Why do couples like hanging out with couples?

[perimenofertility]

As the title says, why do couples enjoy hanging out with other couples so much?
I am single now, but when I've been in a couple I have never particularly sought to spend time with other couples so I just don't get this. I always spend time with people (single, couple, group) who are my friends.
I am in a friendship group of six people. We periodically meet all six of us for dinner. But the four who are two couples regularly arrange "couples drinks" and don't invite me and other single friend. This really irritates me and makes me sad.
Similarly, I have a good friend at work, we have lunch or drinks together often. But she regularly has dinner parties I'm not invited to because it's for couples.
So I'm wondering, what is it you couples get from hanging out together that I can't join in with?

In the past I’ve felt wistful watching something like Cold Feet, and wished for a nice gang of couple friends.

But in reality, it’s usually a case of two or three friends plus trailing spouses who don’t really get on. Or someone’s married to an unpleasant twat/boring bastard that ruins the evening.

So DH has his friends, I have mine. Some are single, some are not. We are polite to each other’s friends in passing. Job done.

Do you invite them as a couple to things?
My single friends never invite us as couple or include my child. So I've just taken that as they don't want to spend time with us together 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Occasionally one will join us for dinner or a takeaway at home. But another single friend was astonished that my husband was at home one time when a few friends were round... 🤣

As someone who was single for a lot of my 20s whilst friends were in established relationships, this really annoyed me. Have boyfriend - however short term it turned out to be - get invited to dinner party with 3 friends plus their partners; single, no invite; dumped after invite had been issued, invite withdrawn! I sometimes felt like telling my friends that I really wasn't interested in any of their boyfriends.
As a couple, we don't do a huge amount of stuff with other couples as I have to like my friend (that's a given!) and their partner and my DH has to like both my friend and their partner. The chances of that seem relatively low! When we do have a group over, there's often some surprise that I invite a friend even though her husband can't make it. What's she's supposed to do whilst he's on deployment? Sit at home and pine for him?

*Balance usually.
Dinner parties especially need to be balanced usually unless they are girls/ boys nights.

I invite my single friends to parties, girls nights and lunches. I probably wouldn’t invite them to a small dinner party of six/eight as it would be awkward. Everyone would have a partner but them*

balance? Is your dining table on some sort of fulcrum and tips over with an odd number of people?

i have never read such a load of crap in my life “boy talk”, jokes about women taking ages to get ready, excluding singles because you want to talk “couple”.

fuck sake. I am no different single as I am married. I am capable of holding a conversation with a single person, I can even find non baby or domestic stuff to talk about.

personally I think it’s fucking rude to exclude people based on whether they have a partner.
if you have a dinner party and don’t invite a single friend because “balance” you and your friends are arses.

So much anger to wake up to! 😂

That said, I have a relative who is very keen on couple friends. They all go on holidays together and everything. It blows my mind. I can’t think of anything worse, but horses for courses, I guess.

<shudder>

I've experienced this so I know you're not imagining it, but it's not something we do. In fact we've taken quite a few holidays with a single friend along. She's great company (we do normally have DC along too so I guess that changes the dynamic).

My sister, when single, theorised that single women are considered a threat by women in couples. I thought this was a ridiculous statement but then I observed what happened to her at a party and I could see what she meant.

It’s my preference that everyone feels comfortable, I have invited single friends before and put them in the centre and at the end of the table. But it ended up being very unbalanced with so many women at the table and changed the dynamic. My dh has no single friends to balance the numbers.
BBQs, parties, garden parties etc clearly anyone and everyone is invited. You asked why op, so I am answering. You are welcome.

I know of no single friends that hold couples dinners at their house, why not? I assumed they found it awkward in some way. Most of my divorced friends stopped doing any kind of entertaining at home the minute they divorced and always seem to want to go out.

Balance? Pmsl.

Perhaps if my single friends hosted couples dinner parties themselves and enjoyed them, I would be more likely to invite them to mine.

I think it's sad if people are excluded simply for being single.

Sometimes it might be about people who have kids having more in common, or being at a similar stage of life.

Came on to type this. We don't have any 'couple' friends.

You clearly are narked. The way you write about it shows you are peeved.

Widgets summary is correct. Dh and I have a couple of couple friends. It works so well, because it's really rare. That's why we appreciate it. Sometimes you like someone but their husband and yours don't have enough th make it equal. We all like eachother equally. When we go out to dinner, Both women like eachother and can talk for ages. Men talk to eachother and get on really well. Plus, then We all banter and cross chat as a foursome, all four of us. Then I'll chat to her husband equally comfortably. Then revert back to talking to her. This level of liking eachother so much is rare.

When you find it, you appreciate it.

My DH (married 30+ years) & I have very few 'couple' friends, we usually socialise separately with our own friends independently. I can think of very few 'couples' where we all like each other enough to spend an evening together and often in the past, before I realised that it is perfectly possible to politely say 'no thank you' to a dinner party invitation, I have been bored out of my mind listening to someone's DH drone on about something...equally I am sure he would be bored with my company.

@Earlydancing or anyone else who can shed some light…
Single people don't fit into their group because it would make the couples feel uncomfortable

Why would single people make couples uncomfortable?
Is this only single women, or do single men also make couples uncomfortable?

@Festoonlights is a couples dinner the same as a dinner party? If so I had no idea they were meant to be couple-only events. The last one I had was a mix and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

I'm single and I'm never included in anything coupley. I think it must be because the dynamics feel comfortable.

I'm no femme fatale. Nobody's worried I'll steal their man! But at the same time, I'm not some bag lady whose lack of grooming would ever reflect badly on a group, so I don't know. These patterns are pretty entrenched.

It matters most when your DC are young, when you're dc grow up it doesn't feel like it matters, or you stop noticing. I don't know, wouldn't think about it now.

My friends are all women, and a higher than average % are single too.
Two married friends suggested meeting recently and I was surprised they were including their husbands.

That's weird IMO. If we invite a group with partners welcome we would not exclude single people.

I have a dread of the couples scene. So although I have been part of a couple for 30 years we have never socialised in a couples only way. To me it sounds really boring and like you would have to put up with spouses of your friends who you don't particularly want to spend time with. A lot of the time I don't enjoy the company of the partners of my friends.

It makes them feel more successful as a couple. 'Look at us, we are so successful that other couples want to be our friends'. A sense of belonging to a clique.

I was going to say it's awkward for a couple to hang out with one single person alone, but it's not at all - we/I do that fairly regularly as well! So not sure what the problem is in your friendship group.

Is it maybe where people have strong views about genders mixing ie people can only be friends with their own sex and wouldn't be interested in talking to the opposite sex, so there's a worry that it will be unbalanced and people will be bored?

yes, it's a sense of belonging thing.

@perimenofertility I recommend focusing on friendships with other single mothers (if you're a mother?)

I don't always automatically click with women just because they're single though! Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

As someone who is long term single, I find this happens a lot, and it makes me sad.

I'm sure it's a combination of balance; some couples seem to have the men chatting to men and women to women aspect of it; some just don't like odd numbers and think it's awkward having a third/fifth person there; some feel that you are more friends with one of the couple so one of them might get left out; some don't really see you as a proper 'adult' to be included in this sort of gathering; where they know/assume it's just harder for a single person to come as it costs more trying to organise taxis, bringing wine etc that are normally split between two people.

But it means I almost never get invited to evening/weekend events. I see people for coffee in the day very occasionally. But that's all I"m good for. And it's really hard, knowing you're missing out on all of that, when it's hard enough being single. You get excluded from nice things like holidays too, because it's much easier to do that in couples if they're going to go away together.

I wish people would include singles just as much as couples as it can be so lonely on weekends and holidays as a long term single.

Yes I get this. I'm the ONLY one in a friendship group of 8 women who is single and while I instigate us getting together (not always all 8) on occasion I hear them talking about when they meet up without me in couples. I'm never invited unless it's a larger gathering like a party. I'm invited when it's just girls but not when their husbands are included.
I think it's because the men talk to each other and the women to each other and I lack that crucial half, and when the talk is between them all they must think I'm so out of practice that I can't possibly handle talking to a man 🤣.
But I really think it's subconscious. They just 'think' in couples so I am not even considered.