FTM with no friends

[alovelynight]

I am a FTM to a lovely 1 year old little girl. Me and her dad are together, happy and due to get married in November.
The only thing is, I have 0 friends. My other half works full time so we only really get to spend time together at the weekend, the rest of the week I'm on my own with her.
I had a best friend of 20+ years but she massively let me down when I had my daughter, so I don't see her anymore. There is one girl who was in my friendship group in school, we reconnected when we had our babies (born on the same day). We meet up once every couple of months, however I am very aware of the fact we only really meet up because we have babies and it is all about the babies when we do meet. She has her own circle of friends she meets up with.
I have never been someone with a massive amount of friends, I was not popular in school, I am quite a loner. I have always struggled to make friends and maintain friendships since leaving college - I have always felt like the one making all the effort. I do enjoy being by myself and being in my own company but for some reason when I had my daughter, it just highlighted how alone I really am (outside of my relationship with her dad).
Has anyone else been in this situation? Did you make friends with the other mums once your little one started school?

Do you have family? I only have a couple of good friends and I think that’s normal as you get older. Is there anyway you could reconnect with your friend of 20yrs? Sometimes people mess up but the friendship could still be salvaged if she was otherwise a good friend to you. Nobody is perfect.

I'm the same as you OP, I have a 3 year old DD and I have 0 friends, I am autistic and have never maintained friendships. My husband is brilliant but runs a business so is very busy. I have family but they all work busy jobs etc. I go to classes and groups with my daughter and easily mingle with other people there but that's where it ends. I can't work due to my autism but my daughter attends nursery 2 days a week.

What do you do day to day with your child? If you want to meet fellow mums with similar aged kids you need to go to local playgroups and age appropriate classes.

Local churches often run parent and toddler groups- they lay out toys for the children and hot drinks on offer for parents and carers for a small fee.

Your child won’t always be one year old.

Presumably you take her, or plan to take her to whatever groups are available for mothers and babies in your area, so she can begin to interact with other children?

Once she starts nursery she will begin to engage more with her peers - so you will inevitably engage with their parents.

Do you have plans to return to work? That’s obviously your best bet for meeting and forming friendships on your own behalf.

And of course once she starts school you will be in a world of children and parents and teachers and child based activities - it will be in your best interests to form alliances with other parents to share the load of childcare.

Essentially your life will be full of new people in the next few years - and for the sake of your daughter’s socialisation you’ll want to embrace the friendship opportunities that presents.

Thanks everyone. We did baby sensory from when she was 2 months to 11 months and I really loved it. I did speak to a few other mums there every week and we added each other on Facebook but nothing more came of it.
I take her to soft play once a week so she can interact with other babies, again I do speak to other mums there but nothing comes of it.
We plan for her to start nursery when she turns 3 so she won't be short of interaction with other children, we also want to try for baby no. 2 the end of the year.
I get on with my other half's family really well and my own parents too, they both make a big effort with me and my daughter. It's just friendships, I do enjoy my own company and I don't "click" with people very easily. I always find myself being someone I'm not when I meet someone new to try and not come across weird! I think this is why I find it difficult to make new friendships as it's mentally tiring for me.

This sounds a lot like me, I find myself not acting normal when I meet new people and I don't know why I do it. I always think to myself "just relax and be yourself" but I always end up talking weird and feeling tense while I'm talking to new people because I don't want them to think I'm weird.

I found church hall play groups really useful for seeing the same faces week in week out. I think sometimes you have to put yourself out there and ask if people fancy a coffee or want to go to the playground.

I wouldn’t worry too much, your children will have lots of friends at nursery, mine went at 1 and they’re always chatting to me about their friends when they get home.

A lot of parents have their own lives and set friendship groups, and often don’t have time for existing friends let alone new ones. I can’t say I made any friends in baby classes, but then I only went to a couple as I found them a bit pointless.

I have a one person from my NCT I speak to, but the others I realised all we had in common was that our children were the same age.

Work is where I have made new friends and have kept in touch when people have left. I think about half of my friends are work friends. I would maybe park the friends until you go back to work and have a bit more time to do things on your own without your child.

When you say "nothing came of it", did you actually initiate something?

No I didn't. I wish I had more confidence to do things like this but I care too much about what people think of me and I worry they will think I'm a weirdo. My brain tells me they are just being nice and if they wanted to be friends they would initiate it themselves!
I haven't had a good experience with friends and was bullied in school so it's not helped my self esteem and I always think people dislike me when they first meet me.

Does your partner have friends who have girlfriends/wifes, could yous start socialising together, then perhaps organically start to build friendships with them? I would find this the easiest way to make friends as an adult.

Well, you need to work at it if you want friends. You sound as if your passivity and self-consciousness are hampering you.

I do also think you might have a slightly retrograde and idealised idea of friendship. It’s never going to be the same as when you were a teenager. You mention one girl - but you and your peers are all women now, with grown up concerns.

Tbh most people would kill to be on excellent terms with both their own and their partner’s family. You say they all make a big effort with me and my daughter - do you make an effort with them? Entertain them at your house? Go shopping or on day trips or short breaks focused on what they (individually or as a group) enjoy? Actively nurturing those relationships should probably be a priority right now - don’t dismiss them or think they’re worth less than an hour in a coffee shop with an acquaintance.

Oh no, I absolutely make an effort with them on a regular basis. But that is because I am 100% comfortable with them all and I know that they like me!

So don’t they count as friends? Or at least fulfil that role.

Honestly, you don’t sounding lacking in people.