The sad truth..I have no friends

[Skc27]

Hi all,
A bit of background about me..I just turned 33 a few months ago and have been married 9 years, have 3 beautiful children who are my absolute world!
The depressing thing is outside of my mum life I don't actually have a life at all. I don't even have many friends, just a couple but I'm a parent and they aren't so I feel like at times I'm always busy doing things with my children when those two friends ask to meet up etc. We do meet up but it's like 3 times a year max for dinner in a restaurant.
I was thinking about how I could make new friends, I can't even call anyone up and say let's go out at the weekend or let's to a concert together or anything like that. May be it's my fault for being so into my family life and forgetting the life I had before with uni friends etc but I don't know what to do now. My husband has lots of friends but they're a big group of boys who are all from school and grown up close into adulthood. I wish I had something like that. Or created friendships like that. I'm very sociable, confident and always like to have a laugh and lots of fun and crack jokes etc so I know my personality is not an issue, I've never had issues through school, college, uni and then at work but since working part time now and self-employed as a driving instructor I don't really work with people who I can be friends with.
Anyone else in the same boat? How do you meet people and become really close friends to them?
Thank you for reading x

The way to make friends is to do things where you meet new people. You could join an evening class, exercise group, book club, a society and check out Facebook or meetup.com to see what's going on in the area.

Yep. Friendships are a combination of proximity and opportunity.

If you don't meet people and don't spend time with them, you're not going to have friends.

You need to get out and go to places where people are. Choose to do something you're actually interested in so that you have things in common.

I joined a facebook/ meet-up group for local women. It's great for casual socializing of the go to the cinema/ park/ theatre variety.

I met a group of lovely mums in the playground when DS started school. We meet up every month but we all live close by and help each other in any way we can. How old are you kids? Can you get involved in the school and volunteer? I work FT but help out with coffee mornings when I can

To add to the other posts, have you a good babysitter? I find without being able to go out freely is the blocker to plans and you need this to grease the wheels a bit or it's a pain... It stops me suggesting plans, as I already know I'll need ages to line it all up to make it work...

I've just found a local babysitter so I can keep up with my running club two nights a week. I'm making friendships there.

A few years back when I got into cycling I had to use a babysitter every second Sunday to make the club ride.

Make the time for your two existing friends, don't blow them off any more.

Is there any chance of reconnecting with some of your old uni friends? Maybe arrange a mini reunion or at least search them out on social media.