I dont have any mates at 28 years of age.

[Mscandylamb]

Am I alone?
Is there other people out there who dont have mates? I dont have the sort of friends who call or text, or I can rely on in any sort of scenario... I think its very pitiful and I think im just destined to be alone and miserable.

Long story short.. Since childhood I never really had real friends. I had play mates but not the sort you would grow up with and keep in tight contact with. At primary school I had "friends" but they cut all contact once we went to secondary school, because we all went on to different schools which is fair enough. Secondary school, again I had "friends" to sit next to etc but never really formed tight bonds with anyone enough to do things outside of school with. I was always the quiet girl or the loner type.
College was dreadful, full of bitchy girls that I couldn't relate to I only had one or to friends and they turned out to be the spawn of the devil. Uni was similiar however in first year I made a lot of connections but fizzled out in the second year and my classmates (the ones I was close with) all started to avoid me...for what reason I dont know.

All in all l see myself as a very nice person who puts others before themselves and is always polite and rarely gets angry, I dont understand why I cant seem to maintain a friendship or keep on contact with other people my age especially females. I have tried meet up groups but again once you stop going to the events the friendships tend to fizzle out and cause im 37 weeks pregnant I cant attend them anymore. I used to really enjoy meeting new people every week...some people I would click with others I wouldn't. But nothing ever progressed from exchanging numbers or FB's.

I dont work, so I dont meet people through that avenue unfortunately. I have even resorted to trying to find friendships online even though that can be risky. Im just fed up of being the only one in my family with no mates.. Fed up of not having real girl pals who I can call up and have a chat with and go out to coffee or spa or do something to strengthen our bond together.

Is there anyone else there who genuinely dont have friends? Im not begging for mates but it would be nice to know im not alone.

Thanks for reading!

I live in a major city but away from my birthplace, so don't have school friends around. University was a horrible time for me, so I don't have friends from those days either. I know how it feels to not have many friends in your life.

It sounds like it's a tricky time to build friendships if you about to have a child. I did join a large knitting/crochet group (in the city centre) when my son was 1, and there are regular events I can choose to attend. A lot of the women have become good friends, and also meet up separately in twos/threes to go yarn shopping or other types of outings. The organiser also runs a book group, so many of the women span across two groups too.

Given it's in a major city, it's not all oldies and the age range is very broad from 18-70s. It's also a good environment to chat and make friends, you can concentrate on your work and listen to conversation, or join in. Everyone is so lovely and I try to chat to new people every time as well as the people I know very well.

Would something like that interest you? I started crocheting after my baby was born as something productive to do, and easy to do in front of the TV when you're knackered! You can make lovely blankets, play mats and accessories quite easily, and it's good for anxiety/destressing too.

With your baby on the way, you will also have lots of opportunity to meet new mums and make friends. They'll be baby activities, coffee mornings and even mum/buggy/sling fitness classes.

You're likely to find quite a few superficial relationships too, after a few years, I've now honed my mum friends down to my favourites. We are all super busy but meet on occasion for coffee, evening drinks or a meal.

Good luck to you, building a network of friends is hard when you're an adult.

I do think you need to examine yourself and your attitude a bit more. You are very critical of others

I thought this, too -- plus you make a lot of excuses. You didn't make friends at work because your heart wasn't in any of your jobs. College was full of bitches. The people on your university course were competitive and jealous.

Difficulty in making and maintaining friendships seems to have been a consistent pattern for you in all the situations in which you have found yourself, and while I definitely don't think you should be fatalistic and decide you'll go friendless through life, the fact is that the sole common denominator in all these situations is you.

Which suggests you need to do a bit more thinking about how you present yourself to other people, what kind of friendships you want etc.

What kinds you friends do you want? What kind of people are you attracted to? What are you actually bringing to potential friendships? Are you prepared to work at them? I've kept only one friend from my schooldays, and have lived in five different countries, and several different places within those countries since university, have moved jobs often, and am not a wildly sociable person, and I have a demanding job and a demanding small child, a traelling husband, and no night-time childcare, and certainly there have been potential friendships where I've simply moved on too soon for it to 'stick', but my friends are very important to me, and I work at staying in touch with people at a distance.

You talk about wanting friends to have long phonecalls with and to support you on bad days, but what are you contributing to the dynamic --why would people want to spend time with you? Why would you want to be friends with you?

Oh, and I met some enormously interesting women through Naomi Stadlen's Mothers Talking group when I had a small baby in London -- don't know whether you're anywhere in the vicinity of Archway, but although I moved out of London too soon after to get to know any of the women who attended when I did properly, it was a hotbed of potential friends.

www.naomistadlen.com/mothers-talking/

Are you better at making friends with men?
I've always got on better with guys than girls especially in one-on-one situations
My issue is after a couple of years friendships tend to fizzle out.
Esp if one person wants more than friendship or moves away.

Yes snap, same here. I have no friends at all. I know it's because I didn't put the effort into meeting up all of the time. I have disabled parents, I worked full time and had a baby. I had no spare time for friends. Now I do have time...I don't have any friends!😂 I agree it's a bummer and would be nice to text or chat with a person on a regular basis. Maybe when your baby goes to baby groups you'll meet a nice mum there? I'm filling in my time with exercise and meditation to keep me feeling good.

Once the baby is here, join some baby groups. I've met so many mum friends and they've been a god send. We have mums nights out and have play dates.
There'll be some other mums out there wishing for friends like you xx

It sounds like a you problem, not an other people problem. Do you make the first move enough when suggesting meet ups? Do you get in touch with people 'just because' to see how they are etc? Do you send people things e.g. links to something you've discussed, or follow up on suggestions you've thought of based on previous conversations? It's all about evolving connections over time and frequently making the first move and putting yourself out there.

@margot33
I live in a different country to all of my original set of friends, we are still just as close because we message and chat really often! It's a couple of minutes a day - you could do it on the loo haha! Being physically present is no excuse

Friends are overrated. At the age of 40 I joined a mother and baby group because I was pressurised into it by the HV, DF asked me if I'd made any friends, I said no, he said "why not?" Er, because all I have in common with these women is a baby under 1.

I should have "FUCK OFF!" tattooed on my forehead.

All in all l see myself as a very nice person who puts others before themselves

This jumped out at me from your post. I think this might be part of your issue. I've been in your situation and it's taken me many years to crack it and change things around. What I would say is that people like other people who a) seem to actively really like themselves and b) seem to actively really like them. (People can tell if you don't like them, and they can also tell if you don't like yourself, essentially.)

You mentioned MH issues and being under the care of the perinatal team. Is this something you've struggled with your whole life or is it pregnancy related? Certain MH conditions can make you very fatalistic and gloomy about a set of prospects that would delight someone else. It's all in the attitude and if you're really down on yourself it might be worth unpicking this before trying to make friends. Certainly after having therapy and cutting out my toxic mum, I had a lot more success at making friends as I liked myself for the first time and was putting myself first. There's a certain type of energy to that which people like to be around.

Certainly in terms of opportunities, you can choose to be more proactive with meetup people in terms of hosting or organizing gatherings, you could start your own new mums meetup for mums in your area, or a baby clothes swap evening at yours with plenty of snacks and tea. You could currently be attending NCT classes or similar and setting up possible new mum friends through that. But all that is pointless if you are feeling very hard on yourself as neediness and gloom is (unfortunately) deeply off-putting to others.
I hope you manage to make some good friends soon, congratulations on your pregnancy and I hope you have a happy birth and first few weeks/months with your new baby

Even just to have a mate to call up whenever without feeling like your pestering them would be nice

I too think your expectations of friendship and what it would look like these days are a bit off... I don’t really know anyone anymore who just randomly calls someone up for a chat, it’s a bit intrusive to ring someone when you haven’t asked if they’re free first, messages can be picked up and replied to when it’s convenient whereas phone calls take all of your attention and can really interrupt the flow of whatever else you have to get done.

I’m gonna be honest here and say, if I met someone new and we were hitting it off a bit but then I found out they had zero other friends I would probably be a bit suspicious, and if that was coupled with feeling they were likely to get a bit needy (like see me as their primary friend, be always messaging me or wanting to call or meet up etc from the off) I would run a mile. It’s like I would pretty much bolt from a man in his thirties who’d never had a serious relationship before. Same with meeting someone new who didn’t have friends. It might be unfair but I’d wonder what had happened or what they were like as a person not to have even picked up a few friends who wanted their company.

It might be a perpetuating circle. Everyone is busy, people only have limited time. I had a friend who didn’t have many others and who latched onto me as their friend saviour and was constantly messaging, trying to meet up, it was cloying and suffocating and I ended up largely cutting them out in favour of more balanced friendships where we had space to breathe and have a wide circle and I didn’t feel like someone’s solution. This person even went as far as to try and befriend all of MY existing friends, message them as if they were friends with them, and so forth. One day I realised to my horror we had 30 mutual Facebook friends and all by 1 were my friends they’d tried to ingratiate themselves with. Really put me off.

Do you have a partner, or someone you know who you used to be friendly with? I’d really be tempted to ask them to be brutally honest and to tell you where they think you’re going wrong to making and sustaining friends. It could be something you’re totally unaware of (bad hygiene, clingyness or neediness, talking over people, expecting too much too soon, etc). It might hurt to hear but you would at least know what to work on. As it is quite strange at 28 not to have even a small handful of friends, in the kindest way possible the common denominator is you and I think it’d be helpful to try and figure out what’s going wrong.

I don't think its that strange to not have a handful of friends.
That is like four good friends that you meet up with for example once a month or every couple months.

People go in different directions.
Guys are not great at making the effort.
How many time should I ask to catch up with someone before I give up.
This is past situations.
You make a friend randomly, it goes well for a while, but someone changes their life and may not fit you in as much, or they get with a partner and things change.

Closeness isn’t defined by how frequently you meet up though. I have close friends I see every six months due to living far away yet we’re just as close as ever. I’d say the max frequency I see any of my friends is 1-2 times per month. More than that would feel a lot to me with busy lives to lead. But obviously with a good group of friends you have to see everyone so I probably see ‘a friend’ once or twice per week on average.

It is odd not to have even a few close friends you see occasionally.

I worry about my DS, who is currently only 15, but doesn't make friends easily. He is a lovely boy (I know: I would say that ) but he's always on his own.
If I ask him, he says he is happy just to socialise at school. I can only ask occasionally as I don't want him to feel bad.
I'm the opposite of him, so I do find it hard to relate to as I find it fairly easy to make friends. Sorry this isn't helpful.

I’d say you have either been unlucky or you have a view of others that might not be fair or accurate. I went to college and uni and don’t remember ‘bitchy’ girls. There were some people who were not my type but never ‘spawn of the devil.’ I think that’s a very extreme perspective of anyone.

Also it’s unusual to get to 28 and not be working or having worked full-time. Maybe the issues you have around work contribute to your lack of friendships or the other way round. I left my last workplace several years ago and still have great friendships from those days.

As a new mum, you will have the perfect chance to make new friends with others in the same situation as you. There will be lots of shared experiences to talk about. Sometimes you have to put yourself out there, make an effort and step outside your comfort zone.

I totally get your post completely. In fact, I could have written it. I have now resigned myself to the fact that friendships did not happen for me. I still yearn for them but it's just not going to happen for me.

This is the point in life you will make friends. Go to a antinatal group and parent group all the friends I have now I met when my kids were very young. Ask your midwife for some suggestions

I’m late 30s and don’t have mates either. I’ve been with my husband since we were in school. We isolated ourselves back then I guess and now are each other’s friend group (of two).
I do work, as does DH, but I don’t make friends easily and in our jobs we don’t get much adult contact. We’re on our own all day too.
Sometimes I feel I’d like a few friends to chat to, perhaps when DH pisses me off lol, but other days I’m glad I don’t have to consider anyone else.
Perhaps that’s why I read mumsnet...it’s like having that ‘friend goss’ without the need for friends.
So yes, there are more of us out there, but I’m ok with it. If I wanted to make friends I’d probably join clubs, a gym or perhaps fo you, finding a job would be a good idea too?

Good luck op.

Thank you for all your replies, sorry that I cant reply personally to each of you. Very tired today, but l do appreciate the constructive criticism and the fair advice that you guys have dished out.

I hope everyone has a good weekend!!

It's hard to say as obviously we can't tell how you come across from an online post. Do you have a partner or family member who can be honest with you.

I mean you might just have been unlucky and not found your tribe while you were in education. I got lucky at uni and made nice friends and again with mum groups but beyond that I've been pretty useless at making friends.

I think real friendships are made through bonding over a shared experience and I don't think things like meetup really replicate this well, especially if it's different people each time and you can't build rapport with anyone.

You have to stick with it. I moved to a new area and I set up a book club on meetup. It was great as there was a purpose, structure and regularity.