Marrieds see me as a coffee daytime friend....

[gorillatoes]

...but I rarely get invited to evening barbecues and things like New Year's Eve party gatherings. I suppose it makes sense as even numbers are easier and then the men have someone to talk man stuff with, while the girls chat. (where I live is a v traditional area) .

Every year as New Year or Guy Fawkes or whatever comes round, I am always inviting people as I want my house to be a full and lively home for my son. But I invariably get turned down as couples are invited to another couples and that's a far more fun, festive atmosphered houseful with lots of kids rather than just me and my boy. So we end up alone or thrown together with another lone parent or two who I wouldn't neccessarily choose to spend my time with.

I sound judgemental but I wish I had my own steady circle of friends instead of constantly scrabbling round finding someone to spend time with. It would be so lovely to get invited. I have to extend so many invites and rejections before someone says yes.

Yet when it comes to coffee during the day or when husbands are away, then I am the first to be called. Does anyone else find this? I am starting to worry that is in fact me and that not only can I not keep a relationship, I can only make superficial friends too.

Feeling v sorry for myself tonight.

The point is... we want to socialise with families and couples... not to have to be resigned to be forever mixing with other single mums. Lovely as we are 😀

The "my husband works so much I'' practically a single parent too" thing drives me insane too. For me the hardest part of single parenthood is not the actual bloody childcare but the relentlessness of always being on your own, the loneliness & being solely responsible for the finances.

That said I truly believe every single parent should be issued with their own GBFF when their relationship ends. Mine has been a godsend!

Yes, I agree with you completely. I have tried and failed to ''transition'' one friend to being an evening friend but she won't have it. I'm tougher now. I need to make more single friends and I will be prioritising that.

And, a tangent here, I've been reprimanded a bit by well-meaning married friends for internet dating. Apparently the way you meet people is ''through friends''. Other friends? I was also gently reprimanded for spending a week over christmas and ny with a man who I felt v close to at the time, but he, like, didn't want to label it etc... I know he wasn't The One etc, but it would have been a lonely week without him and I was grateful for his good company and I just enjoyed the week without thinking of the future.

I'd like to make a few male friends on line, and collect a group of singles. Who all know each other, through me! I can try!?

I would guess in many instances people are assuming that you haven't got childcare to go out in the evenings, especially for more casual things like the cinema, a couple of drinks. No excuse for big parties, though, I agree

I think that's a lazy assumption that is convenient.

My friends all know I get babysitters when I go out because I have to.

I guess what it boils down to is that they're not that good a friend if they won't include you in their evening socialising. And that is really fuckign painful to acknowledge that, but I know I'm better off for having 'dealt' with similar realisations a few years back. It has spurred me on (a bit, as much as is possible when you're a single parent) to prioritise other people, work on accepting society as it is, and not to get my hopes up and to become inured to ''rejectio'n''

Another tangent, but the friend I tried to steer towards the evenings, the one or two times I got her out in the evening, she would only stay for two hours and she wanted to meet me outside the restaurant. I found that quite bizarre. She is very much half of a couple and she would prefer if her husband didn't socialise with single men, so I think there were bigger issues at play. If she socialised in the evening with me, it was going to give him permission to socialise with single men! And that can't happen. Two by two in to the ark, you know?

That doesn't sound great, but not too normal around here. I am married, but three of my local friends are single mothers, and two of them in particular are very much involved in evening social events.

We go to them, they come to us, we invite them to parties etc.

I do have a couple of married "daytime" friends who I don't choose to go out with in the evening. Actually, thinking about it, I have a couple of married evening friends who I'm not so keen on during the daytime.

I think it depends on how you socialise (my favourite day time friend is great to have a coffee with, but has a tendancy to spend nights out backing you into a corner and discussing her daughter's periods at the top if her voice. I'd rather be dancing on a table).

Maybe you simply haven't found the right evening friends yet? Have you tried inviting them out yourself?

My friends who I met as a parent are all daytime friends, regardless of relationship status. Very occasionally we might go for a meal out, or an afternoon until 8 or 9pm party with alcohol and children, but night-time socialising is pretty much reserved for friends who are child-free or have handy babysitting relatives nearby and so can go out at night without weeks of planning and negotiation.

Happens all the time sometimes I feel so used like go for lunch or a walk or when hubby not around but come weekend or house gathering etc not a word. I once had a woman tell me that she feared single women around her husband.... insecure or what. Oh and the I'm sooooo tired cause hubby away working for two days and I have to do everything.

OlennasWimple, I'm glad that you agree there's no excuse for it. I listened to those women, including the one who threw the party, bitch about their husbands and sympathised with them about how useless they were, nodded my head to tales of minor domestic fracas and slight inconveniences while dealing with an absentee ex who ran out on us and paid fuck all in child support while effectively rendering my kids fatherless. I tutted and I empathised and I listened even while my own and my kids' lives were a fucking car crash compared to their minor domestic squabbles and I didn't even get an invite to the party. Yes, it rankled.

It sounds like the coffee friends you have don't actually have that much in common with you - just the kids. do they think of you as a mummy friend rather than a friend? Maybe that's why they moan about their husbands or contact you when theirs are gone - it gives them another common area. Otherwise, you may not actually have much in common with them?

Would you consider any of these coffee friends real friends you'd have if there were no kids?

You've made me think OP. There's only one single mum in our group. She's always come along on mums' nights out and weekends away. Less so on mixed evenings I suppose it's because even though we segregate the minute we get through the door she didn't usually come alone but brought her latest man. This changed the dynamic because there was someone we had to make an effort with, lazy I know. Had she just come to be with us girls, no problem.

If it's any consolation - I HATE attending these parties (so does my dp). I can never relax, and constantly feel like I have to say the right thing to 'fit in'. The bbqs etc in my (very traditional area) are very much 'keeping up with the Joneses' and have a competitive/comparative edge to them. I feel very uncomfortable. Truth be told I only go (and cajole dp) because I think we ought to after being invited, and for out dd to play a bit.
We are a mixed race family in our very white area - so we are a bit different in that respect too, I find it hard work.
I want my dd to be friends with children from all backgrounds, I'm ashamed to say it but I've not met any single mums - I'd invite you!!!
Then again....I'm rubbish at making friends, I'd much rather see my mates from before, but those opportunities are few and far between these days....

DH works long hours and is away a lot and I'm afraid I prioritise seeing him when possible over spending time with my single friends. I don't see how it could work any other way for my relationship, we have to put each other first. I'm afraid that would mean a single friend of mine feeling like you, OP, like a coffee friend. This is how I see married friends as well though, we'll socialise while everyone is at school and work and stay with the family where possible.

I could have written this. There isn't an answer. 8 years later I'm still battling with it. But being single is a bit easier.

Do you know I brought up my dc on my own and alway though of us as a family. I didn't realise that due to being a lone parent I wasn't a family....

I leave you to make friends with couples and families and take my suggestions of mixing with all sorts of people elsewhere.

The I think your narrow view on who you might mix with is the issue

Ivkkaty, I think you have pegged me wrong. I am not sure where you get the idea that I don't see a lone parent as a proper family. I am also not being narrow about who I socialise with.

My quandry is not needing suggestions on how to meet people, I have a wide network and organise nights out and go to single parent meetups and organise work socials too. I have friends of all categories, single, childless, older, married.

What I seem to find difficult is family friendships where families get invited round to other families houses. As said before, there are very few single parents round me and the one I do know is nice but not someone I would spend time with because we have very different interests and our kids are very different ages, she has a 1 yr old and a 3 yr old, my son is 8. No doubt she feels the same about me.

The problem is that I feel as a single parent I have to work that much harder to make a social life. I have lots of friends but as we moved to the area when DS was 1, away from old friends, so we have had to start again. I am outgoing and friendly and have lots of casual friends but am finding I don't really have a group that I belong to and I think being single is part of the problem.

I get invited to the girls nights out but not to the family things. Summer holidays are the worst.As I say, it is traditional where we live and in the summer, a nuclear family may invite another nuclear family or two over for a barbecue that goes on until late, boys playing out while the adults enjoy themselves. It seems this is how family friendships get established and the families may plan a camping trip or a long weekend away. The socialising together gets established and the families end up being a bit of a clique.

This is what I find it hard to break into and therefore always feel something of an outsider.

Kurlywurly88, your comment made me laugh because although I want to be part of it, I agree there is an awful lot of extension building, new car, my cleaner, where are you going on your holidays talk goes on on the odd occasion I have been to these things. I do not have that kind of money so cannot join in these conversations. Perhaps there lies the real issue!

borders that sounds a bit shit for her!

I actively avoid the kind of "family friendships" you describe OP! Usually one of each couples get on better (eg DH likes the men a lot but I don't get on as well with the women, don't like a female friend's DH or whatever) and DC might not get on. Or in groups there's gender segregation within mixed gatherings as a PP describes, which I find weird.

I also don't like mixing booze and DC, eg late BBQs which seems to be the usual thing with people we know.

Went camping this summer with old, non local friends (a couple) now with DC of similar age and it didn't go well!

I agree, it is harder work to create a social life. Who could argue with that.

with couples, you invite over one other couuople and it's a group.. two other couples (one of whom comes over cos they know there's another couple going) and it's a small party.

I'm going out with some men on line at the moment and unlike the first year OLD, I'm going to try and cultivate some friendships too. last year I just shied away from a couple of men I did like but wasn't attracted to. This next year, I think the focus of my OLD is going to be making friends.

Gorillatoes you sound like you'd be good company! I have sat silent through a few kitchen extension conversations. I love kitchens believe me!

thanks Damepastel! I have had some moments where I've thought it's me. But in more rational moments, I realise it's probably just one of those things and due to my circs, I will just have to accept having to work that bit harder for a social life. As Dory would say, Must Keep Swimming!

It's interesting to hear it from the other side, Dozer. I must admit to loving a boozy barbecue that goes on until early evening, but I do shy away from all that keeping up with the Joneses stuff. Border's point about the new man coming along and throwing the group out is reasonable, I think. Us singles would probably be the same if the roles are reversed.

It's the night after night after night of being in alone after school ru if don't have friends over (I am always the one hosting) or after bedtime. I enjoy my own company and am pretty self sufficient but some days it gets on top of you.

You're welcome, keep on swimming indeed. Or, surfing! Like you luckily I'm self-efficient (practically, financially and emotionally) but some days, loneliness hits me like a wave and I'm floored by it. Other days I get back up on my board and keep surfing.

One thing that hurt me (no, hurt is too strong a word, but confuses me) is how little interest most married friends had in the fledgling relationships I had. The dating disasters and funny stories (I thought!). I thought it was reciprocal, for all the listening I'd done wrt how Mike/Steve/Dave. But no. I was telling a married friend about a new relationship last May and she interrupted me to tell me she thought she saw the children of a mere acquaintance standing behind me. I hadn't been going on and on. It was scant detail I was giving her because I had picked up on her lack of interest. I don't know!
Working helped because I made a group of friends there and was not side-lined in any way. Nobody cares if you're married or single at work.

ps, I'm single again now! so maybe that's why my friend doesn't want to listen. But, of course, but that's not the point is it!

op I totally hear you and have been nodding my head reading all your posts!! Its so true, i have been a single parent to 10yo dd since she was born and I have lots of lovely friends to meet for coffee but rarely (if ever) have I been invited out in the evenings. Once when I was briefly seeing someone 'we' were invited out to a colleagues evening do and I remember thinking 'oh right this is what its like to be part of a couple' it was like joining some secret club

Not sure what the answer is though.

The 'oh I feel like a single parent because dh has been away' thing is so irritating, i normally do the long stare and reply 'I doubt it'