Feeling lonely, whats happened to friendships?

[sb9]

Feel quite low today. Since I had my baby a lot of my friends have just gone off the scene which makes me realise they were never friends in the first place. I have made new baby friends but i just dont 'click' with them. Feeling really lonely as missing girlie company.
Anyone had the same?

yes. its difficult.

I had the same. It's tough. I have no sensible advice for you either. how old is your baby?

Did you just go out and make new ones then? 18months...

I have a lot of sympathy - at various tmies for various reasons, I've found that I've been lonely and felt I didn't really have any friends. But... quite often, just recognising how you feel is the first step to fixing it.

One thing I will say is that if you've felt friends have dropped away post DC, is that really true? Do these friends have DC? As someone with lots of friends with children, I've often found that I'm nervous to get in touch because I don't want to disturb my friends or interfere. Or perhaps I have but my friends weren't really able to do stuff or go out at the time so I've thought that they didn't want to see me. As I've got older I've realised that perhaps they were just busy and knackered.

Can you try emailing or calling old friends and saying, "right, DC is 18 months now, I'm getting my life back and I haven't see you much I'd love to hook up again"? Or do you feel you're past that?

I agree with OhBling, make the first move to get your old friendships back on track. IME it's quite rare to make lasting friendships just through the similarity of having young children. The older friends are the ones that last.

Yeah, i have said things about going out etc and they know i am fine with going out, i think what i am realising its that the friendships i had in the first place were not solid. Just based on the pub and not a lot deeper so its sad really.

I feel gutted about my lack of friends a lot. Various things have led to a dissolving of many friendships over the years. My dh has a solid group of mates and I am actually embarrassed that I never seem to get any texts but he does regularly (all that stuff). It's hard. I am gutted to hear that the older friendships last as mine are no more! And the older I get the more examples surround me of times where I made a deal of effort / thought I was developing new friends only to find these links seemed to have shelf-lives, and no long-lasting-enough basis to overcome this.

Haruumph.

I'm glad you've posted this, I've been feeling the same, I've definitely been dumped by a few old freinds. They get in touch to say we should meet up, but it's always in the distant future, and then as the date approaches they cancel.

I have made new baby friends, but in lots of ways we are all still getting to know each other, as 80% of the conversation is baby dominated.

I've no advice, just wanted to share that it's not just you it's happening to.

What is interesting is that it's also happened to DH, a few of his good friends have also disappeared.

sb9 I'm not sure what I've done about friendships, really. I'm completely hopeless at small talk, so find the getting-to-know-someone-new bit very difficult. Always have, probably always will.

I had a year off work and made an attempt at going to mother&baby groups, but tbh I didn't really click with anyone. I was a good 10 years older than most of them, had nothing in common with them and simply didn't fit in. I found it's not quite enough just to have babies in common. It was a relief to go back to work and have DD in nursery - she could get on with making friends without me holding her back.

Some of my pre-baby friends haven't bothered with me since I had her so I just let them go. Some other older friends are still around but I don't tend to see them because they are off doing other things.

DD is now at school and I find the parents (ok, mothers) very clique-y. It's like being back at school myself! I have made a good friend of one of the mothers, though, and we go out with and without the kids, but I think we could have become friends even without the kids, they just helped us meet. Others I pass the time of day with, but nothing more. I have made some attempts at getting playdates sorted out, but not very successfully (still don't fit in!). One or two I wouldn't wee on if they were on fire Meanwhile, DD is fine making her own way and I'm sure things will get even easier when she reaches an age where I'm comfortable letting her go to call on her friends on her own.

I used to look at other people seemingly making lots of friends effortlessly and envied them with an absolute passion. I'm sure none of it was really effortless, it's just the way it can look when you're struggling yourself.

I can't see any constructive advice in what I've just written, you know! But if it helps at all, I can completely empathise with what you are going through.