Friends :(

[hotmessmom82]

I'm 34, I am a single mum to 2 boys, work, pretty much no family, have moved all over the country until I had my sons. I am not (too) weird, find it easy to maintain a relationship but for the life of me I cannot find decent friends!

I don't know if I am missing some vital ingredient but I seem to meet people who are just on the take or end up being rather fake.

Blackopium - I'm in London too.

I've had some really isolating, unpleasant experiences with other mums last few years.

I'm into arts/culture and the women I'm around daily are not so much so I stick out. I tend to be less guarded around men (dodgy mother) so that doesn't help. But I do treasure proper womens friendship when I find it.

I am mid fifties, 2 kids, youngest 19. I was a LP since Youngest was 9. polly I also felt the exclusion in the school playground (but I feel excluded wherever I go) the lack of a SO was definitely a factor with a friendship amongst Mums. I have to say though, I'm not into cliques, so the school playground was a mare for me!

I have always been the one pursuing the friendship, of late though I just can't be bothered. If it's not sincere then it's not worth bothering about. I would say I'm a very loyal friend, but I'm not intrusive at all.

A friend called me last night, we have known each other for almost 30 years, I last saw her a year ago and spoke probably six months ago.
I have always been the one to make the effort. Every conversation ends in "we must meet up/go out" we never do. Last night I just said "yes we must" and left it at that, I shan't be following it up.

I work full time plus an evening, so I understand people don't have masses of spare time. I'm going to try some volunteering, you tend to get very sincere folk at these things, I've done some before. So that's my NY resolution

I'm thinking of starting my own meetup - adult rounders!
I won't though I'm far too scared

artisanmincepiesonly oh thats lovely, we share the same interests too, I still cant get enough of what London has to offer art/culture wise

I am not a mum, hope its not a problem This forum has helped me through some darkest moments so I'm stuck here :)
I think you lot are an ocean of life wisdom!

it would be lovely to meet up!

I have no friends either I have younger siblings who only speak to me if they have a problem but will ignore texts etc at other times. I feel invisible on the school run as I am pretty much ignored. It's really been heightened for me over new year and Christmas as I haven't seen anyone apart from DH and DC's. I often feel very alone. I think there must be something unlikeable about me but I don't know what

I can count my true friends on one hand in that we don't live in each other's pockets but I know they are there for me if I need them.

I'm always up for meeting new friends for a drink and natter to put the world to rights :-). Maybe we should start a regions thread and have a meet up somewhere central. I'm in Birmingham btw.

Oh I can empathise with a lot of these posts! I had a realisation towards the end of last year that most of the 'friendships' I'd made on maternity leave were really just acquaintances. I think I'd known this deep down really, and can see objectively that we didn't have much in common beyond the kids. But whilst there were regular group meet-ups etc is was easy to feel part of it, however superficially. I admit, it stung, and caught me by surprise to have those feelings I'd last encountered in my teenage years again in my mid thirties! I sometimes think living in London doesn't help - I certainly can't blame it on a lack of people nearby! More recently I've tried to adopt a similar attitude to Blobby.

I do have a few wonderful longstanding friends, and if anything, all this has made me value them more. But they don't live locally so opportunities for setting the world to rights and wine-drinking in person are a bit limited!

I do have a couple of lovely friends but the older I get the more I notice how flakey people can be.

For example:

• the ones who get a bf and disappear off the face of the planet.

• the ones who ignore you until you get a bf and then suddenly you become desirable to social with (eh, no thanks)

• the ones who only get in touch to tell you their troubles

The

Empress13 thats an amazing idea, I have just started regional thread for London.

I'm another one in a similar position.
Split up with the love of my life this year, also lost a close friendship.
I have maybe one or two people I would call friends and one of them I rarely see.
Would love to make new friends.

blackopium

Yes well the outskirts anyway!

Good for you Howlong and I agree about the playground clique BS. There were only TWO of us parents when it was the primary school days who were never invited to sit with the other mums. Urgh.

I feel the same Stoptalking but then I seem to get on with people at work so it can't just be us, it's them, they're the bloomin' problem!!

Empress I'm near Brum. Not sure how you start a regional thread - is there a geographical section??

Ricekrispiesquare yaaay! so theres 3 of us already, enough for girly brunch with a glass of wine

I also have no friends. 48, never married (just splitting up from dp so will be moving house), no kids. I never went to uni so no friends there. Did an OU degree, made two friends, one was an actually convicted paedophile, the other is OK but a bit weird (both men, both married. None of the women spoke to me but all seemed to know each other somehow).

Locally loads of neighbours and acquaintances but none I'd call friends. None ever pop round to see me. We have hosted several parties, many of them have come to but rarely get in invite back. Most are just very busy with kids and me having no kids means I don't fit.

Dp has lots of friends, he made a point of making a couple of new friends when he got divorced, both blokes who were going through divorces too - one a colleague, one a neighbour. But I don't feel these, or their partners, are my friends. He has in the last year or so become best mates with a new neighbour. We've done a few things as a foursome but the woman always says oh, we should meet up when the boys are away, never contacts me, always cancels anything we do arrange. I have opposing political views to them so I'm not very bothered about hanging out with them.

But when I move I won't even have these acquaintances any more and will have to start again.

I work in HR so not much chance to make friends at work, plus I do short term contracts so never really get to know anyone very well.

Like someone else said, I am hopeless at small talk, it just leaves me cold. I suspect i also come over as very independent and not in need of any friends. I'm also not a big drinker and lots of the fb posts I see of people having a great time with friends seem to involve being very drunk and covered in make up. I'm just not like that.

I have recently come across the Mush app. Seems worth a try

Tell us all about it Solasum.

Link here

Ooh that looks good. If I can find any space on my blasted phone I think I'll download that and give it a go. I wonder if it will have many on it in my area - it can be a problem on some of these things when you're in a smallish town. But I'll definitely check it out so thanks Solasum and keepingonrunning for the info/link.

Can I join? 29, married, no children. I've moved around a bit but have been settled for 6 years now. I thought I made friends for life when I moved here, they were my bridesmaids. 2 years after my wedding and I'm in my own again. I do understand that dealing with infertility has changed me but when they were going through rubbish (affairs/emotionally abusive partners) I was there, when I needed someone they both disappeared. I find it really hard to make new friends and just seem to be plodding along at work and home.

The more the merrier MrsH14.

Yep, it's all work home work home work home - repeat ad infinitum.

I also think you know when you get divorced / split up you lose a family there right off the bat and if you had friends of your husband/BF quite often they retain friendship simply with the person they knew the longest and if that's not you (which it usually isn't) you lose those 'friends' as well. And if you have a relationship end on one year then 5 years later it happens again, you're buggered.

I think starting from scratch like this is really really really difficult.

Pollyanna I thought you were me for a minute except I am 51. It got me down over Christmas for the past two or three years I have felt like having a house party for friends acquaintances living locally with kids so the kids would enjoy it as well. But I've tentatively asked some people if they have any plans and even invited one family round but everyone was already busy with other friends or family. My family aren't interested in socialising and husbands family live too far away really. I like one SIL but she has a large sociable family living nearby. The other SIL doesn't have kids so likes to go out for late meals in restaurants and the kids would be bored silly. I have stayed living locally but since met DH fairly late in life and had kids even later compared to my peers. We've not really stayed in touch we are down to Christmas card contact only. Most of them are onto second marriages now and have kids at Uni, or getting married and one is even a grandma (with a possessive toy boy) lol.
I got friendly with some of kids friends mums but more playground acquaintances really and all already have a full social life. Similarly I have some friends from work but again they are more like acquaintances and they make arrangements then I feel I've been asked as an after thought.

I totally know what you mean Brighteyes, totally.

Yes on the school run I didn't fit in as an older much taller mum, didn't go to school with any of the other mums and as I worked p/t I wasn't in with the SAHM/turned child minded mums or the FT workaholic mums it felt very loan. An odd few mums who also didn't fit in for various reasons were nice but again we were aquaintices rather than friends.
With other so called friends it was always me who kept in touch and me who organised meet ups as soon as I realised this things dwindled off so very unequal.
I live up north. Everyone else seems to be down south.

Don't worry, I'm a very short older mum. When I turned childminder none of the other childminders liked me either (some of them were school mums!). Oh darn it - I'm not sure there's anyone in my area either - I'll have a look at that Mush app at the weekend.

I'm in East Anglia.

I too have had the thing of always being the one to ask people if they want to meet for coffee or whatnot. If I didn't do the asking, I'm pretty sure I'd never see anyone other than DH.

I realised over Christmas that we (DH and I) have no couples friends either - DH works full time with a long commute and there just isn't time to socialise much. Plus we're older parents, and a bit geeky.

I wish I could feel more accepting of the fact that I'm not a "popular" kind of person. It doesn't always bother me, but it would be nice to feel that someone thought enough of me to ask me out for a coffee now and then!