Once every couple weeks or so.
The big fall off is around 28-30 when most people are committing to families. After that you’re lucky to see them once and awhile.
once in a while
👍
I know I have friends, but they’re all technically my wife’s friends and their husbands. We probably socialize once or twice a month, depending on schedules. I love them all, but I have no friends that I socialize with 1:1. It’s always a group event. So in a way it feels like I have no friends.
The one friend that is truly and originally my friend, since middle school, I’ll see maybe once a month if I’m lucky and it’s usually a framily event with our wives and kids. And the time and distance apart feels wider than ever as we’ve gotten older.
Socializing at 40 is… different, and oddly lonely.
what i dont’ get about socializing as a 30-40 something… is how ultra focused it is on money and politics… and almost nothing else. every convo is politics or money related. in money include jobs, houses, cars, and expensive consumer purchasing. or travel/vacations.
i literally haven’t talked about movies/shows/games/books with anyone in like a decade. if i try to bring that topic up people get weirded out and go right back to politics, money, or travel.
all my dates these days only care about my money and my politics too. nobody asks me what i like to do in my free time or what my favorite things are anymore. i saw a date between some younger 20 somethings and they were listing their fav shows/movies and talking about them and I was so incredibly jealous. last time I went on a date where someone asked me about that stuff was like 15 years ago.
i had a date this weekend and all she wanted to know was my politics, my job, my family/education background and what kind of car I drive. It was degrading.
47\
Socializing at 40 is… different, and oddly lonely.
That’s exactly why one of the neighborhood wives reached out to my wife to see if her husband could join our dnd game or otherwise hang out; she was concerned because he didn’t really have friends that he ever saw or spent time with and felt like it was making him feel very lonely.
This last Saturday I invited him and another neighbor over and we had a side splitting time playing Sundefolk. Now we’re discussing him running a campaign for us.That’s the first new social group of people for me in the last 5 years but it’s pretty damn cool knowing there’s at least 2 other fun dads in the neighborhood.
Edited to add some wordy words
Becausebof various political shit happening around the world, my main friendship is gone
36, less than once per month
I have no friends
All my friendships basically dried up and fizzled away by 25. Old friends from school got married, went down different paths than I did, etc.
I’m 38 now and I still occasionally talk to a couple of friends every few months or so (one from middle school and one from high school), but it never goes beyond casual conversation. I haven’t gone out with anyone besides the girlfriend in over a decade.
I feel like you more concisely summarized my early 30s life perfectly. Most of my old friends just went their own way and there’s no major drive to reconnect now. It’s just me, my wife and my son. Everyone else is basically coworkers and my own direct family.
Quite regularly, but only because I coincidentally moved into a house across the road from an acquaintance that became a good friend. We go over each other’s house for tea, or board games, or casual multiplayer video games.
If it weren’t for that proximity I’d say I’d very rarely spend time with friends. Life is busy. Work wants 40 or more hours a week, then you’ve got chores, shopping, study (if you’re doing that, I was studying full time for a year and a bit recently), then you just need time for personal hobbies and relaxation. On top of that, other people can be flaky, or just busy with their own things.
30 here and all of my friends are people I met online. We chat every day, but only see each other for a weekend every few years at a convention. My friends are all younger than me with some finishing up college and others just having full time jobs. None have a wife and/or kids though (hell I’m the only one in the group with actual relationship experience with only 1 other having experience in just random 1 night hookups).
You guys have friends?
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25-30 living with a flatmate, seeing friends and being sociable & fun all the time, probably 6 days a week on average.
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In my 30s, living alone, having a longer commute and more responsible job, still made the effort to see different friends, with something bigger (dinner or game night) once a week. So seeing folks 3 / 7 days.
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40s moved with partner to a different country. So now it’s seeing friends 4 times a year when I go home, and another 2 or 3 times when they come visit. Definitely less than I’m happy with, and sometimes it’s a source of frustration, but it’s mostly OK. It’s nice having the different experience of having a friend stay for a week, feels a little like being a teen when friends would sleep over.
I need to improve my language skills so I can spend time with my partners friends here. But because of demands of life, work, renovations, etc I think that even if my friends lived around, it would be closer to once/twice a week. Also, it’s worth noting that as well as having lots of good friends who enjoy spending time with each other, I’m lucky to have lots of friends without kids or busy careers. One of my closest friends has both those things, and we really struggle to even fit a videocall in. But my autistic crafter buddy is good for a chat and a cup of tea anytime.
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What friends?
once a month or three.
These days I play disc golf with a customer-turned-friend every two or three weeks - which is way more often than before I met him. Back then, it was more like once or twice a year.
I guess I’m somewhat lucky that my job naturally puts me in contact with new people all the time. Even though I don’t hang out with friends that often, I still go into strangers’ homes almost daily to fix things, and I usually end up chatting with them. The elderly customers especially tend to offer me coffee - sometimes even food - which feels pretty wholesome. Almost like visiting grandparents.
I’m 48. I have a few buddies that I rarely see in my hometown. I travel once or twice a year on a city break to drink and eat with a few old pals.
But yeah, generally I don’t hang with anyone outside my own wife and kids and extended fam. This isn’t through choice, it just seems to be the way things have gone.
Virtually at least once a week.
In person, about once a month.
