into paroxysms of self-doubt. The "school mum" threads are a whole sub-genre in their own right, where the paranoia and suspicion is often seriously irrational.

Why do people find it relatively easy to find a partner but finding friends so difficult? From my perspective it should be the other way around.

I have also thought this.

I assume they were probably quite focused on having a partner and kids and so put the effort in more to be sociable when they were single.

But as soon as they were in a couple, their immediate needs were met and so they just stop. Socialising and human interaction is also a skill that erodes if you don't keep practicing it so I think that by ten years in, they've really degraded their relationship skills.

They then get very defensive if it's pointed out that this is normal.

They struggle with friendships because they’ve made their partner and kids their entire world. They don’t like it when their precious “family time” is interrupted then wonder why nobody wants to spend time with them.

You see it time and time again on here - threads from women who won’t go out in the evenings or make time for themselves or do their hobbies because they insist on being around for their kids 24-7.

Yes, I’ve seen this too… the lonely mum struggling to make friends, unsure how to approach anyone and not getting approached by anyone else; the ND poster not sure how to tackle making friends, but with a DP and children…

Perhaps they met their partners young, when lots of similar people were shoved together at school/college/uni? It’s probably more difficult in the grown up world, where the people you mix with are more disparate and probably have their own lives and friendship groups already.

@MojoMoon

Yes this is what I suspect as well.

My theory (which I obviously can't prove) is it's usually people who settled down relatively young and were focused on finding a partner to settle down and used their social life as a means to that end. Once they'd found the partner they then dropped all their friends. They then rapidly learned that having small kids is often boring, hard work and lonely and wanted more.

They then looked forward to primary school as a way to get back out and start new friendships, but had lost their social muscle due to having lost touch with their friends, and were shocked to discover that maintaining friendships involves a bit of work and that some women (and sorry but it is always women) had pre-existing friendships because they had nurtured them.

I'm sure there's a proportion of people who have genuine social anxiety, but it's very striking on the "bitchy school gate mums" threads that people seem to expect to be provided with a full roster of new friends as one of the perks of having kids at school. And then get upset when they realise other people have kept up their friendships.

I’ve thought this too.

I don’t think there’s as much value placed on cultivating friendships as there is on finding a partner, settling down, starting a family etc. That’s still seen by many as the metric of a successful life, being single with a wide array of deep and satisfying friendships would still be viewed by many as somehow lesser than being in an okay marriage with not much else going on. I think that’s changing but slowly.

And then invariably get upset when they wake up in middle age, bored and lonely (and sometimes divorced), and want friends but find that they have no idea how to go about making and maintaining friendships.

Absolutely - and you never see it from men. All the male parents I know still go and do their hobbies, meet up for a drink occasionally etc.

It’s only the women that seem to think parenthood means jacking everything in and focusing on your kids 24/7. I mean, there are people on here whose children are teenagers and they’ve never had a date night or left their kids with their dad so they can go away for a night - it find it boggling.

Of course if money is an issue that’s different but you can still see your friends and socialise

Absolutely.

I agree that it's changing... there's been more positive representations of female friendship in our culture in recent decades. But a lot of girls are still raised to see this as secondary to finding a partner and it tends to take a back seat once they are married and have children.

I completely agree. I have no issue making friends every new situation I usually find a nice woman that I bond with, my recent 40th night out had the most wonderful collection of incredible women from all chapters of my life, including some I’ve met in last couple of years. No husband over here though!

Well, in my case it was that both husband and I have autism.

So while my attempts at making long lasting friendships have failed miserably, we bonded almost immediately over several shared interests and just 'getting' each other.

Yep. A lot of these women martyr themselves around doing everything for their partners and DC. Then struggle with friendships as the DC grow, start school, and need them less. Men rarely have this problem. Meanwhile the Martyr Mums resent their partners for not wanting to spend every second of their free time as "family time".

I’ve thought the same too. There will be a whole post about how someone is lonely, how difficult they find it to make friends, socialise etc , making it sounds like they are completely isolated but will end then the post with ‘I only have my DH and DC’. I’ve always found it the opposite, I find it reasonably easy to make friends. A partner though, no. There just seems so much more at stake and difficulty to find that one person.

Its an interesting question and I would agree with OP that you would think it would be easier to make friends.

From my (male) perspective, I think women treat one another horribly and I think this is perhaps something to do with why friends can actually be tricky.

My jaw frequently drops reading about how women treat each other one here.

There was a hen night thread recently where the accommodation fell through and people were out of pocket. Instead of coming to some adult resolution together, about reimbursing people or whatever, the last I heard was that the bride and MOH had secretly bought the silence of one guest with a partial refund, but the other guests were to get nothing and were to be kept in the dark over this secret payment.

Apparently the bride didn't want any ill feeling before the wedding and seemingly the best way she thought this could be ensured was by screwing over her friends who had given time and money to come to her hen night.

Just absolutely jaw dropping stuff. I can well imagine men being angry over losing money in an accommodation mix up, but they would "have it out" and then forget it by the time the first round of drinks arrived.

Men can sometimes 'lose touch' with friends, but very rarely fall out. If they don't like each other, they simply don't take anything to do with one another. In contrast, women seem to delight in being 'faux friends' with people they don't like, purely so they can make each others life a misery. Go figure. You often see threads where women wake up one morning to discover their friendship group is suddenly treating them like a pariah, for no apparent reason. I mean, WTF?

As to why this is? Feminism has tried to mould modern women to be extremely self centred. The idea of putting others first, or even considering them at all, just doesn't seem to figure, many women seem to just think of themselves and only themselves. In contrast, women were traditionally seen as considerate and selfless. This change is surely connected with the friends issue. (Of course you get selfish men too, but it seems this mostly affects their partners rather than their friends).

Thats totally fair and I appreciate that making friends is a different ballgame for people who are neurodiverse.

But that doesn’t fully explain it to me:

a) there’s no way everyone on the “bitchy/cliquey school mums” threads can be autistic. There’s too many of these posts
b) if, as an autistic person, you can find a partner (which again is pretty fraught and challenging even for neurotypical people), surely its not beyond the realm of possibility that you could make a friend?

I don’t want to minimise this I just don’t understand why the partner element is easier than the friend element

I have often wondered this. Its mind boggling really. Although, saying that, I read alot of posts from what I assume to be fully grown, competent adults and think 'how do you even tie your shoe laces'. The amount of people who seemingly find 'adulting' a challenge is shocking.

Take those threads with a pinch of salt.

If they were genuinely as hostile and cold as they make out, the majority of people wouldnt continue to try and engage them in conversation. Yet according to them they have hoardes of people desperate to befriend them. Nah. Didnt happen.

Yes, @BlueSherbet has it! It’s because women are so fucking horrible! Thank god a man is here to enlighten us 🤔

Funny, that it’s these wonderful, friendly, reasonable men that are beating each other up outside the club on Saturday nights, mugging old ladies, murdering each other over “gang” related disagreements and generally just going out and about and committing about 90% of violent crime, 95% of sexual crime and making up 96% of the prison population, those pleasant, easygoing affable, selfless darlings.

Maybe as people who have partners are comfortable together, they haven’t invested in friendships the same way as a single person would.
It’s similar to people who have close family sibling relationships, they (I am in this group) also don’t put the same time and interest into friendships when they have a readymade friendship in their siblings.
I had a lot of friends before settling down with DH raising children. I don’t now. I’m not sure of I even want a separate friendship now.
I meet up with a group of old friends four times a year and have neighbour type friends, no deep connection.

Yes and resent other women who haven’t martyred themselves!

Possibly yes.

Having a close sibling relationship is a safer bet than relying on a partner for all of your emotional and social needs. I suppose a sibling is not going to cheat and leave you, is far less likely to turn you over financially.

I don’t think its ideal for anyone to rely on just one person for this to be honest, even a sibling. Everyone needs a network, a bit of social insurance and variety in their social lives and perspectives.

I agree. I find it genuinely baffling sometimes 😂

You can meet a man at work, navigate dating, sex, emotional vulnerability, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and 15 years of joint finances but Sandra from the school gate asking if you fancy a coffee is apparently an intolerable invasion of your personal boundaries?!

I think the difference is that romance has a clear script and a huge incentive. Friendship is much more ambiguous: Does she actually like me? Should I text first? Am I imposing? What if she thinks we're closer than we are?

So I think some people are actually much better at intimacy than ordinary sociability.

Although I suspect that a lot of the "I hate people and don't need friends" brigade are really saying "I would quite like friends but the prospect of making myself vulnerable terrifies me." It's considerably more comfortable to declare everyone else exhausting 😂

Yes to all of this. Friendships take time to cultivate and it's harder these days as people move around a lot more and have busy lives etc. I've managed to make some lovely friends, most have kids but some don't and most have a partner. I think it's partly tech, it's so much easier to just hunker down with a partner/kids and your phone and the TV than to put the effort in with making and maintaining friendships.

Totally agree that socialising and maintaining friendships is a muscle that atrophies if not kept up though I guess some people find it comes more naturally than others. I do think as you get older in today's world it is harder to find friends and community and not always easy but it's so worth it.

I think the wellness and therapy industry and capitalism etc has also encouraged individualism and prioritising the self etc means many are encouraged to suit themselves only, I've seen so many posts and often hear people saying things like yeah just cancel that night out of you're not feeling up to it etc. Fine, everyone needs to cancel sometimes or may be unwell etc but there's definitely a culture of oh I can change my mind about this commitment if I feel like it. I really think it's important to stick to your word and if you make an arrangement you stick to it. I often feel like I can't be bothered or am too tired to go out but I make myself go and always am glad I did. I guess the pull to do that is easier if you already have company at home etc.

Also agree that most people couple up young when it's common to be in groups and easier to meet a partner and that many prioritise this as a number one goal and when it's achieved feel they have "arrived" and that box is ticked and no need to bother with others anymore really. I find friendships so enriching and life affirming. Obvs humans drive each other mad sometimes but that's life and I'd rather that than being on my own and lonely, we're not meant to be on our own too much and think it's sends most people a bit mad. Isn't it bad for the heart?

I found it much easier to find a life partner than I have friends. And easier to keep him. My friendships fade or become less part of day to day life as our lives change (moving, change of mutual career, fewer mutual friends, having kids at different stages etc), which isn’t an issue with a life partner.

With finding a life partner, it’s more socially acceptable to say what you want up front (assuming you’re confident enough to ditch someone who has issues around commitment). There’s a social convention around roughly how much you contact a life partner, the progress your relationship makes.

Whereas with friendships, there’s no “standard” so you’re always trying to suss out what level of friendship other person wants. And if you want friends but keep meeting people who want to be acquaintances, that does knock your confidence to keep putting yourself out there.

Yes, men are never selfish are they?

They wont ever "lose touch" with friends. They will however, rape women, beat women, murder women, sexually abuse women, to a far greater degree - just look at the crime statistics.

But thank goodness they dont lose touch with friends, eh? 🙄

I'm sure there's a proportion of people who have genuine social anxiety, but it's very striking on the "bitchy school gate mums" threads that people seem to expect to be provided with a full roster of new friends as one of the perks of having kids at school. And then get upset when they realise other people have kept up their friendships.

This is so true.

It often reads as a sense of sheer entitlement, that all these friendship groups are going to immediately open up to them without them putting in any effort at all.

And if they don't, they're 'bitchy queen bee cliquey types'.