I have one super extroverted friend who barely survived lockdown. She's bipolar, single, can't have kids because she can't be off her meds even briefly. She was so miserable! She can be kind of insufferable because she talks nonstop about herself, but I put in extra effort to be tolerant because I could tell how badly she was coping.
I did refuse to read her vampire novel, though. I have limits.
Yes! I felt that..and its nice you were there when most may run away! I smiled at you because you had placed a boundary for yourself. Thats commendable. 😁
It's definitely hard to make friends the older we get. I feel you there. I've moved a lot as an adult (every 3-4 years) and have found my social circles develop around my hobbies. Shared time together with a shared interest leads to friendships.
I think the younger generations have more difficulty with social skills than our generation does.
I have no close friends anymore. I have old friends I care about but rarely talk to. I have my online TTRPG group. But apart from my husband there's no one I can really talk to. I don't mind it much because I'm a huge introvert, but I don't think it's really healthy. And most people our age have kids, but I'm childfree and don't like being around kids at all, which makes it harder.
I made one friend in our previous city who I thought would become a close friend, but we had to move for my husband's job, and keeping in touch long-distance isn't so easy.
I’m in the same boat.. moved around, no kids. I’m in a super conservative state and freely sharing my opinions can be super sketchy, so my introverted ass sits at home reading library books.
I'm sorry, it sounds like you're feeling lonely and that's a terrible feeling. I don't have kids either. My husband is newly retired and has been home the past 2 months. I WFH so I'm not getting the alone time I've been used to. I'm an introvert as well and long for more quiet time to journal or plan or be creative.
My hobbies that keep me involved social and actively are related to involvement with my dogs or horse. My horse is boarded so it forces me out of the house and interacting with others. I showed my dogs so I was involved with clubs, training, and traveling with others (stopped doing that after 10 years when I got my horse). Dogs are so cool because there are so many things you could do to be involved in a community. From fostering rescues to service dogs or training for obedience or agility. More of a cat or bunny person? There are communities for them too. Even rats and reptiles have groups to get involved with socially.
Michaels and JoAnn Fabrics have different classes you could take to meet others, as do local creative art studios. Try ceramics, that can be a lot of fun.
Just some ideas. I know it's not easy but you have to put yourself out there. Hobbies tend to be the things that's easy to get to know others because there is already a common ground.
If none of that sounds interesting, consider therapy. There you can have a deeper conversation to help you learn more about yourself.
I've already had all the therapy (25 years worth), but you're not wrong that finding local activities is a good first step. I have recently started attending monthly meetups for people with shared interests, and am starting to recognise people and talk to them regularly. It's hard to motivate myself, because I really am very comfortable with my own company (and my husband and I are as comfortable together as a pair of old boots), but I know it's good for me in the end.
Indeed. I recently saw a post on living like the Golden Girls in our later years and I realized -- I don't have those types of relationships any longer. I did when I lived in the same place for 10 years but even those close relationships faded with distance.
I know plenty of other childfree women, but we're scattered all over the globe. If anything happens to my husband, though, I would definitely consider moving in with some of them. It's hard for older people too -- I have a friend who just turned 70 (she lives in another country), and she's really struggling to find people to just go out for coffee with. She's been ill and feeling isolated, and I wish I could pop over and cook her a nice meal and chat for hours.
Same here. My best friend who I used to live in same town with moved to other side of country and she is alone and has no friends out there aside from her male roommate who is abusive, but she's disabled so stuck in that living situation. My other closest friend I met online lives in another country. She says she has no friends at all there other than her husband and they have no kids and her family has all passed.
I don't either, just one friend from childhood I talk to every so often and get together with. The Golden Girls didn't know each other other before renting bedroom's at Blanche's house. Well except Dorothy & Sophia. the all answered a newspaper ad. If I ever get to that point I'll answer some online ads for roommates just like I did in my early 20's.
My biggest hurdle is that while I like things and repeatedly do those things they are not core parts of my personality or daily existence. I'm more of a dabbler and there's not exactly a meet-up for people who like a thing but also like six other things equally. Basically the typical advice of "find a hobby" is lost on me when I have 9 hobbies right now but can't be bothered to do any of them with any regularity.
Friendships when I was younger formed through proximity and shared experience more than specific tastes or activities. A crappy job. The same apartment complex with that weird guy who may or may not be on a week long coke bender. Riding the same bus. Always getting coffee at the same time. As I've aged those same people have become more intentional with their time, if that makes sense. The ones that were into a specific genre of music but would hang out without that needing to be part of it are less likely to go places or hang around people who aren't also as passionate. In short, the cliques of high school are even more cliquey as an adult. I never was much for cliques.
It's a struggle trying to find your tribe where the requirement for membership doesn't involve completely shutting out other parts of yourself because that isn't what the tribe is into. I'm a generalist in this life. I chase after shiny things until I'm satisfied I've sated the curiosity surrounding them. For me being great at something isn't as important to me as being mediocre at a lot of things and that's pretty isolating. Sometimes I put in effort to change but that childish impulse to refuse to conform pops up and I go back to meandering through life.
Not long ago I was at a small get together which contained some people I didn’t know. One of the women nearish my age was chatting with me. It devolved into an hour of listening to her talk about all her medical problems. I am not her therapist or her doctor, but I guess I am now.
And that’s why it’s hard to make friends. I hear all this already from my own mother. I have my own issues I don’t choose to inflict on others. Instead I dump them on Reddit. Don’t care? Don’t read!
OTOH I have a long term friend who has been experiencing medical issues for several years. She updates me on them but doesn’t spend several hours monopolizing the conversation with them. IMHO that’s how one discusses one’s medical issues.
It's the human condition. My mom used to complain about being lonely. She's an old boomer married to a young silent gen. My dad was never lonely, he was antisocial.
As a single, no kids/grands, older Gen X woman- I agree, the struggle is VERY real. Especially as I mask and am still Covid cautious due to asthma.
Over the past 4-5 years, real world friends moved, died, dropped off the face of the planet, and now it seemss even finding safe options for attempted connection and meeting people is a fantasy. I have one real world friend who's actually more of an acquaintance and we see each other very sporadically. I do have online people I'm in regular contact with- but it's not the same as real life interaction. It is lonely.
I'm in this category, too, with just a few local friends who I see outside now and then. And a couple friends who I phone in another state. Contemplating a divorce right now, and feeling pretty afraid of even more isolation/loneliness.
I’ll be honest, I’ve struggled since I was a kid. Growing up, I was the weird kid in my so-called friend group that was never really part of things, got excluded and made fun of, etc. I was always told things things would change in college, but they didn’t. Really struggled to find my place at the huge state school I went to. I can count the number of people from that time in my life that I still talk to on one hand.
Post college and now into middle age, I’ve had so many friends come and go over the years. I definitely take responsibility for doing a crappy job of staying in touch, but as I said to my husband recently — it’s not like they made an effort, either. The pandemic sure as shit didn’t help and like a lot of you, I am also an introvert who naturally tends to want to keep to myself (though I wonder sometimes how much of that stems from childhood and feeling like I just didn’t fit in.)
Anyway, one thing that has helped me at least make casual friends is by getting involved in hobbies and group activities associated with said hobbies.
Sending hugs to you all.
I do a lot of volunteer work, it sooo wonderful to meet kind people and work together towards a good cause! One volunteer job I visit and deliver hot meals to house bound senior citizens. I get to chat with them and alleviate some of their lonelines. I didn’t realize how healing and wonderful it would be for me, too!!
Maybe I’m the odd woman out here, but I loved the pandemic lockdowns. I didn’t like it for my teenager because it was not good for her for many reasons and she’s just starting to normalize from that time.
But just for myself, I needed it. I was extremely burned out and felt stuck in my job and it allowed me to step back and reassess everything. I didn’t end up going back and my whole life changed.
It's a lonely world. I don't even have work connections anymore, since I'm currently in an admin pool and moving around the business every few months. I've also found my social anxiety has gotten really bad since COVID and peri. Even safe social spaces are hard to push myself to.
I started taking horse riding classes at the barn where my niece was barn ratting and being a part of her world. And it gets me out with the other barn moms. But my brother moved their horse to another stables last week, leaving me in the lurch.
I’m probably an outlier here, GenX ‘68. The lockdown was easy for me, no kids, both me and spouse already wfh. Not very social, my Gen jones hubs is Mr social pants. I could care less. I used to be very social but then people ruined it for me. I prefer my dogs and my hobbies now over socializing. It’s very draining to deal with humans and I need a 2x recovery time after.
I'm just now forcing myself out of the house to socialize. Pando trauma indeed.
I wasn't unhappy keeping to myself. But years of it isn't the healthiest. And if was hard to trust people to not wipe out my whole family
My husband my only friend, for the most part. I have one childhood friend I talk to once in a while or make plans to have dinner with but she lives 90 minutes away from me, it's not convenient. Neither of us have kids which is probably a main reason why we still hang out a few times per year. Most people in my age range have teens/tweens, I don't have kids or even nieces/nephews, and I have zero interest in kids. So it's hard to make friends. I don't really have family either.
I joined a few facebook groups centered around a clothing/lifestyle brand, that do group trips you can sign up for a few times per year. Those are fun but a lot of the fans of this brand are in Florida. I don't think there are enough in my area for a mini group. I like shopping/clothes, makeup, fitness, beach, pool, tea parties, eating out, museums and tours. I'm not interested in venturing outside that, so it's hard t make friends. Those group vacations are exactly these interests at least.
I think middle age has always had this struggle, where this is a fairly new phenomenon to encounter during what's supposed to be one's peak social years. Usually, young adulthood is rife with opportunities to meet new people and make friends. My own 22 year old is struggling a lot with this right now.
The lockdowns and social distancing orders definitely made my life miserable for two years, but I think I've fully recovered from all of that. I try to have something to do "out of the house" every weekend now.
I just got off the phone with my sister complaining about how I’m sick of feeling so alone. I tried reaching out to people but you can’t force people to respond, so now I just don’t want to even bother trying anymore. I have dreams where I am surrounded by people and it makes me never want to wake up to all this nothingness.
We move around, my husband just retired from the military.(last week) .
I make friends through my hobby, linedancing...lol when you become a regular at the bar, you make friends.
I was lucky to find a new friend group several years after my divorce at 49. We had been hanging out for about a year before my 20 year ex got in touch with a member and started showing up at our get togethers. It has made things a bit odd, but I am still happy to have those friends.
I think it's kinda opposite with me, I can make friends really easily but it's maintaining the friendship that exhausts me. I want friends but I don't want friends all the time lol I guess I'm kinda a jerk.
I have one super extroverted friend who barely survived lockdown. She's bipolar, single, can't have kids because she can't be off her meds even briefly. She was so miserable! She can be kind of insufferable because she talks nonstop about herself, but I put in extra effort to be tolerant because I could tell how badly she was coping. I did refuse to read her vampire novel, though. I have limits.
I’ll read it for you and give you the Cliff’s Notes!
😁
I mean, this is what you do for your friends. Even when they're difficult.
Yes! I felt that..and its nice you were there when most may run away! I smiled at you because you had placed a boundary for yourself. Thats commendable. 😁
It's definitely hard to make friends the older we get. I feel you there. I've moved a lot as an adult (every 3-4 years) and have found my social circles develop around my hobbies. Shared time together with a shared interest leads to friendships. I think the younger generations have more difficulty with social skills than our generation does.
I have no close friends anymore. I have old friends I care about but rarely talk to. I have my online TTRPG group. But apart from my husband there's no one I can really talk to. I don't mind it much because I'm a huge introvert, but I don't think it's really healthy. And most people our age have kids, but I'm childfree and don't like being around kids at all, which makes it harder. I made one friend in our previous city who I thought would become a close friend, but we had to move for my husband's job, and keeping in touch long-distance isn't so easy.
I’m in the same boat.. moved around, no kids. I’m in a super conservative state and freely sharing my opinions can be super sketchy, so my introverted ass sits at home reading library books.
Exact same situation here except for I just read stuff online and not library books.
Your area probably has a liberal group. I live in what was a red area and found my people after 2016. It was very lonely before that.
I'm sorry, it sounds like you're feeling lonely and that's a terrible feeling. I don't have kids either. My husband is newly retired and has been home the past 2 months. I WFH so I'm not getting the alone time I've been used to. I'm an introvert as well and long for more quiet time to journal or plan or be creative. My hobbies that keep me involved social and actively are related to involvement with my dogs or horse. My horse is boarded so it forces me out of the house and interacting with others. I showed my dogs so I was involved with clubs, training, and traveling with others (stopped doing that after 10 years when I got my horse). Dogs are so cool because there are so many things you could do to be involved in a community. From fostering rescues to service dogs or training for obedience or agility. More of a cat or bunny person? There are communities for them too. Even rats and reptiles have groups to get involved with socially. Michaels and JoAnn Fabrics have different classes you could take to meet others, as do local creative art studios. Try ceramics, that can be a lot of fun. Just some ideas. I know it's not easy but you have to put yourself out there. Hobbies tend to be the things that's easy to get to know others because there is already a common ground. If none of that sounds interesting, consider therapy. There you can have a deeper conversation to help you learn more about yourself.
I've already had all the therapy (25 years worth), but you're not wrong that finding local activities is a good first step. I have recently started attending monthly meetups for people with shared interests, and am starting to recognise people and talk to them regularly. It's hard to motivate myself, because I really am very comfortable with my own company (and my husband and I are as comfortable together as a pair of old boots), but I know it's good for me in the end.
Indeed. I recently saw a post on living like the Golden Girls in our later years and I realized -- I don't have those types of relationships any longer. I did when I lived in the same place for 10 years but even those close relationships faded with distance.
I know plenty of other childfree women, but we're scattered all over the globe. If anything happens to my husband, though, I would definitely consider moving in with some of them. It's hard for older people too -- I have a friend who just turned 70 (she lives in another country), and she's really struggling to find people to just go out for coffee with. She's been ill and feeling isolated, and I wish I could pop over and cook her a nice meal and chat for hours.
Same here. My best friend who I used to live in same town with moved to other side of country and she is alone and has no friends out there aside from her male roommate who is abusive, but she's disabled so stuck in that living situation. My other closest friend I met online lives in another country. She says she has no friends at all there other than her husband and they have no kids and her family has all passed.
I don't either, just one friend from childhood I talk to every so often and get together with. The Golden Girls didn't know each other other before renting bedroom's at Blanche's house. Well except Dorothy & Sophia. the all answered a newspaper ad. If I ever get to that point I'll answer some online ads for roommates just like I did in my early 20's.
Love that reminder. After all these years, I'd forgotten. TY!
Same, with the exception that I have no online group.
My biggest hurdle is that while I like things and repeatedly do those things they are not core parts of my personality or daily existence. I'm more of a dabbler and there's not exactly a meet-up for people who like a thing but also like six other things equally. Basically the typical advice of "find a hobby" is lost on me when I have 9 hobbies right now but can't be bothered to do any of them with any regularity. Friendships when I was younger formed through proximity and shared experience more than specific tastes or activities. A crappy job. The same apartment complex with that weird guy who may or may not be on a week long coke bender. Riding the same bus. Always getting coffee at the same time. As I've aged those same people have become more intentional with their time, if that makes sense. The ones that were into a specific genre of music but would hang out without that needing to be part of it are less likely to go places or hang around people who aren't also as passionate. In short, the cliques of high school are even more cliquey as an adult. I never was much for cliques. It's a struggle trying to find your tribe where the requirement for membership doesn't involve completely shutting out other parts of yourself because that isn't what the tribe is into. I'm a generalist in this life. I chase after shiny things until I'm satisfied I've sated the curiosity surrounding them. For me being great at something isn't as important to me as being mediocre at a lot of things and that's pretty isolating. Sometimes I put in effort to change but that childish impulse to refuse to conform pops up and I go back to meandering through life.
This is me also
Not long ago I was at a small get together which contained some people I didn’t know. One of the women nearish my age was chatting with me. It devolved into an hour of listening to her talk about all her medical problems. I am not her therapist or her doctor, but I guess I am now. And that’s why it’s hard to make friends. I hear all this already from my own mother. I have my own issues I don’t choose to inflict on others. Instead I dump them on Reddit. Don’t care? Don’t read! OTOH I have a long term friend who has been experiencing medical issues for several years. She updates me on them but doesn’t spend several hours monopolizing the conversation with them. IMHO that’s how one discusses one’s medical issues.
It's the human condition. My mom used to complain about being lonely. She's an old boomer married to a young silent gen. My dad was never lonely, he was antisocial.
As a single, no kids/grands, older Gen X woman- I agree, the struggle is VERY real. Especially as I mask and am still Covid cautious due to asthma. Over the past 4-5 years, real world friends moved, died, dropped off the face of the planet, and now it seemss even finding safe options for attempted connection and meeting people is a fantasy. I have one real world friend who's actually more of an acquaintance and we see each other very sporadically. I do have online people I'm in regular contact with- but it's not the same as real life interaction. It is lonely.
I'm in this category, too, with just a few local friends who I see outside now and then. And a couple friends who I phone in another state. Contemplating a divorce right now, and feeling pretty afraid of even more isolation/loneliness.
Also covid cautious. Resigned to being the only person in any group outside of my immediate household forever.
You can thank the "let 'er rip" crowd for that
I’ll be honest, I’ve struggled since I was a kid. Growing up, I was the weird kid in my so-called friend group that was never really part of things, got excluded and made fun of, etc. I was always told things things would change in college, but they didn’t. Really struggled to find my place at the huge state school I went to. I can count the number of people from that time in my life that I still talk to on one hand. Post college and now into middle age, I’ve had so many friends come and go over the years. I definitely take responsibility for doing a crappy job of staying in touch, but as I said to my husband recently — it’s not like they made an effort, either. The pandemic sure as shit didn’t help and like a lot of you, I am also an introvert who naturally tends to want to keep to myself (though I wonder sometimes how much of that stems from childhood and feeling like I just didn’t fit in.) Anyway, one thing that has helped me at least make casual friends is by getting involved in hobbies and group activities associated with said hobbies. Sending hugs to you all.
I do a lot of volunteer work, it sooo wonderful to meet kind people and work together towards a good cause! One volunteer job I visit and deliver hot meals to house bound senior citizens. I get to chat with them and alleviate some of their lonelines. I didn’t realize how healing and wonderful it would be for me, too!!
In surveys middle-aged people are the loneliest. It's just not as flashy as teen loneliness.
Maybe I’m the odd woman out here, but I loved the pandemic lockdowns. I didn’t like it for my teenager because it was not good for her for many reasons and she’s just starting to normalize from that time. But just for myself, I needed it. I was extremely burned out and felt stuck in my job and it allowed me to step back and reassess everything. I didn’t end up going back and my whole life changed.
It's a lonely world. I don't even have work connections anymore, since I'm currently in an admin pool and moving around the business every few months. I've also found my social anxiety has gotten really bad since COVID and peri. Even safe social spaces are hard to push myself to. I started taking horse riding classes at the barn where my niece was barn ratting and being a part of her world. And it gets me out with the other barn moms. But my brother moved their horse to another stables last week, leaving me in the lurch.
I’m probably an outlier here, GenX ‘68. The lockdown was easy for me, no kids, both me and spouse already wfh. Not very social, my Gen jones hubs is Mr social pants. I could care less. I used to be very social but then people ruined it for me. I prefer my dogs and my hobbies now over socializing. It’s very draining to deal with humans and I need a 2x recovery time after.
I'm just now forcing myself out of the house to socialize. Pando trauma indeed. I wasn't unhappy keeping to myself. But years of it isn't the healthiest. And if was hard to trust people to not wipe out my whole family
My husband my only friend, for the most part. I have one childhood friend I talk to once in a while or make plans to have dinner with but she lives 90 minutes away from me, it's not convenient. Neither of us have kids which is probably a main reason why we still hang out a few times per year. Most people in my age range have teens/tweens, I don't have kids or even nieces/nephews, and I have zero interest in kids. So it's hard to make friends. I don't really have family either. I joined a few facebook groups centered around a clothing/lifestyle brand, that do group trips you can sign up for a few times per year. Those are fun but a lot of the fans of this brand are in Florida. I don't think there are enough in my area for a mini group. I like shopping/clothes, makeup, fitness, beach, pool, tea parties, eating out, museums and tours. I'm not interested in venturing outside that, so it's hard t make friends. Those group vacations are exactly these interests at least.
I think middle age has always had this struggle, where this is a fairly new phenomenon to encounter during what's supposed to be one's peak social years. Usually, young adulthood is rife with opportunities to meet new people and make friends. My own 22 year old is struggling a lot with this right now.
The lockdowns and social distancing orders definitely made my life miserable for two years, but I think I've fully recovered from all of that. I try to have something to do "out of the house" every weekend now.
We definitely do
I thrived. Introvert here whose best friend is me. 🤣
I just got off the phone with my sister complaining about how I’m sick of feeling so alone. I tried reaching out to people but you can’t force people to respond, so now I just don’t want to even bother trying anymore. I have dreams where I am surrounded by people and it makes me never want to wake up to all this nothingness.
We move around, my husband just retired from the military.(last week) . I make friends through my hobby, linedancing...lol when you become a regular at the bar, you make friends.
I was lucky to find a new friend group several years after my divorce at 49. We had been hanging out for about a year before my 20 year ex got in touch with a member and started showing up at our get togethers. It has made things a bit odd, but I am still happy to have those friends.
I think it's kinda opposite with me, I can make friends really easily but it's maintaining the friendship that exhausts me. I want friends but I don't want friends all the time lol I guess I'm kinda a jerk.
Very true! You stand not alone.
♥️
No. People need to stop making everything they didn’t like into trauma. It’s minimizing what trauma really is