No real friends, feeling very down.

[CanNeverDecide]

I thought this fitted into relationships, sort of, which is why it's here.

So, I'm 32. Had some sort of realisation today that I really don't have any friends. Yes, lots of people I know, lots of people I could invite to a party or go out to dinner with, but no real friends - you know, the kind you can sit and just have a mindless natter with, call up at short notice to meet up, rely on in a crisis kind of thing. In short, no one (apart from family) who actually really gives a sh*t whether I'm alive or dead.

I know how I got here. Have always been in a 'group' of friends, e.g. at school/Uni etc. but they always seem to be the groups that disintegrate - never those strong ones that stay together. So my friendships are bitty, with none of them really knowing others, and most of them are geographically now far away.

I was 'off campus' in my first year at Uni, in a relationship with someone not at Uni, and doing a course I didn't really want to do - so I didn't come out of Uni with those great mates that many do. Then got married soon after and so didn't make as many new friends as I probably would have done if I were single.

Today I was just looking at facebook and I realised that I don't have what seems to be 'normal' for others. Someone I know with a new baby has a friend making lunch for her and bringing it over. I actually can't think of one person who would do that for me off their own back. Another friend was invited on holiday with someone, others are going to weddings nearly every weekend.

I've just burst into tears in front of my husband about this and he summed it up perfectly. I have no 'primary' friends - you know, the ones you've known for years that you've shared lots with. I have loads of 'secondary' friends, but those are people to whom I am not important, because I'm not one of their 'primary' friends.

Funniest thing is, I am a complete extrovert. Confident, outgoing, always been in the biggest social circles, but never any longevity in my friendships for some reasons.

Feeling so depressed today about it all, yet there is little I can do to change the past.

Am I alone? Any advice/tips/reassurance? Anything to make me feel better?

@ "In short, no one (apart from family) who actually really gives a sh*t whether I'm alive or dead"

Are you alone? Not at all, plenty of people are in your situation. Most of the women I know solve this by becoming best friends with their DP's/DH's even after they break up - think Chris and Billie Piper.

Any advice/tips/reassurance? Sadly, no advice or tips just reassurance that you are not alone in this and it could change in the future.

Anything to make you feel better? Angelina Jolie and Beyonce have both admitted they don't have close friends and mostly hang out with their DP's.

Big Hugs!

SA

I hear what you're saying. Even though I still live in the area I grew up in, I have found that since I have become a mom, lots of my long-term friends have fallen by the wayside. We still sometimes meet up but they tend to meet up without me for big nights out. I'm pregnant again so I can't go out drinking like we used to (our social lives seemed to hinge around this). Just re-read your 21.14 post CanNeverDecide and I realised I have pretty much written the same thing!!

I have met some good "mom" friends in the last year but most have returned to work whereas I haven't.

I'm in Surrey and am more than open to new friends!!

Hi Cannever, you sound very logical and perfectly normal, I say that because I know the sort of mental gymnastics you go through trying to work out if there's something in us that has lead to us feeling this way. I wonder if you and any of the other lovely posters relate to this. I'm going through a bit of a identity shift and finding that I'm doing a lot of thinking about relationships and the sort of friends I want. This can often make me feel lonely because I see that a lot of my friendships are achingly trivial. I'm not saying that I want to sit around discussing philosophy all night, but I do want more of a meeting of minds. I suspect this is very much part of the journey. Just wonder if maybe you can relate to this? Anyone? Lol

I can definitely relate to this, and further chatting with my husband this evening has revealed that some friendships I haven't worked on as much as I could, because they perhaps weren't fulfilling in themselves. As you get older, though, it seems harder to get that true meeting of minds with people, and yet you can still drift apart from those that you have shared so much with in the past.

I have met some great people through antenatal and toddler grps from DD1, and they are my main social group at the moment, but the friendships are still new and so feel superficial in many ways to me still.

do you think that with friends you meet at uni/school your relationship is built on shared experiences (boys/teen angst etc)? you see each other every day - and it is very easy to quickly form strong bonds... but when you are older life gets in the way and it takes an awful lot longer to build up equally strong bonds ????

yeah that does make a lot of sense actually. But in contrast I think when you're younger you cast your net indiscriminately, whereas at my age you want to be more efficient and catch fish that don't just 'make do', you want a particular species?

I think it is all down to shared experience, luck and timing.

It is difficult, especially the primary friend bond which just takes time to build - its not like you can just be advised to join a night class or something.

But don't you think that sometimes you just meet someone and it just clicks and you know you'll be friends for a long time.

I am not good at secondary friends - I barely have time for my primary friends let alone spending valuable time with people I'm not able to instantly connect with when I do have a free night.

But primary friends can be a lot of hard work too and fall outs can be a lot harder to take. I lost a life long primary friend a few years ago - big terrible fall out which I just couldn't get past and so I now never see her at all. It took me at least a year to come to terms with it all.

I have no advice at all, but I just wanted to join in as I too am having a big think about friends at the moment - another shift in working/lifestyle and another good friend moving abroad. Arrghgh - things just don't stay still for long enough for new good friends to be made!!!

My therapist (don't ask) told me that it's impossible for a woman to have more than three good friends, two for a man. I disagreed, she then told me that I just don't know what a good friend is.

Personally, I'm happy to be an extrovert with a lot of friends. People with one or two uber close friends freak me out a little but.

I know where you are coming from. When I moved over to the US five years ago I didn't know anyone. I quickly got myself some drinking buddies but it has taken me five years to form a close friendship with one girl.

The things I have done to find my one friend are yoga, pilates, group tennis lessons, darts, knitting circle (HATED IT), expat group (HATED IT), sports clubs etc etc. I met my friend at the gym. We were in the same class for 3 months before we spoke to each other!

You are def not alone. The best thing to do is carry on getting out and about. When you meet nice people make an effort to meet up with them again.

This has been a really enlightening thread.

I had a really good friend at school and through to Uni, but due to a ridiculous man based spat, we fell out, and in some ways I still mourn that friendship now.

armbow I agree that it takes so much longer when you're older to form those deeper bonds - if you're married, your friends are married, and you all have kids, where is the time for true friendship bonding? There are so many other priorities. A month at school or Uni with friends is probably the same as a year or more with newer friends when you have less time and perhaps see them only once a fortnight or something.

Also, everyone seems so busy - even on days when I do feel like calling one of my newer friends up for a chat/to meet up, I don't - because they usually have something else they're already doing.

Anyway, the past can't be changed - guess it's just a case of making the best of the situation and looking ahead to the future.

I have one friend in particular who has the strongest and loveliest set of mates from Uni. They are all really close despite living in different bits of the country, all got married around the same time and all just had babies around the same time. It was one of them who was making lunch for another and taking it over. And that was what made me sad yesterday, I suppose, because I would love to have that close knit support group but don't.

hi , i only joined mn yesterday for exactly the same reason , im 33 and i have 3 children my youngest 11 months, i have 1 true friend but dont see to often as our lives seem to be heading in different directions ,she has no children and does not want any and has lots of animals which is not really my thing ( no offence to animals) lol. sometimes i just want that closeness that i see other groups of girls / women have, i seem to have lots of associates/mates, but not real friends if you no what i mean , i feel like a sado writing this but just wanted to let you all no your not the only ones feeling like this and in a way makes me feel more normal that im not the only one either wads starting to worry lol, im in manchester.

Little observation here.

Purely subjectively, it feels like people who go to university maybe find it harder to keep 'primary' friends.

Firstly, you move away from your school friends to go to university so keeping ties with them is hard. They're either at other universities building new groups of friends as you are, or they're still at home and you're only back there once of twice a year.

Then you move away from university and your group of university friends tends to spread out. Personally, whilst a fair amount of people I know came down to London as well, a fair amount also went to other places around the country or back to their home countries.

Then your life begins to evolve. You move from a flat in one area to a bigger place in another area. You have a relationship, that becomes permanent, then you have kids. At each step, you find yourself at different stages to those friends you've built, even those local to you. The great friend you used to go out clubbing with is still clubbing, but you're at home with a baby, or vice versa.

In short, it takes an incredible amount of work on both sides of a friendship to survive this amount of change through life and frankly it's staggering that any friendships do survive! Personally, I've always worked really hard to keep friendships from each stage of my life but I've still lost touch with many close friends all the same.

Yeah it's so difficult when everyone's so busy and at different points in their life.
Will have to get out there more.

I could have written this op. I got married at 20 and moved away from all my friends and family to be with my dh who's in the forces. We now live overseas and although I have people that I talk to I have no friends and feel so lonely and depressed.Everyone else in my area has made a circle of friends except me! I only have my dh and ds for company. I had a close group of friends that I went to 6th form with while they are still close I am very much an outsider now. I do meet them when we visit the UK and keep in touch via facebook but it's just not the same when your not there.

Monkeyfacegrace - I'm in Glos/chelt area although I'm a fair bit older than you and also short of female friends!

youre ahead of me. the only friends i have are the ones ive known for years in cali. ive been in uk since 2001 and have not been able to make any real friends - and through no fault of my own either.

its sad, and it makes you angry too. but thats just the way it is.

stick to blokes - they dont play the same alienation games as women play nor will they speak to you one day, then blank you the next, for no reason. who needs that headache.

sorry - it can be very lonely, but end of day, ive decided that most women arent worth knowing if they wont even give you the time of day to at least judge you fairly.

chin up - focus on those who do love you and forget what so and so is gloating about on her facebook page - and remember, the bigger the gloater on facebook, the chances are they are really quite miserable in truth which is why they 'gloat' on this sad, sad site, which aint about mates, but about competition. keep off it, ur better off.

Can I join in?
I have a couple of close friends, and i would call them in an emergency. I'm 24 and they are same age (friends froms school, one of them from nursery!) but i have a dd and no partner. I live alone with just dd. My friends are great but everyone's so busy aren't they??!!

One of the is getting married next year and completely wrapped up in that. I understand but she seems to have forgotten me. Plus when i have dd to look after and only a very rare babysitter I don't get included much. Other friends have other halves and new jobs so nobody has much time. A lot of the time it doesn't bother me too much but other times it doesn't half get lonely!

(thread killer emoticon)

I found with my close friends that we were just acquaintances until bad things happened. Obviously I'm not going to go into too much detail but my best friend was a friend of a friend until she started going through a really bad time and I helped her out. That was 12 years ago and shes the one I know I could call at 2am and she knows she could call me anytime. I think we all have more friends than we realise until we actually need a friend, sorry if that sounds a bit soppy but I've always found it to be true.

Anyway I'm in Brighton and will gladly adopt anyone!

This is me too. I've actually got quite a few close friends that I see for lunch or dinner but no one that both dh and I socialise with. (Apart from couples we knew before we got together).

I'll adopt someone with or without their dh!

Nobodies in Norfolk, typical!

I know how you feel op, although for me it was no friends in 'real life' since the ones I had were all online. So no one to talk to outside of the internet.

Then I had my son 6 months ago and started going to baby groups. Finally made two friends for the first time since I was 8. heh I was so damn excited that I went home and phoned my dp to tell him.

So it might seem like the road ahead is bleak and lonely, but really if you are persistant and kind, it can end. I'd probably be drinking and smoking myself into an early grave if it wasn't for my son tbh.

I have a few very very good primary friends (inlcuding a couple from my childhood) , but not enough secondary friends. So for example I would not have enough people to invite to a big party the way some people do. Plus my friends don't really all know each other!!

It is difficult, I think everyone must experience it at some point, unless they remain in the area they grew up in, with the same friends. I've moved around a lot and found that I really had to put the effort in when I made my most recent move. I have a core group of friends from uni and school days, but I don't live near them, and only see them a few times a year.

I have a few local primary friends and a wider group of secondary friends. I would dearly love more male friends, or couples to be friends with though. I miss the male friends I had through work, and it's impossible to make friends with people's husbands in our area - it's viewed with great suspicion!