Are your colleagues also your friends?

[BettyBoopBetty]

I like my colleagues and we have a lovely work relationship but I do not enjoy spending time with them outside of the office and the odd team’s dinner. We just lead different lifes, don’t have the same interests etc. many of them are very close and do a lot of things outside of work together, which makes me feel a bit like an outsider in a way but my free time is too precious and I don’t want to spend it with people I don’t truly care about. Anyone else feels the same?

Some of my very best friends are ex colleagues. But we would have become friends wherever we met.

I can't stand the vast majority of my current colleagues. I'm always friendly and professional, but I have no desire to spend any time with them outside work (or, in some cases, at work😂).

You spend so much time at work I think it's easy to mistake it for friendships, but it's more common than not to never see or hear from ex colleagues once you've left, no matter how well you got on.

My boss thinks we are great friends. He is one of the top reasons I want to leave!

Yes, a select few are good friends and we regularly meet outside work. Some of my best and oldest friends are people I used to work with in an old job up to 15 years ago (including my husband!).

When I was a bit younger - 20s - I made great friends from work but in a very natural slow way. Now I find it's all very forced and intrusive which I hate so I'm very closed off at work. I think also the older I've got I've experienced very toxic colleagues and bullying so I prefer to keep a boundary now. It is a shame as I'd like some more friends.

3 of my colleagues are my friends but only because I know them outside of work, 2 of whom I knew before I even started working at the same company.

I’m very private so my philosophy with pretty much everyone is, if they know my name, they know too much 😂😂😂

Some are, some aren’t. I don’t see the need to box people into “friend” or “colleague”. Some colleagues go on to become good friends that I do see out of work, others don’t, I take people as individuals. I had one job that only lasted three months before being made redundant but I’m still friends with a colleague I met there and often go to the pub together, to each others houses etc. it depends on the person, not where or how I met them

In general, no. I don't go to work to make friends and I don't enjoy workplace socialising at all. However, occasionally you do meet people you click with - in nearly 40 years I have probably made 3 or 4 good friends thru work.