Adult Friendships: They're Hard

yikes i just wrote something similar.

<Stands up puts hand out>"Hi, I'm Karen. Nice to meet you Carmen

I am 41 with a one year old daughter. Even when I was in my twenties, I had a hard time making friends. After I got married at 33, we moved several times due to my husband's carrer. I've never had an easy time making friends, and this didn't help matters. For years, I figured I didn't have friends because of my childlessness. I didn't have anything in common with other women and couldn't contribute to conversations involving potty training or little league. I thought having a child and becoming a member of the mommy club would change all that. Wrong-o! All the women around me right now are nearly young enough to be my own daughters and got married straight out of high school. The generation gap is unmistakeable. On top of that, these youngsters pretty much have their own clique. If you're old enough to have owned a pair of acid wash jeans, don't bother with them. I've tried the local MOPs group (Mothers of Preschoolers). I know most women rave over how great an organization it is, but the clique mentality is there, too. What was hard was having moms make plans to meet at a fast-food place after the MOPs meeting for lunch-right in front of me-and not be invited! Another MOPs mom friended me (friends-what a joke!) on Facebook and she posts about how nice it is to have saturday morning coffee with "the girls." Again, I am not invited to these girly get togethers, but I get to hear about them! I've had to accept that I'm a middle-aged outcast and that making friends is impossible, no matter how much I try. I had no idea that this stage of my life would be the lonliest.

I am fortunate and I do have a lot of friends. Luckily for me, many of my friends from high school started popping out kids around the same time. We've ebbed and flowed, but for the most part, we are all still able to hang out, we are all still in about the same phase of life. I've also managed to pick up quite a few new friends along the way. I have many more friends now than I did as a teenager, in fact. Perhaps it's just that the expectations held by "friends" are much lower when everyone has their own family.

About three years ago, I started a book club. One of my girlfriends and I liked reading the same books and talking about them. So I decided to see if I could entice some of my other friends, and maybe their friends, to commit to reading one book a month. It turns out I wasn't the only one interested in something like that. I felt awkward asking other women to join at first. But we now have enough members that we actually have to hold back on inviting new women to join. It's a monthly outing that gets each of us away from our children and husbands and into the company of other women which is invaluable. My point is that you should consider starting or joining a book club. If you don't enjoy reading, find some other "club" that you can start. It seems a little childish to form a club, but really it is a great way to establish relationships and the best part is, it is structured. You don't have to wait for one friend to call and invite the other friend over. You just know that you will meet on X date. It's a committment, it's regular, it's continual. For me, book club fills so many of my needs, both intellectual and social. I really think every woman needs some version of a book club in her life!

Good luck!

Hi,Carmen

its nothing wrong with you sometimes it is our loneliness or desire to avoid emptiness becomes the more dangerous thing and make yourselve distinguish from everyone...

Sarika

I'm with ya. Though I only have one, a 2 year old, I am the old mom at 42. Most of the moms with young ones are young enough to be my daughters. I have acquaintances, but really no good friends to hang out with even if I had the time to "hang". I wouldn't mind going to the grocery with friends. Sometimes you need to tag team when taking young ones to the store and a good friend would help. I don't have a tatoo, but I drag race, so that puts off most women as we have nothing in common much to talk about. So, though you may not have a lot of in town friends, you may have just found some women who are your mirror right here in BlogHer world. We'll h ang with you.

My Site: I Am Not A Supermom ( http://imnotasupermom.blogspot.com/ )  

I am quite aloof with new people and i am not good in making new friends specially very feminine females because I just can't relate to them. lols. but I think I get along with people who are older than me. most of my friend are still from high school and college, as of now I have two male best friends who are my college classmates. though we don't see other that often, the friendship is still there.
for me its more important to have a few friends who i can build relationships with rather than having so many that are mere acquaintances or just passers by in our life.

I agree that building friendships doesn't get any easier as you get older. I have a few close friends, and don't feel that I need more - but I do worry about losing friends to relocation, which has happened before. No one seems to stay in one place anymore.

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Jennifer

Happy Mama Gifts ( https://www.happymamagifts.com/ )

I just wrote a post about this same topic. I didn't have friends for a long time. Just recently have found some women that I'm starting to feel close with, but sometimes still feel like an outsider. I'm not one of those people who have kept friends from high school or college - I moved around a lot and lost touch. It's definitely hard. Wish we lived closer - I know we'd be great friends.

Shannon Entin
Mom Improvement ( http://momimprovement.com )

With kids and a family to take care of , who has time to have friends? It would be lucky if I had time to go to the bathroom without an audience! But seriously, time or no time, friends are important. I have a few but great friends who I can ignore months at a time but are right there when I need them the most. To make casual friends, why don't you join a yoga class or something like that. This way, it will be easier to find a conversation topic . . the class that you are taking and it will be on a weekly basis.
Hope that was helpful.
For some great mama tips check out my blog at http;//www.coolmamablog.com
Shelina

I'm quirky by nature, so, you either like me or you don't. I use to mold myself to adhere to specific standards of the "in group." But you know what I wasn't happy and the friendships just weren't meaningful.

I have a small group of close knit friends that I depend on and rely on for sanity. They accept me, my quirks, my little tyrrants, and I accept them for the same.

I'm fortunate to have these gals in my life. Because, the older I get the harder I find it is to make new friends.

It's very brave to put yourself out there and I hope you find that small group of friends that accept you for you.

I am totally in the same boat. All too often I hear from women that they no longer have a best friend. Whether it's because they're still single, and the rest of their female friends are all married or have children, or because they now live in different cities than their friends. For some reason, now that we're adults, it's really hard to make friends. Is it because we're busier? We actually have lives? In high school, we were all kept in the same classrooms for hours on end, so it was easier to create bonds with our fellow ladies.
I'm not standoffish, I'm an outgoing, loud lady... but it's still difficult to meet women who are willing to take that leap into friendship. There are so many Judgey McJudgerson's and Frenemies out there that ladies don't know who to trust. At least, that's been my experience.
One thing we've done in my city, is connect with other women on Twitter. Here and in Calgary, we hold events called "Girls Night Out" where women get together and just hang out, talk, meet new people, and etc. Maybe something similar will work in your city?
Also, I enjoy grocery shopping with others. If only I had the time...

Seriously. I carry all the same feelings around with me. I was always on the fringe of all the "groups". I can tend to be awkward and weird when trying to make a good impression on new people. Oh yes. I know how this feels.
The only friends that I have now, I've had since I was a kid. Seriously, my grade school friends are still my closest friends. The bad part of all that is that I live about 500 miles away from all of them.
I find that as a stay at home mom I am introduced to people with whom I have nothing in common. I'm introduced to women who love to shop all the time (I LOATHE shopping) or I'm introduced to people who have 10,000 other friends and spread themselves too thin to make time for any sort of real intimate friendship. Yes, I am standoffish, and yes I get annoyed easily with other women when they immediately try to drag me into a gossip-fest, but I think I'm a pretty cool person. I like to laugh, I like to just hang out (with no ridiculous activities attached to our meet-ups) and I like to be close to people. If we're friends, we'll know way too much about each other, and that's the best kind of friendship in my mind. This grownup friend thing IS hard.
Somer blogs at Merry Wife of Canon ( http://www.merrywifeofcanon.com ) as well as Smell My Plate ( http://www.smellmyplate.com ).