laughter

I am looking for friends who are not jealous-hearted and competitive. A lot of women are this way, and it is virtually impossible to have a real friendship with them.

I am 40s and I am looking to make new friends -- Ideally it would be women in my city neighborhood who have a kid about my (young preschooler) kid's age. And I realize I might not love my kid's favorite friend's parents.

I have always had a lot of friends, but we are dispersed now. Friends who are geographically close are in a different stage with older kids. I still very much appreciate them.

I expect very little of friends, have always been ultra independent. I like to be there for others, for a phone call when in need, but I also don't have a lot of extra time to give. The value I find in my older friendships (some back to high school, some college), is that I feel known to these women. They have seen me through 20+ years and they know me, still love me.

Anyway, I don't know if it's possible, but I want to find friends like me, near me, with similarly aged kid, and maybe we would do hikes, camping, stuff like that.

Someone who may want to "explore" friendship a bit more deeply.

The sad truth is that right now I am most interested in friends based on proximity. I will look past a lot of things if you live close by, have kids around the same age, and are good with low-key hanging out that isn't planned forever in advance.

I have a few people in my life that know me in and out and I can say anything to them, and I know they would be there for me if I needed anything. I am not opposed to having more close friends like that, but it's just not a priority for me right now.

Drugs and money.

I think it depends on what you have now. When I was that age, I had a couple of very close friends with whom I’d discuss anything, but they lived far away. We would talk on the phone for hours. But I didn’t have anyone close by to do the more casual in person stuff with. I didn’t really click well with the other mothers in the mom’s group I joined - I certainly went in the first few months just to have somewhere to go, but no one that it lasted more than that. So at that time I was looking for a group to hang out with.

I look for a diversity.

I have a couple life-long friends who are like sisters to me. We may go months without talking or years without seeing each other, but they are the people who I know will be with me for the long-haul and with whom I can quickly pick back up where I left off.

Then I have a bunch of friends of convenience. Basically a social group of women who make me laugh, are great for a night out, and who I can count on to help me get the kids to soccer practice during good times or lend a bigger hand during bad times. They are also my workout buddies. I really like most of these people, and appreciate something about all of them, but some are people I probably wouldn’t befriend in other circumstances (and some drive me a little batty). Pretty much all moms from my kid’s school but some people a step removed (neighbors, friends of friends).

A couple women in that group are closer friends. We click on a bit of a deeper level and have more in common. We talk about work challenges, and family dynamics, etc. and go on vacations together. They’re the people who know the most about what is going on day to day in my life, and the people we socialize with most often.

Then there are my work friends. Different crowd, and more nuanced relationships because of work dynamics, but I do consider a handful of coworkers good friends.

Anonymous wrote:I'm mostly a one on one kind of person. I want a low drama, funny, smart friend. I like friends who are punctual and keep their word.

I was weirded out when I became friends with a woman and she brought her husband to EVERYTHING. Like, every single time we hung out, he hung out with us. Pedicures? Yes. A movie? Yes. Coffee? Yes. Dude, go get your own friends.

Whoa co-dependent. That would weird me out, too, PP. Plus I don’t really want to talk to my friend’s husband about my opinion on high-waisted jeans or the passive-aggressive thing my MIL did last week.

I'm mostly a one on one kind of person. I want a low drama, funny, smart friend. I like friends who are punctual and keep their word.

I was weirded out when I became friends with a woman and she brought her husband to EVERYTHING. Like, every single time we hung out, he hung out with us. Pedicures? Yes. A movie? Yes. Coffee? Yes. Dude, go get your own friends.

Anonymous wrote:“couple friends” - shudder. Bad memories of early 30s right there when people felt like that was a goal for established couples.

I feel like my friend group winds up defaulting to this a lot because having dinner with another couple is an easy way to maximize your night off from the kids (it’s a date night and socializing rolled into one!). But I get so tired of it because I’d much rather grab a drink with my girlfriend than sit through a three hour meal + coffee with her boring-ass husband. But sometimes it’s the only way to get people to socialize.

“couple friends” - shudder. Bad memories of early 30s right there when people felt like that was a goal for established couples.

I've thought about this a lot recently, because this is a lonely time in my life. Most of my friends have moved to other parts of the world, I'm not seeing local friends because of covid, etc.

I think friends need some shared experience. It can be a hobby, having kids, being neighbors, going to church, or working together (work is the least ideal). For example, I have a lot of childless friends and I try not to discuss my children much around them, but my children are a huge part of my life and how I spend my time. Friends need something in common to talk about.

I like to stay in touch by text. Phone calls are fine sometimes, and getting together in person was hard even before covid. My "favorite" friends are those I can send a quick text too twice a week to stay in touch. IME this means close friends with a history, so that we both feel okay with a quick text exchange and we have some shared context for it.

A lot of my currently active friendships are with people I've known since childhood, or high school at the latest. In college and my 20s, I was sort of annoyed with those childhood friendships and really invested in the intense and seemingly deep friendships of my college and early career years. But now we've grown apart, usually after people moved to different areas, and I've circled back to those older friendships. I have some more recent friendships that were based on local activities like church, and I like those people but I don't feel confident enough to press them for their time right now.

Combining friend groups has always been stressful. I prefer one-on-one or small groups.

OP here.

I definitely care more about "close" friends than just having people to hang out with. I get annoyed by shallow friendships at this point because I already have too many social obligations from family and work, so socializing for its own sake doesn't interest me that much. I also prefer one-on-one friends to both friend groups and couple friends. I think friend groups inevitably create jealousy and drama, and my husband and I already have way too many couple friends.

I used to expect a lot more from my friends and would be hurt when they didn't show up for me in a difficult time. But now I'm in my 40s and understand more how tough life can be and that you never know what's going on with people. I am much more forgiving of friends now, and now understand that sometimes people are just trying to set healthy boundaries for themselves (and that I need to respect those boundaries if I care about those friendships).

I also appreciate my friends in a different life situation than me more with each passing year. Women so easily fall into competition and when I had kids, I quickly discovered that my least favorite friends were the ones whose kids were a year or two older than mine, because I felt like they were constantly trying to "teach" me how to parent or how to balance work and kids and it got exhausted. Spending time with friends who didn't have kids, or whose kids were much older, freed me from that dynamic and made it easier for me to enjoy our time together.

My core friends are all people I met in my 20s. But I have definitely collected friends throughout my 30s and 40s and I like having a mix of people in my life because they all know me in a different way and it makes me feel more well rounded.

No agenda here. I was just talking about this with some girlfriends the other day and I'm curious how other women think about it. Interested in whatever people want to share, but these are some of the things my friends and I discussed that I found interesting:

Are you just looking for people to hang out with or do you want to be "close" with your friends?

Are you most interested in one-on-one friendships with other women, forming friend groups, or "couple friends"?

How much do you expect from your friends? Do you get frustrated if they are not "there for you" when you are struggling?

Are you looking for friends who are in the life situation as you (with regards to relationships, kids, career) or not? Why?

Are you like to make new friends in your 30s/40s or did you mostly make your friends in your 20s and stuck with them?

Thanks for sharing! I'll post my answers first below.