As a man is pretty damn hard keeping friends after the age of 30, especially if you happen to go trough a divorce when suddenly more than half (if not more) of your friends get to “choose” the other side. Yeah, you get to ask your friends back from high-school or college out for a beer but chances are they’re also in a middle of a divorce or they’re too busy with family requirements (can’t blame them) or too stressed out because of work reasons. And then there are all those friends who have moved town or even country. All in all things are not so easy.
An important post-30 strategy that I use is to assume that all friends with children are prisoners in their own home. You know exactly where they are. You know they don't have plans. They are desperate for adult conversation. That means you can invite yourself over, bring takeout, and basically make their day. I'm coupled but this should work as a single.
Our parent friends say it's actually easier to be friends with child-free people because they don't have the complications of arranging around the kids. We arrive just as the kids are going to bed so that we can say a perfunctory hello and then usually leave by 10:30p.
It’s totally true. I actually started a little get together based on exactly that premise in my neighborhood.
Me and some other dads get together on Wednesday night at 9pm to step out and get 1 drink at a local pub. Usually doesn’t last more than an hour because we all have work the next day, but it gets us out after the kids are in bed on a day and time when none of us have scheduled plans.
It is fairly common for a man to marry a woman who does not like his friends. Then, the wife does not want the husband’s friends at their home. So, you cannot invite yourself over, and the man is so busy with giving his wife sufficient attention and with childraising that he cannot easily go out to meet his friends in another location.
I know lots and lots of people in very similar situations to what Mediterraneo described.
I’m not sure if I’d describe it as common, but having a partner who either directly, or passively aggressively, undermines your ability to maintain external friendships is a very real phenomenon.
It’s certainly not a healthy pattern, but it’s also pretty understandable. Relationships of all sorts need care and feeding. Sometimes intimate partner priorities push out friendships.
Different people experience this as more or less of a tragedy.
yeah that's really interesting, i'm wondering if you're in the US (or that's where your friends are)
in my experience in the US couples tend to basically turn into a military style cornered unit with an us vs the world attitude as soon as children come, where the focus becomes some mix of family:work to the exclusion of all other activities, to include hobbies, fitness, eating right, etc. i hear jokes about "date night" as if that's somehow abnormal, so it seems people have to move mountains just to get dinner together.
i wonder if in the US there just isn't any sort of community setup so couples feel like any energy shared outside that is somehow hostile to their survival, e.g., you hanging out with your friends means you're not "all in" on your family or something.
it could also be a signaling thing, e.g. if you signal you don't have time for friends, perhaps the world views you as really virtuous and family oriented.
The US and the UK (probably less so now than in the past) have a more extreme focus on the nuclear family than other countries.
There have been all sort of explanations offered from the Church promoting the nuclear family to reduce the power of extended family/clans to the black plague creating a housing surplus in England.
Part of it is the difficulty of the spread out suburban living situation. Growing up, most of my parents friends lived around 15-30 mins away by car. If they lived on the opposite side of town, an hour drive or so, we basically never saw them outside of big events like graduations or weddings.
In college, it was easy for me to maintain a lot of close knit relationships. No one was any farther than a 20 minute walk, usually half that, which made drinking pretty painless too. Bars, movies, food was all in between, and cheap.
Now I live in LA for grad school, and getting people in my classes to hang out on the weekends is like pulling teeth. As dense as the city is, it basically functions as one massive suburb from back east. Everyone is at least 20 minutes by car in every direction, there is zero parking, one of the worst bike lane networks in the U.S., and rarely a transit line. There's also the costs of doing literally anything. A night out could be $30 in ubers alone, and it doesn't help that I've yet to find a well drink in LA for under $10 that wasn't watered down. It's a recipe for apathy. At least hiking is free.
Not from US, have noticed this too. It’s to the point that I don’t even hit up most of my old US friends anymore, because to do so would feel like encroaching.
> if you experience this then you are: bad at setting your own boundaries, bad at mate selection, or bad at friend selection.
Indeed, many men are bad at some of those things. Attraction to a partner can be such a powerful motivation that one rushes to establish the relationship without thinking or caring about the effect it will have on one's social life. Then, once one is already married, there is a fairly widespread expectation that one’s social life has to acquiesce to what the spouse is comfortable with, and attempting to "set boundaries" in this matter would be inappropriate.
> Men are not victims here.
My post above concerned men because the linked article is about men, but it is people in general who are the victims here. I suspect that many women face the same problem in being unable to freely interact with their friends due to husbands who don't like their friend group.
I understand your perspective because I've been there but you can always start taking responsibility for codependence now by taking a hard look at how you place blame (regardless of your gender).
In most cases, both parties will contribute to the problem but someone needs to lead themselves and their partner out of the complementary neurosis and you do that by taking responsibility for your contribution then setting boundaries and working compassionately with the other person/people.
I don't even think it's people generally who are victims. I don't like victim mentality because it robs "the victim" of agency.
Definitely. A lot of people in these threads seem stuck when they aren't actually stuck. Not particularly surprising since that's all people all the time at least somewhere in their lives. But always worth reminding people that they have agency. Decent first stop if you are in patterns with your mate that make them out to be the enemy would be the book Crucial Conversations. A better first step would be therapy for yourself, followed by couples therapy. It's achievable to have a relationship where "I want X, how can we make this happen together?" is not a fraught conversation. Maybe the answer is an easy yes. Maybe the answer is that you need to bargain, offering something to get something. Maybe the answer is that your one friend is a jerk, but your other friend would be a welcome and hilarious guest. But nothing in that conversation should be scary if you put in a little bit of work on yourself and your relationship.
> Decent first stop if you are in patterns with your mate that make them out to be the enemy would be the book Crucial Conversations.
It is not necessarily a case of the husband considering his wife the enemy. It may well be that the husband is content enough with his marriage and parenthood that he simply accepts the wife’s dislike of having his friends over and other obstacles to socializing. Rather, the group that suffers from this circumstance is his former friends.
If you remain single, a noticeable part of the gradual loss of old friends in adulthood – as mentioned by others in this discussion – is your longtime friends getting married and then no longer being unable to maintain the friendship from their end. Obviously you cannot dictate to your friend and your friend’s spouse, and the onus is on you to look elsewhere for other sources of a social life, but it is natural to mourn the loss of a longtime friendship.
The wife doesn't have to like his friends, just respect him enough to allow him scope to choose who he associates with: That's surely the majority situation?
In our relationship we both don't really care for the friends of each other, it's just how it shook out and nothing we'd leave another over as we both allow each other as much time with our friends as wanted.
BUT this obviously reduces occasions to mingle anyway as it's just a bit awkward of a situation every time as it feels like we impose a burden on each other and our friends don't feel very welcomed in our home compared to other places.
We've just received our second son so it's currently time again to have all our friends come over which makes it very visible how uncomfortable this is.
Finding new friends is possible, but it is something that just has to fit in a schedule that barely has any space for even the bare necessities of life as parents.
If your wife doesn’t like your friends, there is usually a reason. Your friends may be not respecting the marriage or trying to get you to do the same types of things you did when you were single.
Child-free couples, unless of course you're talking playdates which is a social tree climb all its own. But single, disagree from experience. There's even a line from Nora Ephron's Heartburn, the book not the movie:
Exactly. My wife and I have a grown son and a 17 year old. We won’t go over to couples houses with small kids or go out to dinner with couples that don’t have reliable babysitters where they bring their kids along.
I never had small kids - my “sons” are my stepsons - they were 9 and 14 when I met my now wife. She feels the same way. She’s raised her kids and now she wants to do “adult” things without kids running around and interrupting us.
Something weird happened in middle class culture when it became uncouth for married persons to go out without the spouse to see friends. Being a single parent is rough, but there's no reason to avoid socializing if you have a spouse -- unless you are shy and hiding behind your spouse, or are content to lean on your spouse and kids for your whole social life (which is a huge risk of long-term downside potential)
Because women are not pieces of meat that can be processed and marinated before being consumed for a night of fun, regardless that both parties are seeking the same pleasure. the downvoted are not in this club and so they feel left out
> regardless that both parties are seeking the same pleasure
I see this a lot in the tech community.
People want to be allies of inclusiveness [in the context of corporate professionalism, while trying to apply it everywhere], but the current iteration of this results in still infantilizing women that make different choices and vicariously assuming they're victims when that woman's current aspirations have nothing to do with an executive role in a corporate environment. My non-compliance with that idea is easy to villify, people can choose to assume that I'm perhaps perpetuating some unilateral toxic masculinity, or something, distinct from what I and the other people involved perceive to be a respectful consensual environment. A reality is that context is important, people can exist in different modes and states and feel very respected.
I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences from approaching people with this understanding
It wouldn't be ok to refer to a woman as a piece of meat at say a corporate board meeting.
However, if you're at a savage orgy and everyone is naked and fucking it is hardly a faux pas to see a woman as just a piece of meat, hell it may even be desirable by the other party.
I sometimes wonder if I’m broken when I see comments like yours, which seem heartfelt and correct and as it should be (the desire for friendships that is). Maybe it’s because my wife and kids fill the void, but I just have no interest in making or maintaining friendships. My wife has a really cool coworker that tries to get me out of the house but i just kinda flop on him. I live in a secluded spot that you can’t see from the road and work from home 95% of the time.
I see it in my youngest daughter as well, and I do worry for her and am applying gentle pressure to get her to socialize...but I’m pretty much good to go. Maybe things will change down the road but I’m in my mid 40’s sooo.
>Maybe things will change down the road but I’m in my mid 40’s sooo.
My dad was like this, his free-time basically revolved around us kids when we were younger and we had a great time. Then we got a little older and I could tell he'd be a little disappointed when we'd be busy with friends/other stuff on the weekends, but we'd still be together most week nights. Then when we went off to college/adult life, he really had nothing to do. My mom had friends to hang out with, but for him, she was all he had really and I think at that point it was too weird/hard for him to branch out and make new friends.
I'm not saying you shouldn't put family first, but it's not a bad idea to maintain some relationships or else that empty nest is going to hit you HARD eventually.
I also really, really second this. I am currently studying and took some interest in how other parents managed the situation (because of how my parents dealt with it).
If your life revolves around your kids you have to keep in mind that this is not for life. Loosing all your hobbies and all your friends will lead to a bad awakening when you realize that your previously laughter-filled house is now quite, your children left for university and only you and your partner are sitting at the dinner table. Now the house is too big, there's nothing to do in the evenings and you're kinda lost.
A suprising amount of marriages failed and some parents really lost their way. When you don't have any real friends, friends that help when you struggle, it gets tough. You can't fill that void with half-assed hobbies. Eating out on wednesday and going to the gym on friday are probably not really helping.
Writing this, I think I realized something. I think one of the problems is that parents understimate the speed of change and are taken fully by suprise when they move out. One moment they are 16, quite grown up but you still notice the children in them. But then they turn 17 and then there's only one year left until they move out, until they live by their own and explore the world on their own. They maybe move to another city and that turns your complete life upside down. That's a rapid change and it's only 2 years.
I’m in my 40s also and I find most of my social needs are met by my wife. She has two groups of friends that she likes to spend time with but I’m okay spending time alone when she is out with her friends.
I have a couple of friends that we force ourselves to get together at least once every other month to at least have lunch but we are all in the same boat - married, jobs, hobbies, side projects or studying so we have to explicitly schedule it on our calendars.
I don’t think it is healthy to depend on only one person for your emotional support and my wife isn’t interested in hearing about the latest geeky stuff that we talk about it. I have another friend who is across the country but we try to catch up once a month.
This is an important point for jcims' situation: If you want your kids to get out, then get out yourself. You have to be a role model for getting out - both in the sense that the kids see that you had fun doing so and as a model for the skills used to master the situation (e.g. casually talking to people, gift culture, helping each other out and so on. The specifics obviously differ for different (sub-)cultures).
The role model thing is often overlooked when parenting. If you want your kids to do sports, let them see you doing sports etc.
I sort of agree with this but my parents constantly had people over when I was a kid. That and my oldest daughter is a raging socialite at college, lead RA, secretary for the university student govt, just got invited to box seats with the university executive leadership for a football game, has 3-4 friend groups and a core couple deep friends that she meets constantly.
A little nature a little nurture, but to be clear I do agree with you that it's better to model than not.
Yes, we are in full agreement here :) The parental role model part won't override the Big Five in most cases. Parental behaviour does help in expanding the possibilty space a bit, though (e.g. an extravert can - to a certain degree - learn to relax while being alone and vice versa).
The other caveeat I conveniently ignored is that parents are usually adults, so the image they provide is for adult behaviour. Kids won't necessarily transfer that fully into their current situation. It does shape their inner image of adult behaviour, though (which starts to become more relevant as the kids enter the early teenager years).
> I sometimes wonder if I’m broken when I see comments like yours,
Or maybe other people have the wisdom to know that the kids will move out, the job will change, and that looking past the present moment and planning for the future includes developing hobbies and relationships outside of your immediate family
Think about it this way. If you find friends that vibe well with you, you're reducing the pressure on your family later in life to keep you connected. It is a real concern.
The risk is what you'll do when your kids are grown and move out. I definitely recommend, for your own mental health, to build some kind of other life outside your kids before it hits you like a ton of bricks.
You're not broken. If your family is your number one interest and responsibility, then you're doing life correctly. Don't let anyone else tell you differently.
Just be careful not to smother your family with your interest in them. I've met some parents with broken relationships with their kids because they failed to recognize that they needed some space as they got older.
Yes my family is my number one interest, but not my only interest. My (step) sons who loved to spend time with me when we met and they were 9 and 14 - now one doesn’t live with us and the other is 17 with his own friends and interests.
My wife’s interests and my interests are well enough aligned that we like spending time together, but she has her own interests and own set of female friends.
What is interesting is that most people understand the concept of a plan B when it comes to things like what university they will attend, their careers, their financial safety nets, etc. But they assume their marriage will last forever. As you imply, it’s a big mistake.
I don't think my marriage would be as good if I went into it with an exit plan.
For instance, it would be easier for some things, especially huge things, to be "her problem" instead of "our problem" if I had an escape hatch present in my subconscious.
I think that making the husband socially dependent on the wife is bad for the same reasons making the wife financially dependent on the husband is. You can say that it goes against the spirit of marriage, but I'd say that those things makes people stay in unhealthy relationships.
I was more saying that people don't vow to be together "until I get a few promotions, you get fat, or I contract chronic FOMO-itis". Those who have expectations like that tend to be hurting themselves too.
In this area, their mom. As i said elsewhere my oldest really couldn’t be more social. I just think our youngest isn’t catching that same wave so I’m stepping up my efforts to round out what she sees.
The problem is that it’s going to be fake, which gets back to the core of my question.
You're not broken. I've always been the kind of person who's happy to have one to three close friends, and that's it. After getting married, I stopped feeling any need to reach out and try to make new connections.
There may be value to the perspectives given by others as to the value of making friends now before the kids grow up, but I just wanted to chime in and reassure you that you're not the only one who feels no need right now. :)
> I sometimes wonder if I’m broken when I see comments like yours
I'd wager a guess that most of us feel broken, some way or another. But that's just a guess; I imagine that some psychology or sociology journal has empirical data on that.
But even if you're an outlier, it seems like you're pretty content and not making other people miserable, so I wouldn't really call that "broken".
My parents were like this. I ended up feeling resentful of their attitude as a kid. They whenever I changed schools, it took me a long time to make friends because I didn't have good examples to follow. Even when I did, I always felt like the odd one out because all my friends parents hung out together, but I wasn't invited since my parents had no social interests.
I moved to another country at the age of 30, which meant the number of friends I had dropped to 0.
What worked for me was starting dancing tango, where I built a newer, better and larger network than the one I previously had. I guess this can apply to any social activity where you can interact with people, be it social dancing or coocking classes.
This is amazing, it really shows character that you take action to solve your problems and are successful in doing so.
So please know that this is not aimed at you personally...
But...
I am so freaking sick of people recommending others to pickup either salsa or tango! Not of the people that recommend this themselves but are there really no other options? Tango/salsa classes seem to get recommended again, again and again, I get that it's a fun activity with a good gender balance, forced interaction and just enough tension to naturally provide a fun atmosphere but is there nothing else??
There are like a million activities. Martial arts, team sports, crossfit. Volunteer work, soup kitchens, helping children and those with special needs, respite care. Outdoors activities like hiking groups. Oddball niche hobby groups like fan clubs.
Like whatever. Some of those are more gender balanced than others but the basic premise is get out there into a group and do something that scares you a little based around a common activity.
Things like this feel "hard" to do because of emotional resistance, it's actually super simple and straightforward from a logistical standpoint.
If you see people in public doing something, try joining them. I discovered Archery that way, and others have joined my esperanto group like that. The important thing is to not drive between two destinations all the time. Sometimes try travelling in other ways or dawdling through the retail places and there's a good chance to find something.
> I am so freaking sick of people recommending others to pickup either salsa or tango! Not of the people that recommend this themselves but are there really no other options? Tango/salsa classes seem to get recommended again, again and again, I get that it's a fun activity with a good gender balance, forced interaction and just enough tension to naturally provide a fun atmosphere but is there nothing else?
Tons. Most cities will have a social club with a range of activities.
Go look on meetup for "social" club type things, or choose a sport and Google for clubs, or whatever. Boardgame clubs, programmer meetups, kayaking, rambling, rock climbing, etc.
Volunteering is another option for meeting people.
Second volunteering. I moved to a completely different city with no friends and I felt purpose and community the moment I started doing volunteer work, everything a lonely person could ask for!
It doesn't have to be your favorite thing, it just has to be better than being lonely. Lots of people will be there actively or casually looking for new friends - there's nothing stopping you from going for a month then suggesting to a group that you check out some new activity next week.
I did this with Crossfit. Met people very similar to me who like beer, football (soccer), video games and got my diet and fitness together at the same time (except the beer:)
I did the same. Moved abroad in my mid 20s, effectively restarting my life in several respects. It can be hard to make new friends when you're in your late 30s/early 40s, but I'm ok with just a few.
The unsettling thing is how normal your comment makes divorce sound, and how much statistics back that up. As if it's just a thing that is an expected part of life.
People need to stop getting married, or at least not so early. Marriage is a very intensive (and rewarding) commitment that I think most modern people cannot make. Instead, foster relationships that matter for as long as they matter.
I was in a serious relationship from 19-25. These things end because people change a lot in those years. We both graduated and went in different directions. Which I think is perfectly fine. Relationships will change. You can absolutely start new ones. Join pretty much any club that meets in person. Commit time to those who enrich your life, cut loose those who harm it.
Here's the thing: divorce is much less common in first time marriages than in all other marriages. That is to say, divorce is much more common among those who have divorced already.
While relationships can change, those in them can chose to grow together or to grow apart. Well, it's not always a choice, but the sense of fatalism regarding change isn't necessarily warranted.
The issue is that people end up at age 40 with no ltr, no marriage, and no kids, and end up as fodder for this article. Because it gets a lot harder to find your ltr then; women generally are at the "last chance kid" stage and have been around the block, so LTR steve usually gets a very cold eye unless he sees the light and wants a marriage too.
So if they don't marry and then decide to split up after a long time, how is that really different from the same happening to s married couple? It's not the word "divorce" that makes the breakup painful.
>Marriage is a very intensive (and rewarding) commitment that I think most modern people cannot make
If we're going to make generalizations about whole generations of people then: I wouldn't call staying in an abusive relationship because of stigma of being divorced to be a positive of the past or a sign of commitment.
This is an American thing. I'm European, 27 and I'm regularly shocked after conversing with people my age on the other continent casually mentioning their 'husband' or 'wife and kids'.
Even without going through a divorce it's hard. Most of my friends over the years and I have mostly lost touch other than happy birthdays and the occasional 'hey what's going on? We should hang out some time when we're both not busy' But, understandably, people are tired or busy with things and it never really works out. My coworker's lives are all pretty different from mine. Either they're young, early 20's and I can't really relate to them and they're doing their thing or they're older and spend their time with their families. I've tried making friends online in different places, it sort of ends up being the same though, you talk for a while frequently, then you both get busy or whatever.
I moved to Japan when I was 39 and because I decided to stay here, it basically meant losing all my close friends (well, they are still friends, of course -- but it's not a "Let's hang out on a Wednesday night" type of friendship anymore).
When I first moved to Japan, I spent a lot of time trying to make friends. Because there are a lot of lonely expats, I found it easy to do. However, there was one thing that I didn't really take into account: the main thing we had in common was loneliness.
Over time, the relationships didn't work out. I even had some really bizarre (and extremely troubling) experiences with people denouncing and shunning me because I decided to adopt Japanese culture (apparently a betrayal of my original culture and appropriation of my adopted culture -- some people really are seriously screwed up.... :-( ).
What I realised was that when I was young, because the population of potential friends is large, I could choose friends who liked me for who I was. When I moved to this new population, the only potential friends I had (especially with my lack of Japanese language skill at the time) were being picked out of a population of lonely people. Most of them didn't care about me. Some of them even hated me (even the idea of me was repugnant to them). It is seriously weird to have "friends" that hate you.
Being alone is definitely better than being in an abusive relationship, IMHO (though it takes quite a lot of effort to see this). I realised that it was virtually impossible for me to find real friends the way I had been approaching it. It was best to just hang out with people I enjoyed and to stay away from people I didn't enjoy -- even if that meant being alone.
It can be tough, but really I think the secret is to just fill your life with activities that you enjoy and that bring you closer to other people with similar interests. Eventually you will happen to meet someone who is in a similar place to you. But if not, at least you are having a good time in the process.
I think this can be a cultural phenomenal, and what culture enforces who or how we ought to act at a certain age. I've traveled a lot in Europe. And it is amazing different kinds interesting people you meet. It makes movies and netflix boring.
I find people there tend to maintain more close relationship male and female. I person know someone way beyond his 30's, have many many groups of close personal male and female friends. He once told me that having these close relationship and maintaining them has tremendously improved his quality of his life and it is something he would NOT trade for any amount of money in the world.
The idea that one must marry at certain age have career at certain age is insane. Do what you like when you want to do it. Timing is important.
I see why friends who are busy with family would not have time to go out, but those in the middle of a divorce should be prime material for drowning a few beers together.
There is an incredible amount of stress following a divorce. What will happen with the kids. Where will everyone live. Can I afford to live the same life style. Who will our friends choose. And probably 100 things I have forgotten. I was not the same person after divorcing for I would say about 3 years. I felt out of place. Lost. Certainly not wanting to go grab a beer. It was not a celebration and if anything for a long time one feels like they had failed at something. So I can see how anyone going through a divorce is high risk for social isolation.
It is not just the US. 10 hour workdays (officially 7.8, but if you would actually 'just' do that and skip the 8am or the 6pm meetings you will not be keeping up with the Joneses and pay the piper) and spend 2-3 hours in commuting each day doesn't leave much for hobbies.
Meetings outside the working hours?! Where is this common?
Here we work 9-6, but even in the places I've worked on where unpaid overtime was common (otherwise you wouldn't keep up with the workload), no manager would have the gall to schedule regular meetings outside working hours.
I don't get it then - you asked when do people have meetings outside normal working hours as if it was some sort of travesty that nobody would 'have the gall' to do, and now you're saying it's absolutely fine you just move your hours around...
2-3 hours commuting is not the norm. The average commute in the US is around 25 minutes each way, so roughly 1 hour total. Super-long commutes are almost non-existent outside a handful of metro areas.
If you’re dealing with a very long commute, it might be worth it to move to a different metro, even if it requires a substantial pay cut. I think most people under-estimate the negative impact that a long commute has on their life.
Hobbies might not be sufficient for a social life.
I used to train seriously in mixed-martial arts. While I had no issue with any of my training mates, I also had zero interest in hanging out with them. Likewise for other, strictly cerebral, activities.
Maybe not as in 'having a beer at each others houses', but when you go to each others fights as a team, go to seminars/camps together, or just work through your fight prep together at 4 or 6 week periods at a time, you develop bonds that cannot be described any other way than 'friendships', wouldn't you say? I mean sure, training 2 to 5 times a week in the gym, saying hi when you come in and see you when you leave doesn't give you that, but you can't be a complete fighter without friendships. I mean if dripping sweat into another guys mouth and rubbing all over each other wearing tights doesn't build friendships, what does?
One thing that is valuable is activities with downtime where you’re forced to get to know one another outside of the activity. If you do something like martial arts or rowing (which I do), it’s when you travel for competitions that you bond. Activities like skiiing where you share housing for the season gives downtimebto get to know people between the activity. Hiking and camping is another good one where you spend time at the campsite at the end of the day preparing food together.
>especially if you happen to go trough a divorce when suddenly more than half (if not more) of your friends get to “choose” the other side. Yeah, you get to ask your friends back from high-school or college out for a beer but chances are they’re also in a middle of a divorce
That's really interesting, because so few of my friends are even married at that age. But a lot of that may be where you're from.
