What do people do with no family around ?

[Southlondoner88]

Hi,

My dh and I moved to london from overseas 8 years ago, in the first year or so we worked so hard making our friends and it paid of, we had one large group of couple of friends and I had lots of friends scattered around london who I met individually.

Fast forward to the dreaded year 2020, our whole group of friends suddenly left London to go back to their home countries (most of them were expats). I still have some of my British born friends luckily and meet up with them occasionally but we live quite far from each other and it’s usually just meeting for brunch once a month or meeting early so people can get the last train home etc. They also have their families nearby so I find weekends like Easter/ bank holidays/ Christmas are incredibly hard because my only friends here are busy with family stuff and we have no one else.

I’m getting quite bored and lonely.I have lots of hobbies and go to a dance class (made some friends there but it’s hard to meet up with them more regularly as they seem to have their own friends) i go to yoga class but nobody chats there really.
Currently going through IVF so I’m limited in some activities right now also. I don’t know what else I can do really. I’m on bumble bff but I’m rather fed up of meeting people individually, I want a group of girls or couple friends again. DH isn’t terribly proactive in making friends, he will go out and meet people if I organise it but is introverted and socialises mostly through gaming, not a problem really but means I have to be the one to sort this since I’m the one who’s bothered by it.

Long post sorry but what on earth do people do with no family? Life can sometimes feel very unvaried. DH and I do a lot together but we do naturally get bored of it just being us (well I do, he’s never said that to me). For example, last night we went out for dinner meaning we were home by 8. The rest of the night we just watched tv, we did that Friday also. Today we’re going on a drive and will probably hike somewhere if weather is nice. But I just get bored not of DH but of just it being us two all the time.

You haven't mentioned the meetup app, have you tried that ?

Do you not have any family you can go back and visit on special occasions?

Can you make any friends at work?

Or plan something a bit more "exciting" either as a couple or for yourself or when you can meet up with a friend to break up the monotony and have something to look forward to?

join a walking group, a book club, take up some hobbies. Go on a retreat on your own.

You say you're going through IVF, hopefully it will be successful. If so you will find it easy to make friends when you have kids IME. NCT classes, baby groups, school gate. Lots of parents desperate for adult conversation!

I am nearly 60 and, for my whole adult life, I have never had "family around". And that's fine, because I don't think I'm missing out at all. I have good friends, a husband, work, hobbies, interests - what else do I need? I also love my own company and am very self-sufficient. Family are just people connected to you by biology, no more than that.

Volunteer. It's a great way to make friends.

Yeah I’ve tried the meet up app before, maybe I’ll try again. I’m just quite busy with my PhD right now but again I wish I just had these friends already. It’s tiring making friends all over again and sometimes you think you’ve made a friend and then they move away. That seems really common in london. We do visit family but the last few months I haven’t been able to plan much with IVF looming. Also, I’m 36 so find some people on the meet up all quite young and living in central london whereas we’re a bit fitter out now. Feel like I’m always on a hunt for friends ships, I make them easily enough but then people move away or get busy with family etc so aren’t around.

You seem to be choosing physical group hobbies, have you considered something like a book club or knit n natter type hobbies where you sit and talk to lots of people? Is there a IVF support group near you (check fb for one)? Otherwise if it's just needing a human connection rather than friendship offer to be a hospital visitor or I think some councils offer a befriending service to housebound people.

I have recently joined a group who share my medical condition where most of us refuse to discuss the condition, so the group is full of fun and laughter. Other similar groups were all doom and gloom and I nearly didn't go to this one. Keep trying, you will find the right one eventually.

I do various activities too. I find that people are more likely to want to make friends when activities are privately organised than when they are officially run.
I also arrange nights out with the people I know, e.g. going out dancing with various other expats, my ex-neighbour or some people I also go jogging with.
My dp and I go to the pub, go dancing or to live music events, go on holiday together, go walking. We often go out in the evening and would not usually be home at 8pm - we're more likely to leave then. We're in our 50s so no kids to worry about.
I also feel like I have to keep working on my network. That's just what it's like when you don't have family members or old school friends around, I'd say. The advantage is that you keep meeting new people and have new ideas :)

Following with interest OP as I am in a similar situation. I am an only child (as is my partner). No children or close cousins etc. Really hoping I can build a 'found' family in the coming years.

Are you absolutely sure this is the person you want to have children with op?
Just thinking back, my (now ex) husband was absolutely my favourite person in the world to do everything and anything with pre-kids; and even that wasn't enough to get us through the tough child years. I can't imagine already being bored of him before I decided to commit to him forever via children. Others haven't answered in my vein though, so maybe it's normal.

I am in not too dissimilar position, being an only child and family living in Europe, but I don’t even have a partner and no prospects of a child. So I know it is really hard work to make friends over the age of 30. Having kids will enormously enlarge your network. In the meantime, can you make friends through your PhD or scientific community or your alumni network? I have made most of my friends in the past 10-15 years through people I met at work or through work or through networking events or alumni events.
I think it is difficult to know whether to invest time and energy on hobbies if it is only to make friends. I’ve done the usual activities that attract women - book clubs, volunteering groups, language lessors, all sorts of art classes, yoga etc, and didn’t manage to make a single friend. I found people just wanted to come for the activity, chat a bit and then leave.

You could try the WI.

This

Second rhe comment about feeling bored by dh. But more important, the sense of self..if you live in London you arr likely to be meeting people who are transient in some ways or distant in another ....travel for work etc etc. Are you settled I your neighbourhood, and are there rhings there that interest you and genuinely inspire you to be oart of .. its the best way to make friends. In fact the best way to make friends isn't to make an effort to "make friends" .. its to do the things you really like and feel energised by, and possibly you will meet like minded people . Be content in your own skin and then see what happens. Ut sounds like PhD and ivf means you have a lot on your plate ...be kind to self. Don't qork so hard and it will happen. In mid 30s lots of people are transient or/and moving around for work and life balance. Are you very settled in your home life and where you are likely to want to stay? If so concentrate on building a life there and trust it will grow..covid has messed with all of us and to me it still feels like finding our way back into life again after it. Good luck .. excise the long ramble

Agree with previous suggestions of a walking group and the WI. You might also find local history groups or other community groups. If you're (even a bit) Christian, churches are a great way to find an instant family local to you, usually with events and people of all ages (the older the less likely to move away perhaps). If you're not currently a Christian you could attend a local Alpha course which is weekly food and discussion with the same group exploring faith.

@Toohardtofindaproperusername I do have an awful lot on my plate and since i’ve been actively social in the last few years you would think I would just have a group by now, instead I just have a few individual friends who are only available every couple of months for brunch/ coffee. My cohort are quiet young, we do socialise but the younger ones are forever talking about going out and getting drunk every weekend which I’m not doing right now given I’m sort of over that and also going through ivf. The older ones on my cohort are all married and live really far away and just seem not bothered to socialise outside the course.

@occhiazzurri yeah it’s difficult isn’t it. I’ve done all the groups but they just end up with superficial aquantiences. I did make a really great friend volunteering a few years ago but she’s since moved away too.

And I didn’t say I’m bored of dh, I’m just bored of the lack of variety in our social circle.

I'm an only child, living in a city I moved to for work. My 88yr old mum bought the house 2 doors away, and gas a better social life than me!
I have a couple of very longstanding friends, both an hour away in opposite directions, and my son is an hour away in a different direction. Having a very quiet social life suits me at the moment, but appreciate that's not for everyone.
Good luck with the IVF, and I'm sure once you're little one is here, your social circle will grow

Well, stop making friends with ‘expats’, and find people who are embedded in your community and less likely to move away? I think your attitude is a bit odd and tokenistic -+ you don’t seem particularly interested in these friends as actual people, you just want ‘a group’ to alleviate the boredom of weekends and holiday periods. When we lived in London (just over ten years, originally from overseas), when good friends moved away/abroad, we visited them for weekends, and when we moved away ourselves, they came to us.

You’re about to do IVF and I met a whole brand new group of (London) friends when I did all the NCT type things when pregnant. If your IVF is successful, sign up for everything - pregnancy yoga, NCT, pregnancy workouts etc - to meet as many people as possible.

But that’s possibly not great advice now as it puts double pressure on your IVF.

Do you have any time for a one evening a week hobby? That’s the best way I know to make friends. Genuinely, it really works. Your hobby can be in anything as long as it’s not virtual! Or (and) even a Saturday morning running club. Loads of those in London.

You can visit places, go for weekends away, read, do some house projects and work on your PhD.
People are right that children will make you more busier and bring you more friendship. However you still might be left just with your DH and DC at Easter weekend so it’s a bit about a mindset really.

Im surprised that you can’t find what to do with your DH. I thought you were single when I saw your title.

While expats isn’t my favourite term (!) one of the brilliant things about London is that about half the people you meet weren't born in England! So I doubt the OP is purposefully avoiding English people, but just making friends with those who she connects to and they just happen to be Greek / German / etc etc.

Well, I am from overseas, as is DH, and lived in London for ten years, but if you’re going to make friends with a typical cross-section of Londoners (who are from elsewhere), then you need to expect there’s a higher than average chance they’ll move on. That wasn’t an issue for us, because these were friendships we valued, and continued, even though these people now lived in Manchester, Paris, Lisbon, Cambridge, Iceland, Russia etc, and we would visit. We’re still friends with nearly all, and are going on holiday with our Paris-based friends this summer. The OP sounds as if she vales a group and proximity over the actual individuals.