Making friends as an adult

[FlyingSaucerss]

Is it just me or is it impossible making friends as an adult? Especially if you are a single parent so can’t go to meet up groups etc? Am I the only one that struggles with this? Just another day at the park and seeing all the families and friends and feeling sad that I’m always alone with my kids

It's bloody awful
OP. I'm sitting here evaluating my life (I'm old) and thinking of all the mistakes I made re friendships..it's hard making true friends, I have a few, but that's all.

Have you tried groups specifically aimed at making friends? I always found toddler groups cliquey, but there are others, like Gingerbread for instance.

It's not just you! I have loads of acquaintances but getting to the point where they feel like friends is so difficult and slow. Everyone's so busy with their own families and work that building friendships just slides down to the bottom of the priority list. There's no time just to slob about in eachother's company or go travelling together, like we might have pre-kids.

It was so much easier at uni! I made so many close friends so quickly, just because we had the luxury of spending lots of time together and sharing experiences. None of us live anywhere near eachother now, which is rubbish.

Do you have opportunities to meet other parents via playgroups/nursery/school? I think sometimes you have to kind of just dare yourself to talk to other parents and do it without overthinking. Do you have any family nearby to watch your kids while you go to some kind of class/meet-up/group by yourself once a week to meet other adults?

Hobbies have been the key for me, I’ve got loads of friends now DC are teens, but I couldn’t have managed the hobbies when DC were small. I hear you OP. I always felt like it was just us alone in the park or on hold surrounded by big happy family groups.

No no family help, my kids are too old for toddler groups now, school never managed to make friends with the school mums unfortunately

Join apps to meet people:

Peanut
Frolo
Bumble

you have to put the effort in - ignore the Facebook type dross on the apps, PM with some people you like the look of, make some small talk, arrange a meeting in person, see if you gel, rinse and repeat til you find people you want to meet a second/third time.

I’m finally starting to meet a few people in this way but it’s taken time!

Same situation here op, totally missed the boat on the school mum friends, no family around, no sitter to be able to go out. Made a couple of friends at toddler groups but I wasn't their 1st choice of friend when planning catch ups etc, then lockdown meant they stopped bothering anyway.
Its a lonely world out there.

But there are so many ways to meet people now. I use local Facebook groups, Meetup, local libraries and community groups and friends of friends. It takes effort though. I am the one who organises things and asks to meet up and says how great it is to make new friends to people I meet.

After my husband passed away I mi Ed 70 miles for a fresh start. I didn't know anyone. Here are some tips, trickier if you work full time or school hours I grant you: Can you volunteer at school? Do they do discos, summer/Christmas Fairs have a second hand uniform thing? That way you'll meet people outside your child's year group.
And then you have to be bold. If you even think there's the slightest chance you've met someone interesting ask to meet them for a coffee. It may not lead to a friendship but it also might.
I also met people while at my kids sport on weekends - I volunteered to cook the match meals at rugby, for example.
Part of it is just taking a risk and making the first move. Asking people you don't know well to supper. I did find it easier as a lone parent just asking women as the dynamic is so different with men around.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound unsympathetic. It is harder as an adult, I agree. But it is still possible. I wouldn’t look to school gates and mums tbh-they are the people who have been able to meet up at school gates forever and already have friends. You need to meet the other people who aren’t at the school gates!

And I absolutely agree with being bold. You have to be the one to ask and suggest.

It is absolutely possible to make friends as an adult. Over the last decade I’ve made several new good friends. But:

1. It is exhausting. For every real friend I made, there were maybe another 40 people I tried to befriend who ran a mile / made me feel like a loser.


2. It takes time. You can’t just get chatting to someone at the gym / school gate then instantly suggest coffee. You have to bump into them again and again, roughly 5-7 times, naturally before it becomes ‘acceptable’ to suggest a meetup elsewhere. I don’t know why.


3. When their circumstances change, they ditch you fast. Childhood friends may try to stay in touch but ‘mum friends’ go back to work and delete your number over night it seems.

Join stuff. Volunteer for stuff. Put yourself in situations where you meet many different people and keep seeing the same faces over and over. This is why church remains popular.

Good luck xx

I agree about the school gates I would like to not fixate on that that ship has sailed, it hasn’t happened and I need to look at other ways.

I find this hard too and it’s worse since I had DC(7). I’ve made quite a few what I would call ‘acquaintance friends’ through nursery/school over time, but then some have moved away/got jobs/ not interested to meet up so much now.

I also volunteer in three places and no friendships forthcoming from those either, despite volunteering being touted as the way to meet new friends. Also joined a book club nearly a year ago, am a member of the gym, but due to DH’s long working hours Mon to Fri I don’t have the luxury of nipping off to evening classes to meet people, the cinema etc, and then these classes don’t usually run on weekends.

I looked at the WI as I saw that suggested on here once but in my area they only accept you up to age 45, I’m no longer going to playgroups obviously, and a few other groups I see advertised locally are for ‘professional working women’ etc - I fit in absolutely nowhere.

It’s so lonely sometimes I could cry.

Would you consider going to a local church group? Not for everyone of course, but even if you don't believe in it, they're often very friendly places.

Do you work? If so, I've found colleagues make my best adult friends.

OP yes it is so hard. I remember sitting in the park in tears while my pre school kids played, thinking it was supposed to be a happy experience but everyone else was sitting there with friends or their partners. Suggesting coffee always seemed too big a leap ...I could see them backing off .....and it was hard to run into people an appropriate number of times first.

Later I moved away but then when I moved back to the country ten years ago I came back from a very friendly country and it was so hard being so isolated here. I joined a MeetUp which helped. Are there any for people with kids near you? Any groups you can take your kids too where other parents would be?

My kids are grown up now and I do have friends but I have lived in this area for a decade and the only friends I currently have are a couple from previous workplaces or from being gay since I came out - lesbians seem to have less issues with making decent friendships with other women. Less cliquey.

It's hard and for some reason British people are very guarded at making new friends - they assume anyone who wants to be friendly might be a nutter. Depending on your region.
It isn't like that in other countries! I also find that when you meet people it takes a year before you find out if it's going to be a lasting friendship but I try to regard it as "this person may not be the lasting friend but through them I might meet others".

It's really hard and takes time, effort and resilience - you need to not get offended if someone declines your invites or doesn't return the favour - people are busy and won't see things the same way as you. Lots of great ideas for meeting people on this thread but there will still be plenty of trial and error.

I'm a solo mum by choice (I used a sperm donor to conceive). I love being a mum and I'm grateful my son is here but it has been very difficult to build any kind of meaningful friendship group since leaving university. Having the child hasn't ruined anything, I only had him less than a year ago, it's been really disappointing to keep trying and failing to maintain individual friendships for all sorts of reasons.

I often think how I can't guarantee what I'm doing at the weekend, whether I'll be meeting up with someone or not. A supposed friend who I met through work recently told me she can only meet up with at the end of August/September for a coffee (she texted me at the start of July). It's like they think I have all these other people to meet up with, when in reality she is my social circle, so when she says no to meeting up for over a month and half, that's my weekends with no plans! I know it's not her "problem", but I find that those who have partners will never understand how I need to organise my social life differently to them. I don't have spontaneous company like they do.

I'm very independent and capable otherwise as are a lot of the single parents on here clearly, but I find the lack of stable, social group really demoralising. Is this what my life will be like when my DC leaves home? Free weekends with nobody to meet up with?

I can't stand the apps, dating or friendship ones, it just ends up being a lot of texting which goes nowhere. Sorry to those who had a good experience, I just find them a huge reminder of years of failed OLD. And I want real, face to face interaction, even if it's for an hour, it's better than texting.

I'm outgoing and my baby is sociable so I'm happy to meet outside or at home, but there is a lot of resistance to build anything meaningful. As if everyone has had their friends quotas filled and if they also have partners, there is no room for new people.

Yes op not easy. I do walking a few of us. I feel people suggesting running, choirs, book clubs you have enjoy them which I dont.. I meet a few school mams too. But that takes effort once they secondary level.

Anthurium is their any baby groups that meet up. It would get you out house. Yes its not easy.

I think it gets easier the older you get because I have found people to be kinder when older. Teens and early twenties was a minefield of bitchy competition

Thanks all I’m glad It’s not just me but obviously rubbish that lots of us are in the same boat, I agree about the apps it seems so false and I can’t imagine making friends that way but I guess I will have to try, I’m not sure church would be for me I’m not religious and I’m not sure I would feel right about going. No families on my road no kids at all, never see any kids here (main road in London) my neighbours are elderly.

I think it gets easier the older you get because I have found people to be kinder when older. Teens and early twenties was a minefield of bitchy competition

really? I find there are not many ways to make friends as an adult not naturally anyway, but that might be because everyone I know is still friends with everyone they went to school with, my sister has loads of friends but they are all her old school friends I feel a bit like I’ve missed out from not having that group of school friends everyone else seems to have.

I make adult friends through my hobbies.

That way I am meeting like minded people with whom I have something in common.

In my 20s and 30s I was active in a political party and made loads of friends that way.

In my 40s I started volunteering with Scouts and now have amazing friends through that.

Great advice on thread. Through my walking I met few more. I text 1 for coffee this week. I think it takes time yes.