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?

I’m sorry that has happened to you, Tryingtokeepgoing. An unnecessary hurt added to the loss of your husband. I like Earlydancing’s parents.

Two of our male friends died of covid, and we make an effort to stay more in touch with their widows than we did before.

I have noticed that I sometimes stop myself saying things to single friends that I would say to couple friends, because they’re not single by choice (except choosing not to be in a crap relationship). Things where having a partner solved a problem or made everything more easy/ cosy/ fun. Why rub it in?

Never liked couple meetups when I was with ex.. felt expected to perform and make couples banter and expected to hang out with the woman. Felt like our relationship was on display and competing with theirs.
Had a great relationship btw.

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

would you also exclude gay couples then as it would also “unbalance” your table?

You are a singleton making assumptions in a derogatory fashion about what couples talk about .This therefore is the exact reason why couple may not invite you so you are basically advocating for separate meet ups and not to be included.

Also this might make people feel comfortable at yours in the very short term, but only because you are excluding people who are possibly sitting at home feeling very lonely and uncomfortable! Becuase this really happens a lot to single people. And then it gets in a loop - couples invite each other back, or go on holiday together, etc, and it becomes a standard thing. I'm fit into people's social lives only at coffee times or something, because they can squeeze me in then. They don't have to find times when other couples are both available, and so use up their precious evenings and weekends on them. So I get whatever's left, because it's easy. For them. And depressingly lonely, for me. And even if people think they don't do this to their single friends very often, loads of other people do, so it ends up that the single people are often excluded really frequently. So maybe nice to make an effort to include them more when you might not normally think of them - like others said, it's probably a subconscious thing a lot of the time, couples think of inviting other couples. it's easier to host, travel, buy gifts etc as a couple, and then you get into the pattern.

We don't have couple friends. We have separate friends. We've never met a couple where we like both, and vice versa. I spend too much time with my husband anyway, if I go out I'd prefer to go without him (no offence to my husband).

Oh how I agree - it is as if being widowed turns you into some sort of uninvitable freak. I have lots of coupled friends and see quite a bit of them; and they chat on about all the couples with couples things they have done, seemingly oblivious to how I might feel.

I do carry a well of sadness around with me, but I do not make a song and dance about it - I daren't, as I would probably see no-one then!

There are close friends who know how very much I struggle to keep up the brave face; and with whom I can let down my facade. But in general people find it hard to handle.

What is it with this nonsense of needing an even number if you invite people round for supper? It just rubs salt in my wounds.

There are some couples who have simply vanished. OH was ill for a long time and many dropped off then as I was engaged in his care.

It is all very tough - a double whammy. I send you fellow feelings Tryingtokeepgoing.

The couples invites thing doesn't apply to me at all. I have a wide group of friends, and you are assuming that the married ones don't include me, or my other friends, in anything, and you'd be wrong.

If my tongue in cheek reply was an assumption in a derogatory fashion, then so was the post I replied to, assuming that all single people would be jealous because Jane had Jim to change the washer on a tap when the singleton is perfectly capable of doing it themselves.

I've just come out of a 20+ year relationship I had been in since university days and I can probably count on one hand the "couples" things we did. If we did, it was mainly parties for people's anniversary or 30th/40th birthdays. One of my best friends and her husband, however, go away with and go out with two other couples quite regularly. I've been out with them to things like bonfire parties, by myself, when I was part of a couple.

And I'm not jealous of any couples, just relieved I am no longer a part of that particular one.

It's a thing for sure. I'm divorced for ages now and tbh not interested in another relationship but try telling the female half (and some male halves) of the couples I occasionally meet! Honestly - don't flatter yourselves - like I would want in to that boring combo 😁😁😁

@CookPassBabtridge
"felt expected to perform and make couples banter and expected to hang out with the woman. Felt like our relationship was on display and competing with theirs."

Surely that's your issue. Why were you engaging with other couples who you didn't like/it didn't come naturally with. If you had liked them /it come naturally, you wouldn't have felt ANY of the things above.

It’s not exclusive to couples. It’s just people sometimes like to meet up with other like-minded people whether it’s couples or groups of singles or both. My DP and I often have parties and invite lots of singles and couples. Sometimes I think certain women and men don’t like socialising with people when their OH isn’t there. It’s either awkwardness at being somewhere without their partner or they don’t have many friends of the opposite sex and can’t talk to the opposite sex. I find that weird.

I'm in a couple and had several invites from friends for couple dates and I think it's just weird. I want to hang out with my friend. Not her partner too.
Plus my husband has severe social anxiety & struggles with new people. I'm not putting him through that!

We just hang out with friends. Sometimes that's as couples sometimes not....we don't specifically do 'couple' things.
For example, there is a couple who we do spend time with and last night me,dh and the husband of the couple went out for a drink. His wife didn't fancy it.

I did used to have a friend who was obsessed with couple dinner parties - it was what adults did apparently 🙄

To write off general sex based differences is ignorant.

To write off general sex based differences is ignorant.

What sex based differences do you think are important here?

I don't choose my friends based on their sex. I chose them based on personality and interests. Sex is irrelevant.

I think it's a perception that the uncoupled will be "spare" and be left without someone to speak to. They may perceive you will feel left out or down about your life because you are single, or that you might flirt with the guy in a couple.... all stuff that comes with assuming not being coupled up is a sad lonely desperate existence, I think.

To write off general sex based differences is ignorant

what “general sex based differences” do you mean?

unless there’s some sort of physical competition or comparison going on at dinner parties any differences are personality based.

Not entirely. Socialisation of male/female still has a huge impact on things. That's not saying that there must be sex differences, or that they're somehow inborn, but there are plenty of sex-based differences in how men and women talk and interact even now, because of how they've grown up, how they've been treated, the experiences they have etc. You might be lucky that none of your friends fit this pattern, but I think there are some areas where it ends up happening. Lots of people talk about how a 'girls night out' feels different when a man is along, or whatever. It doesn't mean that women are intrinsically different to men to acknowledge that in many case, there are still societal differences in the roles/interests men and women often take on.

Most people I know are still "coupled up" and tied together due to mortgage and children. Few would admit this in real life, and are too afraid to be alone. Really not envious of your "in couple" jokes

This is probably the thing I’ve struggled with most since divorce. I didn’t realise it was a ‘thing’ previously.

like pps, I can be invited for coffee mornings etc, but not for evenings/weekends. Those times seem to be reserved for couples.

it’s harder in middle age I think, when most people are coupled up. Reminds me of that scene in Bridget Jones around the dinner table, when everyone else is in a couple.

round here pretty much everyone is coupled up and it’s all dinner parties, couples meeting in the pub etc. My plan is to go a bit further afield and see if I can find like minded single - or couples who will socialise with a single - in the city.

Not entirely. Socialisation of male/female still has a huge impact on things. That's not saying that there must be sex differences, or that they're somehow inborn, but there are plenty of sex-based differences in how men and women talk and interact even now, because of how they've grown up, how they've been treated, the experiences they have etc. You might be lucky that none of your friends fit this pattern, but I think there are some areas where it ends up happening. Lots of people talk about how a 'girls night out' feels different when a man is along, or whatever. It doesn't mean that women are intrinsically different to men to acknowledge that in many case, there are still societal differences in the roles/interests men and women often take on

agreed. I personally would hate to be at a party where you’re expected to toe your gender line, but I suppose many people buy into the pink brain/blue brain thing.

I have invited single women to events with my couple friends but many are busy with dates or doing activities where they might meet someone so haven’t wanted to spend time with couples. And for those that did come along, none ever returned an invitation so it seemed they weren’t interested.

I don't think it's always people thinking there is such a thing as "pink brain/blue brain" and buying into it. I certainly don't think there is - that is, I don't think there are inbuilt differences that mean men and women should be a certain way, or that there is some physical difference that causes them to be different.

I do think that there do still end up being differences because of experience, expectations, socialisation, etc.

It doesn't mean that at a party, you are expected to behave along gender lines, but just that because of the society we live in, there are frequently some differences that have emerged as a result of these stereotypes - quite probably subconsciously. It doesn't mean there is nothing to talk about in a mixed group, or that there aren't loads of men and women who don't fit any of the stereotypes. But it does happen that women might talk about some topics with each other more often and the same with men - that's a descriptive statement about what often happens, not saying that it's right or always happens or has any biological base.

Isn't that just a terrible assumption?

It’s because single people are not in the same life stage. They’re not going through the same things couples are and they’re not having the same experience.

So if we’re doing a couples thing, single people aren’t part of that.