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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Thanks for all your responses, they are very helpful.

My husband is a very chatty, highly emotionally intelligent, thoughtful guy.  However he doesn't drink and in general he does not connect with men easily because he doesn't have traditionally male interests.  He is in a very high-powered job where he is very respected professionally.  And he loves his job (but it's rare to find another guy who is in a similar field).  But outside of work he doesn't drink, doesn't like beer, cars, exercise, or sports.  So he doesn't have a lot to talk to men about.  He has never watched a sports game and has no interest in cars.  He does like home improvement however.  He often complains that when he talks to other dad at the kids' sports that he has nothing much to contribute to the conversation or complains that the other dads don't ask him questions about himself, because he feels like he shows a lot of interest and asks them questions.

As for me, I am also a great conversationalist and highly emotionally intelligent.  I also do have traditionally female interests and I feel that I connect easily with other ladies.  I have started social groups (like the neighborhood book club), joined church committees, and taken fun classes (yoga) in the years since we moved here.  I invite people all the time to meet up--at least 3-4 times per month.  I'd say they accept about half the time.  When we do meet up for coffee usually, I usually have one "first date" with these new potential friends and then I don't hear from them again.  However if I reach out to them they will meet up a second time.  That's the pattern I usually find--people are fine with hanging out with me if I put in all the effort and arrange something, but no one invites me or him to do anything, and never invites us as a family to do anything.

I don't think there's anything specific about us that turns people off.  We're both trim and fit, normal weight, don't smell, and have good personal hygiene.

Pre-Covid we entertained a ton.  We always had an annual Halloween party, 4th of July BBQ, etc.  But we stopped doing all that when Covid started and it made us realize that it was a ton of work and no one ever reciprocated, so we haven't gotten back into it.

We do have family but none of them are local and the closest family is a 10 hour drive.  We are not very close with our families but that's not our choice, it's theirs.

For our wedding, we ended up eloping because DH didn't want to invite his family (very dysfunctional) and my family didn't care about coming to a wedding and encouraged us to elope.  DH had no friends he wanted to invite and my college/grad school friends were all over and I didn't feel that they needed to be at our wedding.  I still keep in touch with them occasionally by email/text, but I only see them at reunions and they don't live far away in other states.

When we first moved to the area, we were in our 20s, didn't know a single person here, and were the only married couple when we joined 20's meetup type groups, so people weren't that interested in getting to know us.  We never made any friends.  Then when we bought a SFH house, we were the only DINKs in our neighborhood full of families, and people weren't that interested in getting to know us, so we didn't make any friends in the neighborhood (and are still in the same neighborhood and stil have no friends).  Then we had kids and I did have more success joining mom groups and making some mom acquaintanes, but these friendships didn't last when everyone went to preschool.  Then we made acquaintances in preschool, but once preschool was over, those relationships didn't last as people went to different Kindergartens.  Now I'm finding it very difficult to find mom friends in elementary school.[/quote]

I’m the PP of the way too long post. If people are accepting your invitations, they like you! I do way more of the inviting/planning things. What I never do is badger anyone. I’m a planner by nature and that’s something I bring to the table, other people bring other things. It’s fine![/quote]

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