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.

Well, or she was raped, surely?

You are spot on about these groups dissolving the minute the children get older. It’s a definite thing, the queen bee at the school gate. My kids are older now so I can laugh at the current queen bee in my youngest daughter’s year. It’s like watching a nature programme sometimes the way she is manoeuvring around.

I love meeting new people and love having chats with strangers, but as above it’s the deep and meaningful relationships that get to me. I find them hard and unbalanced.

@JavierBardemswife

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.

Absolutely.

‘I gave her kids a lift to school/her kids are in my class/I bought her a birthday gift, therefore I get to be her friend and if she prefers someone else they are a “clique”.’

It’s a fundamental misreading of what friendship is. Friendship is, as someone said, based primarily on chemistry. It’s not something you can “earn” or force.

But you could invoke pretty much exactly the same sensitivity issues in dating and looking for a relationship. Go on a dating app and no one ever swipes right on you? Or they do, and you discover it was for a ‘Who can have a date with the ugliest woman?’dare. Or you’re stood up repeatedly. Or you get excited about a date where you felt a genuine spark and he never contacts you again, or turns out to be married. Or you go on lots of first dates but no one ever wants a second. Or you’re excited and happy for a few weeks until you sleep together and he dumps you the moment you put your underwear back on.

None of that is pleasant, and for a more than usually sensitive person it’s agonising. Arguably far more agonising than being cold-shouldered at the school gate.

Not complicated - if you are someone who likes to chat then you have a responsibility to be able to read people’s signals (and be truly self aware of your own skills in that direction).

That way you have positive interactions between like minded people.

If in doubt, leave people alone.

Firstly look at the threads when a friend wants to bring along someone they've met. I don't think that you'd find the posts on men's forums that you do on here. Older women who haven't already got a friendship group are viewed with suspicion. Women expect emotional intimacy from each other, ND women struggle with that. We can say something slightly inappropriate, read the thread about, one comment, that there's no going back from. We can be more blunt and don't do the 'hun' etc thing. Sometimes forget to say hello once etc. If you then add in (in my case) white but I'm mixed heritage, you have to be prepared to forgive a lot of unconscious bias. Men can go into a pub and find a friendship group, to at least meet up with. In my case my financial situation, doesn't match my educational/work background, because I was a carer, which adds in another layer. Read the threads about weight. A man wouldn't look at another man's weight and think they'll have nothing in common, people declare that on here. We aren't kind to each other. I will go wherever I'm invited. I wish that I was getting the invites to turn down, but being retired has put a stop to that side. I met my partner because we were both looking for that. My husband when young and dated when I had a friendship group. We are now in different parts of the country, some went down the drugs path, some are carers etc.

I don't know how to say this nicely, but as pp said, you seem very black and white in this regard.

But sometimes, as these threads demonstrate, you can’t win this one.

For every person who is determined not to interact with any other human being on pain of death there is someone who will go into a three year sulk if I don’t acknowledge her.

But it should be on the person who wants to talk to establish whether they are welcome. Not the person who they are making uncomfortable or annoyed.

One thread on here was a woman who was going up to people and talking and even when they were polite back but politely went back to their phones or whatever she insisted on pushing things further and sat down at their table etc.

There comes a point where it is acceptable to walk alway or state clearly that you don’t want to talk. But most people are polite and will go along with it.

Why can’t the talkers show sufficient manners themselves? Why do they want to risk making people annoyed or uncomfortable? What do they gain? Perhaps it’s so they can come on MN and post about how people are so self absorbed these days.

Of course you can win. Be aware of others’ reactions to you (beyond what they say) and only speak to people that are open to it.

Im ND and I know this!

Why the recipient of the attention is responsible for rejecting it instead of the giver of the attention being responsible for making sure it is welcome, I don’t know.

I think those who do it despite someone having headphones, looking away etc are either unable to see the situation or don’t care that they are unwelcome

@Anarchy99

But you say “speak to people only if they are open to it”: if two people are sitting silently somewhere how are you supposed to know if they are “open to it”? Should they carry a little green padel or a badge saying “talk please”?

It’s not really that workable.

You would be surprised, it makes life much clearer. Being ND can be shit but it can also be good, I don’t have to spend my life arguing with someone, ‘forgiving’ them/being ‘forgiven’, arguing about something else etc etc.

I can concentrate on people that deserve my trust and love.

Number of ‘romantic’ drama in the last 25 years - nil

Number of friendship drama and dilemmas in the last 40 years - nil

But you can’t control other people’s behaviour, only your own. You can’t magically prevent someone from approaching you, even if you’re (to your own mind) making it very clear that you’re not interested in a chat. All you can do is respond if they do approach and make it clear you aren’t engaging.

I mean, I don’t disagree with you that someone looking for a chat should check for indications that it’s welcome first, but in the same way that I think people shouldn’t drop litter or let doors slam in the faces of people behind them, but can’t actually prevent them doing those things in the first place.

Body language. Seriously, how do people not know that. If someone is clearly not interested, isn’t looking at you, has headphones in, is scrolling their phone/reading their book then leave them alone.

If you insist on speaking to them anyway, despite them indicating they aren’t interested it’s a sign that you don’t care about making someone annoyed or awkward because your need to reach out is more important. Hence why I am moving away from sitting there and politely indulging them.

No sadly you can’t prevent them. But if they choose to ignore the clear signs that I don’t want to engage (short of actually having a sign saying ‘leave me the fuck alone’), then I can choose to walk away and/or tell them clearly.

If someone isn’t polite to me (which the approach isn’t) then I don’t owe them politeness back.

If they understood the polite brush off then they wouldn’t be approaching someone who is clearly not engaging or wanting to engage and actively bothering them.

Plus why is it on me to have to act when I haven’t started this? I have just been sitting minding my own business.

You do know you can get pregnant without having an emotional connection, right?

Getting pissed and fucking a stranger is still likely to get you pregnant.

Yes, and that sex can be non-consensual and still result in pregnancy. This woman sounds incredibly vulnerable.

I definitely think there is something in this. I am married and I do have friends but they are mostly old friends and I haven’t made any new ones in a long time - I briefly managed it a couple of years ago befriending the partner of a friend but then they split up and we couldn’t keep it going.

I met my husband at university. Neither of us have had much need to be particularly sociable in adulthood because we have each other and some old friends. I think if you are single for longer you put yourself out there more and then end up making new friends that way.

So don’t engage at all. Ignore them. You don’t ‘have’ to do anything at all, but you still can’t control other people’s behaviour. Yes, in a black and white world a sign that says NO LITTERING means no one drops litter and a person at a bus stop wearing headphones and not making eye contact doesn’t get spoken to, but that’s just not how the world works.

But again its not always as clear cut as you suggest.

Obviously if someone is sitting with headphones on, or reading a book then its impolite to start yammering away at them. Most people get this.

But if I am standing on a train station platform and the heavens open suddenly would it be a breach of etiquette to turn to the person next to me and say: “Wow!”. Or if someone comes to me and says: “excuse me but I love your dress/shoes/hair!”

Some people love these sorts of icebreakers, many people find they enhance their life, while some don’t want them. Unless you walk around with a permanent scowl on your face or wear headphones all the time its hard to be clear which category people are in.

If work on the assumption that no one should ever be approached in a public place other than for purely essential reasons you will offend or upset another whole community of people.

It’s not as black and white as you are making it and I don’t think you can expect all people to adopt a vow of silence in public like this.

I often go to the theatre or ballet alone, if DH is not keen. After a incredible play or dance, it seems almost churlish to not at least say to the person next to me " That was beautiful, wasn't it?".

Maybe they are thinking, " Get out of my face".

I've only seen them occasionally, usually in seaside towns, on the seafront. Never seen anyone sitting on one, however.

I honestly don’t think most people are thinking that. I think most people would welcome this.

But (and the “introverts” will shoot me) honestly a bit of me thinks that if you find someone next to you making a small, friendly and entirely optional overture that intrusive you shouldn’t be going out in the first place. No one is forcing you to do anything.

Yes you should read a room and not impose yourself but you can’t expect people to work on the basis that everyone is that misanthropic and suspicious.

Being wildly antisocial isn’t the default.

The reason is simple.

Many mumsnetters are extremely neurotic and socially inept.

But many men don’t give a shit as long as they are getting their end away.