Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a 43 year old woman and have only a few acquaintances/casual friends and no close friends. I've found it very hard to make good friends and have been trying for 10 years without much luck.

I am always the initiator and invite acquaintances/new acquaintances to do things a lot. What I've noticed is that women are happy to accept my invitations but never invite me to do anything. I can't remember the last time another mom or female friend invited me out for coffee, a walk, or anything. I usually invite other women to get together about once a month or so, to do something like brunch, a walk, coffee, and I wait a few months in between invitations with the same person. In other words, if I invite Jen for lunch in March, I'll wait until June to invite her for coffee next. I also don't get invited to birthday parties for friends or holiday celebrations. I feel invisible and overlooked. If I didn't reach out and do all this inviting, no one would reach out to me and I would be friendless.

I feel that the problem is that other women think I'm nice enough, but don't think of me as someone they would make the effort to reach out to. I feel like I have plenty in common with these other moms/women, and I feel like our conversations go well. I'm not sure how I can fix this problem and therapy has been no help. Any advice?

Take a closer look at your husband and his personality. He may likely be off-putting and the reason why you're not getting more invitations. It's his fault, not yours.

What? That's ridiculous. I have an asocial, autistic husband and I have my own friends who invite me to lunch and various outings.

I'm sorry this is happening to you, OP. Perhaps try to propose something with several people at once, to get some momentum going?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your best friend is supposed to be your husband, OP. Not girlfriends. Your husband. Focus on that. Women don't get along. There is always infighting, backbiting, catfighting. There is no loyalty among females, and I am one. It is never as good as it seems, OP. You are not missing out on anything. Cheap intimacy is just that. Cheap.

This is toxic.

Agree with that's it toxic. And the use of the word "females" instread of women is a sure sign of a misogynist/incel/woman hater.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a 43 year old woman and have only a few acquaintances/casual friends and no close friends. I've found it very hard to make good friends and have been trying for 10 years without much luck.

I am always the initiator and invite acquaintances/new acquaintances to do things a lot. What I've noticed is that women are happy to accept my invitations but never invite me to do anything. I can't remember the last time another mom or female friend invited me out for coffee, a walk, or anything. I usually invite other women to get together about once a month or so, to do something like brunch, a walk, coffee, and I wait a few months in between invitations with the same person. In other words, if I invite Jen for lunch in March, I'll wait until June to invite her for coffee next. I also don't get invited to birthday parties for friends or holiday celebrations. I feel invisible and overlooked. If I didn't reach out and do all this inviting, no one would reach out to me and I would be friendless.

I feel that the problem is that other women think I'm nice enough, but don't think of me as someone they would make the effort to reach out to. I feel like I have plenty in common with these other moms/women, and I feel like our conversations go well. I'm not sure how I can fix this problem and therapy has been no help. Any advice?

Take a closer look at your husband and his personality. He may likely be off-putting and the reason why you're not getting more invitations. It's his fault, not yours.

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

Thanks for your replies. I'm not sure what my husband's personality has to do with anything as we're not trying to make couple friends or family friends. I'm trying to make female friends for myself. Many of these casual friends/acquaintances are either from church, from meetup groups, or from the moms of my kids' friends. It seems they are not interested in going from casual friends/acquaintances to close friends. Why is this and what am I doing wrong? How can I fix it?

We seem to have a lot in common. I also see them often enough at various events, etc. and make it clear that I'd like to be closer friends by remembering important details about them and asking about it later, taking them out for their birthdays, texting them occasionally to check in and say hi.

One thing I recently noticed is that when my kids have had their birthday parties, none of the moms go--only the dads, who either drop off or stay. At the other kids' birthday parties I've been to this year, it's almost all the moms that have gone. I feel that this is another indication that the moms don't have any interest in getting to know me better.

And yes, my husband is my best friend but he does not want to go out for tea, go for a spa day, get nails done, do paint and sip events, go on long walks, take yoga classes, or go to art museums with me. I'd like to have closer female friends to do some of these things with. Instead I have no one to do things with in general so I do everything alone. We have no local family either, and I work from home. I also only have sons, who would not be interested in any of these things.

I feel lonely a lot. How can I improve this situation?

Anonymous wrote:Your best friend is supposed to be your husband, OP. Not girlfriends. Your husband. Focus on that. Women don't get along. There is always infighting, backbiting, catfighting. There is no loyalty among females, and I am one. It is never as good as it seems, OP. You are not missing out on anything. Cheap intimacy is just that. Cheap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your best friend is supposed to be your husband, OP. Not girlfriends. Your husband. Focus on that. Women don't get along. There is always infighting, backbiting, catfighting. There is no loyalty among females, and I am one. It is never as good as it seems, OP. You are not missing out on anything. Cheap intimacy is just that. Cheap.

This is toxic.