My DH and I don’t really have many couples as friends. I think that a number of factors have contributed to this – I’ve even created a list:
- We have had a difficult few years and some people (people who you think are your friends) can’t cope with it when you are feeling too low to party with them so they stay away. And once things get better and they start coming back then my DH and I prefer to not worry with them because they ran a mile when we really needed SOME kind of emotional support.
- Many of our party soldier friends don’t have kids so they can’t understand that we are not available at a moment’s notice to go out. I don’t have a shortage of babysitters but that doesn’t mean that I want to take advantage of their kindness and saddle them with my kids at the last minute. Besides, weekends are the only times when we have block periods of quality time with our kids so we actually prefer to plan our lives around this.
- Some of our friends can’t cope with my Tween boys ADHD issues. I get that, so I tend to invite them to our place instead of going around to their houses because I do relax more and find it easier to manage him in his own space. The problem with this is that things tend to start becoming one-sided and I eventually stop doing this because surely if they are our friends then they will at least try to learn something about ADHD and try to understand why we do what we do?
- Our lifestyles have changed. We no longer enjoy going out at night and prefer to do stuff together with other families – usually during the day. We want to do braais and long lunches and things like that. We are done with clubbing and all nighters.
- Family life and working full-time does tend to keep us and everyone else VERY BUSY.
- I find that we have unconsciously “broken up” with a number of our friends because our value systems have changed over the years. We have grown and it just seems like some of our friends haven’t (or maybe we have all grown in different areas of our lives) so we end up having very little in common and having very little to talk about.
- Some of our friends live far from us so it is not logistically possible to socialise more than once a year or whatever.
My DH and I don’t really need people to have a good time. We have a lot of fun together and enjoy one another’s company, but it would be nice to go out on a double date or whatever at least once a month or so. We were talking about it and we kind of miss having other couples as friends. To be honest, I have no idea how to even begin to make other “couple” or “family” friends. I must actually ask him what he would suggest in terms of us making new friends. Where does one even start?
Do you and your partner socialise a lot? Do you have many couple or family-type friends? How on earth does one make friends at this age without going through the motions of “do they like us and will they call again”?
Go make friends with my friends (the ppl who like Bona)
Seriously, we made all our couple friends through church. Through cell groups and 3 of those people have become true 3 am friends. We seriously love them dearly.
My friend Nat and I are fortunate that her DH and mine get on so we can have family dates
but they’re not as good together as we are so we still have our long, boozy (without booze though) lunches without “the boys”.
Of course you know about my other friend who fights about s*x with her DH in front of other ppl and we don’t double date anymore.
Well, now, D would never socialise if he had his way and I would do every weekend (but only once) so we compromise and socialise twice a month. This is not a problem as there are waiting lists of people (it sounds terrible but I don’t see my friends as often as I’d like) and I feel like I should make a spreadsheet but it feels too OTT
Occasionally we’ll see people more than that because of “special” circumstances (friends coming through Jhb but flying all over the place, people flying in for a short time). My rule is people first, so I’m willing to put up with a very busy weekend occasionally for the sake of good connection time.
Oh I can’t WAIT to meet you properly.
Weird, because I think of this alot too.
I don’t have many of my “own” friends – there’s only really my SIL (my ‘bestie’ from high school) and then a girl I used to work with, who is now in the UK. These are the only friends I can call my ‘own’. Thing is, I’m not one of those BFF kinda gals. While I totally RELISH in the time I do spend with friends, I’m not one of those who constantly needs to speak to them on the phone, or go shopping with or take tea breaks every second day. I find that to be terribly claustrophobic.
All our other friends (a rather large group) are friends of Travers – usually the guys, who he was at school with. In fact, the majority of his friends are ex-school friends. Alot of these girls have formed their own clique. Our interests are just different. That, and the fact that most of them live out in Noordhoek, so my joining them for their monthly dinners is just not .. I suppose convenient is the safest word. It’s just too far out and I’m not terribly excited about mid-week entertainment anyway. Seeing as how I have to get up anytime from 04:30.
When it comes to a new friendship / meeting, I tend to proceed with caution. I don’t throw myself in totally – have done that in the past on a few occasions and got badly burned. Will never, EVER do that again. Sometimes people just come to expect too much of you, too soon.
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You know I have been going through a lot of fiend issues lately, but we have one couple with kids that we socialize with a lot. The rest, well, rather sporadic.
We don’t have a huge circle of friends, about 4 or 5 couples in total, but these are people who are really close to us. Who have stood by us and in turn, us by them. These are people where effort is made from both sides to be understanding of each other and to spend time together in ways that are manageable for us all. A few of these couples are childless and a few have children but all have been willing to compromise in order for our relationships to continue. They’re friendships I value greatly!
That is exactly what we are looking for. You are so lucky to have it. x
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When my knucklehead was a little boy I had to adjust to hugely different friendship dynamics because his ADHD really threw a spanner in the works… its heart sore but its a reality unfortunately.