My circle of friends is slowing disappearing. In fact, I think it is pretty much gone. Except for a few stragglers I keep in touch with from far away my circle is gone. So now that the circle of friends is gone, I am left with a circle of acquaintances. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about that.
I’m lucky in the fact that my circle of family does include a few friends. People who are not really family by blood or marriage but who I consider family not friends. They are the kind of wonderful people you can call on for problems, advice, an occasional lunch, and a lot of unconditional love. They aren’t the people who you go to a bar with or hang out and play poker with.
I think that I do miss my friends. I had some really good ones. We used to be social. (I’m going to go back and forth from I and we because my husband is in the same boat with me.) Every time we get close to someone, something really bizarre happens. Their marriage ends, they move, they get a problem that’s bigger than all of us together that tears us apart, or this just plain go mental. We had one couple that we really thought, “Hey, here it is. What we’ve been looking for. They’re our age, have kids our age, are interesting in the same stuff. This could be it.” The husband was bi-polar and decided he was no longer going to take his meds. He lost it and they ended up splitting up and she moved away with kids.
There was another couple that we loved, they were in our wedding, and then all of the sudden just dropped off the face of the earth. They moved and then five years later I received a letter with no return address apologizing for everything she did that hurt us. She was now in a twelve step program and I was one of he amends she had to make. It’s been one strange turn of events after another.
We’ve tried making friends with the parents at the kid’s school. We’ve tried making friends at work. We’ve tried making friends at the little league field. It all either turns out bad or we just make acquaintances because we don’t really gel with the people.
Is it us? Do we not pick our friends well? Do we require too much? Are we just to difficult to get along with? I’m still trying to figure this all out.
The bigger questions: Is it worth trying anymore? I’m tired of getting attached to someone just to loose them. I think we will probably be busy enough with work and our own kids for the time being that maybe we’ll be fine. But what about when they leave? Our youngest is 7 so we’ll be able to do this for another 11 – 12 years but what about after that?
In the mean time, we are now in the no friend zone.
Tags: acquaintances, circle of friends, is it worth it anymore, no friend zone
August 3, 2008 at 2:46 pm |
My husband and I are in the same boat. As for the no friends zone no. You should keep trying not to hard just go with the flow. Thats what we are doing. We put ourseleves out there we are open and honest and I think that may be that turns people off. I don’t know. Not that we are weird (well it’s alright to be a little) like crazy weird. So we have children of our own and do things together. I don’t think it is you or your husband I think people (some) because they are not open, wont let you know right away what is going on in their lives and they may be ashamed thinking you will judge them when you are probably not like that at all. Then when the crap hits the fan they bail because they think you don’t want to be their friend any more. So they leave. I don’t think you require to much. Your looking for healthy relationships and there is nothing wrong with that . We had a couple living right next door that we hung out with and one day we went to the zoo and all they did was fight in front of my and their children the whole day. They would fight constantly. It was such a turn off. We are looking for couples that have a healthy relationship and for that we are very careful who we let in. We do trust people, but we are very careful.
Good luck I hope I helped.
Virginia
August 3, 2008 at 8:00 pm |
It’s nice to know someone is in the same boat. I think we are OK with not trying. We are just going to see what happens. Thanks!