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.

A thoughtful post.
I particularly agree that different qualities are needed in relationships with friends and partners.

Interesting how chatting to people at the school gates or not chatting to people at the school gates could both be seen as selfish by different sets of people.
This is more complicated than I thought.

That's what a lot of the lonely people on Mn get wrong. Friendship is a specific thing involving individuals, not something to do with a generalised 'niceness'.

Yes! I’ve seen multiple posts expressing disbelief and even anger when someone insists they’re “nice” and then can’t understand why people don’t want to be friends with them.

Lots of people I know are perfectly “nice”, and I still wouldn’t want to be friends with them. Not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because we’re simply not compatible. We don’t have the same interests, I don’t particularly enjoy the way they relate to people, and our personalities just don’t mesh in the way I want them to in a friendship.

There seems to be a strange sense of entitlement around friendship, where some people believe others are somehow obliged to be their friend simply because they’re “nice”. And I don’t think we apply quite the same logic to dating.

Most people understand that if you want to date someone and form a romantic relationship with them, being generically “nice” isn’t enough. You need chemistry, compatibility, shared interests, attraction and a personality that works for the other person.

Friendship isn’t really any different. Being a kind person is a good quality, but it doesn’t mean everyone is going to want you in their life as a friend.

But it’s perfectly possibly to be civil and make it clear you’re not up for conversation.

Friendships can equal drama ...it puts me off. I did have an abusive friendship thoigh.

I have to say I have moved around a lot- making a few friends everywhere I go, that is why my friendship muscle is well developed-and I have never had drama.
Except once with a friend who was mentally ill.
Some of my friendships have fizzled out, but with no drama, just because of distance or because they became submerged in caring duties.

Sadly quite a few women I know went for the first man who expressed any interest in having children. Women tend to think they are flexible thinkers and can "work around" issues men have about levels of cleanliness in the home, how to discipline kids and how to manage money. Really when things actually happen and they realise they have married someone who is far stricter/laissez-faire about the housework/kids/snacking it is too late. Women expect more of other women because we have been conditioned into being the flexible ones who can hold it all together and weather the storm. If a woman saw other women as they do men, they'd not have such high expectations of them.

Someone trying to start a conversation (as opposed to just asking a question like is this the right bus for X’) with someone with headphones on/scrolling/looking out the window etc is showing they don’t see polite signs that someone wants to be left alone.

See also tactile people who touch strangers (often IME the same people as above) I used to cringe silently and try to move away as I loathe being touched by anyone, including family and friends. Now I just say ‘don’t touch me’ fairly loudly and clearly.

Exceptions made for old people because I’m not an utter cunt

I believe that some people have lower standards
for a lover over a friend. They give them more rope, similarly with family. We have had disagreements over the years, issues that you would never speak to a friend again for saying hurtful things, etc, with family, it is easier to get over. My oldest sister is lovely, my youngest is very rude, if she was a friend. I’d dump her, she gets back in because of the close relationship. It’s deeper than a friendship.
I had a fall out with a friend last year it wasn’t huge, it was over the children (our teenagers). Both have extra needs, it was stupid, we haven’t talked since then and I have no interest in making up. We just moved on from each other,

I agree. Nobody who wasn’t a friend would say I was a kind person as far as other people were concerned. Quite the opposite.

However I would walk over hot coals for someone I care about.

That’s a good point.

I don’t understand how people can argue with their partner and then make up and forgive each other. It’s part of my ND I think. Firsf argument is when we split permanently.

My mother always talked to random strangers, especially the elderly. She’d say we might be the only people who they’ll talk to today. It stuck with me.
I always have a few minutes to chat to a stranger who is just talking about the weather, if they get strange then I’ll move on but I don’t assume they’d are annoying or strange.

Responding to a lonely old person is different from initiating conversations though.

So be more direct. ‘It’s ten past nine. Yes, nice weather. Excuse me, I’m reading/listening to a podcast and don’t want to talk.’ It’s not a big deal.

They’re not elderly people only. If someone talks to me, I’ll respond, old or young. I am not ND. I don’t get uncomfortable unless the person is making me uncomfortable.
I am not worried about missing a part of my podcast.
As a society we are insulated far more than when I was a child. I dread to think how society will be if I’m lucky enough to be elderly.
If anything we need more human connection and community spirit. As a species we’ve always been in large packs, now many of us are isolated.

But what are you imagining this first argument to be about? Are you actually saying you’d end an otherwise happy relationship because of a disagreement about what year Kramer vs Kramer came out, or whether you locked the back door?

I'm one of those people. I have a few really good friends but just starting random interactions with someone is mostly beyond me, I freeze and don't know what to say, or I will say the wrong thing. As I say, I have a few friends, sometimes I meet someone and we just click and I feel comfortable with them, my DH was one of them. My biggest struggle in interactions is small talk, which there wasn't much of with my DH or the people I became close friends with. We jumped straight in with things that others may see as oversharing.

Yes I am and I have.

If it gets into an argument instead of just being a discussion, then there is no coming back from that.

I love the way that men going out and continuing hobbies and women staying in and focusing on children is seen as the men having correct priorities and the women being short sighted fools, rather than the men being selfish assholes and the women left literally holding the baby, as is so often the case.

Well, as you say yourself, that is your ND limiting you by rigid, black and white thinking. It must make life much more difficult.

I used to be a support worker. Worked with a highly anxious young woman, couldn’t leave the house, no friends etc… then one day pregnant. So she managed to find a guy and get frisky but couldn’t make a friend.

Where did she meet him?

Good for you if you find making friends so easy.

I've read many of the posts on this interesting thread, but not all.
So far, I haven't seen the issue of sensitivity addressed.
One difference between romantic relationships/partnerships is sensitivity.
In a romantic relationship/partnership, you know you've been chosen/accepted and usually have confidence in the situation.
I think a lot of the school gate difficulties arise over issues of sensitivity.
If you're naturally lacking in confidence and prone to feelings of rejection, then inevitably you will be overwhelmed by deliberate unfriendliness/exclusion.
Unless something has drastically changed since my children were small the cliques etc. at the school gate are very real. They were usually composed of a group of mothers who had been there since the beginning - mother and toddler group, playgroup etc.. Yes, they they were hostile and discussed/excluded newcomers. They were basically about maintaining the upper hand.
If you're full of confidence you can deal with it. If you're looking for moves to include you, you're going to be disappointed and be hurt by the unkindness.
If you had a boy, it was all about whether your son was good at football.
What amazed me (as someone who failed to make the grade) wast hat these apparently close friendships which had exitsed since mother and baby group dissolved instantly once the kids went on to different secondary schools.

One of the nice things about getting older is that these situations don't exist. I seem to automatically find myself 'mates' with someone of my age. We understand each other's desire to have a nice sit-down and pleasant chat!

I find it very easy to make friends, I have loads of them . The relationship thing though is very difficult for me 😂

Maybe I’m more of a surface level conversation type person 😀 just not deep x