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[quote=Anonymous]DH and I moved from several states away to a suburb of a large city four years ago, with our then one year old daughter. We made the move to be closer to my parents (who live about an hour away), and chose this specific suburb because it was very family friendly. Both DH and I grew up in families with strong friendship between family friends, and we hoped for that for our children as well. Initially, we rented for the first two years we lived here, because we weren't ready to commit to buying. The neighborhood where our rental was didn't have a lot of families, and we found that it was pretty isolating, so we sought out to find a more family friendly neighborhood to buy a house.

We bought a house in a very family friendly neighborhood with lots of kids our daughters' age, and dove head first into integrating ourselves into the community, enrolling our daughter in a synagogue preschool that many others in our neighborhood send their kids to, and attended almost all of the events they put on for families. We also attended many neighborhood events put on by our HOA. While there are definitely cliques within both of these groups, almost everyone I met seemed very nice and welcoming. We met a lot of people right off the bat, and it was great to run into people we knew around the neighborhood. Eventually, I was able to connect with some of the other moms from the preschool, and was included in a group that goes out to happy hours/drinks about once a month, as well as a pickleball group through the synagogue. Being in these groups had a positive impact on my mental health, as I didn’t realize how isolated we were for the previous two years, and I felt confident that we’d be able to build the solid, long lasting friendships I’d been hoping for.

However, things stalled out after the first year of living in our neighborhood. Our family has been going to the synagogue/neighborhood events, and we’re still having friendly conversations with people, but I know these groups of people are having outside get togethers that we’re not invited to. Similarly, I still go to the drinks/happy hour group and pickleball group, and it’s the same thing. Our son was born last fall, which put socializing on the backburner for a few months, but I’ve been trying to get back out there.

I remained hopeful that things would improve when our daughter entered kindergarten this fall, but that hasn’t been the case. I joined a new Moms group, but didn’t really click with anyone there. I joined the PTA at our daughters school, and while everyone that I’ve met thus far is really nice, it feels like they already have their pre-established cliques. I also volunteered to be the room parent, but none of the other parents in the class really seem interested in connecting.

I just don’t know where to go from here. I’ve always been telling myself that every interaction, no matter how small, is building towards something bigger, but at this point, it’s been two years, and I feel like, when are these deeper friendships going to come to fruition? Like in the two years we’ve been here, we’ve never been invited into another families house. I still go to as many events as I can, but it’s gotten to the point where I walk away from these events feeling, at best, neutral, and at worst, discouraged and depressed, whereas I used to walk away feeling energized and hopeful.  It’s hard because, again, 90% of everyone I met is so nice, but I just can’t seem to find my way into these deeper friendships. I feel like I’m doing as much as I can in terms of putting myself out there, and socializing with everyone, but when I see on social media how our others are having these halloween parties and backyard firepit hangs, I just get so sad that we can’t break our way into those groups to have those connections. [/quote]

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