Not having a lot of friends...

Hi!

I am 26 and I don't consider myself as having a lot of close friends.

My best friend is my husband who I have been with since high school and he is honestly the only person I have ever fully clicked with and like spending lots of time with. Sometimes i feel insecure about this because a lot of people I know don't spend this much time just with their spouse.

I have 3 or 4 other friends who I catch up with once a week. These are the types of people who share similar values with me and are fairly self-sufficient. We don't rely on each other for too much, we purely catch up to share what we have been up to and to have a laugh etc. I guess you could say its low maintenance friendships.

There are quite a few acquaintance type friends who I occasionally see but sort of distance myself from. They are the type of people who aren't very self-aware and hide behind the facade of trying to impress everybody by gossiping, *****ing, being fake and being very obsessed with their physical image. So its not in line with my values and aspirations to be around them too much and i tend to say no a lot when i am invited to things with them.

So it makes sense for me to only have a few close friends who I trust, feel comfortable around and don't feel compelled to catch up with all the time but I guess I just have this nagging feeling that sometimes I'm missing out by not having super close sisterly type friendships.

I suppose when i check face book every now and then (which i am trying to do less and less), I see all the photos of my 'acquaintances' hanging out and having a great time and I feel like I have missed out. Its like i feel like inferior for it.


So i'd love some of your thoughts on the following questions:

1) Should I be trying to have more friends? (obviously more friends with similar values)

2) Or is it a sign of independence if I don't feel like I need to be around friends all the time?

3) Is my Fear of missing out more likely a reaction to my self-esteem issues and worrying what others think of me?

4) Should my husband and I be spending more time apart? Ie. will spending so much time together effect our relationship in the long term?

5) Is it rude of me to avoid those 'acquaintance' type friends even though deep down I know they have the potential to be a really good person? Am i a bad person for not making more of an effort with them?

Any comments would be great, its really been bothering me lately and
I want to straighten this out in my head once and for all!!!

Wow. Did I write this post? Seriously, I feel a lot of similarities in my own life, right down to the age.

You don't sound socially isolated to me, but if you're worried about it (that 'nagging feeling') I think it would be super cool to find an interest that's JUST FOR YOU. Not something that involves your husband or acquaintances, but something totally different, with new, interesting people.

Example: I went to some local "Cactus Appreciation Society" meeting once. It was so weird and fun. Not going again, but it bolstered my confidence, and I can see how i'd benefit from meeting people outside my circle.

It's funny you mention it because I recently signed up to be a volunteer tutor for disadvantaged kids and I have been really enjoying it! It feels good to get outside my comfort zone and I am forced to talk to strangers all the time because the other tutors always change. I still get anxious about it but the more I go, the easier it is.

You ARE me! I knew it.

I, too, have recently worked with kids. It's the most rewarding thing i've ever done.

Yeah it's pretty rewarding, pretty challenging too. I am studying counselling at the moment so I'm grateful for the experience I am getting out of it. I am hoping that with enough combined volunteer experience and study, I can get a full time job doing something in the human service field.

It's hard going to work in a repetitive office job every day knowing that money is the only thing I'm really gaining from it!

What do you consider a normal amount of close friends and aquaintances cause frankly I'm jealous of what you have.

As for your husband, I have learned that relying on one person for our social and active life is not positive. When I broke with my BF I found a huge gaping hole and the realisation I depended on him for 'life' far too greatly. I encourage you to take advantage of those friends you do have. Which again, I think seeing weekly as being quite good already.

My own question is how do you think your husband would react to you relaxing the time you spend and cling to him? How does he already feel about the time you spend with your friends.

Aquaintances are good, but I agree you could perhaps distance yourself or reduce the time you spent with them.

Again, I want you to realise that having that many friends can be considered by some to already be a great deal.

i am a 54 year old woman, have few friends and spend most of my time with my husband. i worry what would happen if something like him dying or just being unavailable what would i do then? i recently signed up to help elderly people which i've done in the past too. now i'll have to see again how that works out. iwish i could get a job but am on disability and don't want to lose it and i don't think i can keep up with one either. i think you should appreciate the friends you have now, the ones closesest to you. you will need somebody if something should happen. good luck

See the thing is that I don't actually tend to spend a lot of time with my friends without my husband also being there. Usually whenever I catch up with friends its always with our partners included as well. I try to organise things just with the girls but I feel guilty for excluding the guys and I don't want anyone's feelings to get hurt. And I also suppose a part of me is worried that they would enjoy themselves more if my husband was there.

My husband is the kind of person who is fairly outgoing in social situations. A bit too outgoing for me at times. He tends to get carried away in conversations and seems to not be able to stop talking. He feels like he needs to fill every second of silence and just jumps from topic to topic so it's hard for everyone to be involved in the conversations. His whole family is the same so it's a tough habit for him to break. He has admitted to me that when no one is talking he feels anxious so makes it his mission to keep the conversation alive. It doesn't seem to bother most people, they just find him really entertaining and fun to be around. But I have to deal with it in every single social interaction and it gets overwhelming.

I get really frustrated because I don't like to talk just for sake of talking. So when I do have something to say I feel very stifled. My mum is similar to my husband in this sense so I suppose I am just so used to having people around me who don't give me a chance to hold my own in conversations.

On the rare occasions that I do catch up with people by myself (without my hubby) or even if someone just asks me a direct question in a conversation, I feel really really anxious and sometimes feel like I want to disappear. Sometimes someone else answers for me before I have the chance to gather my thoughts and then I feel even worse.

Now that I think about all of this, I suppose the real problem I am having is not that I think I should have more friends. Its more that I feel like sometimes people aren't spending time with me. They are spending time with my husband and I am just tagging along all the time. I even sometimes feel like my own parents prefer my husband to me.

I admit that he overshadows me a lot and I do feel some resentment towards him. We have had many arguments about it and although he understands my point of view, he can't really help it most of the time. People just gravitate towards him more than they do me because they are used to him being the conversationalist. They are all just used to me just sitting there listening and agreeing and not being an active part of the conversation.

I want so badly to have more confidence because I do have so much to share and bring to conversations but I just feel too anxious to embrace it usually. So I feel like I don't get to share my personality with people. I feel like I am always sitting there watching a TV show playing out around me and it irritates the s**t out of me!

Sorry, that escalated but obviously I needed to get it off my chest!!

I am 65 on Monday and my husband of 26 years (September 23) just died October 4. I have no children of my own (my grown stepsons/daughters-in-law are very supportive though) and my brothers are all older than I am and spread out/don't live very close to me. My friends are mostly too. I could have written your post too, when I was 26 except I had not met my husband yet, in many ways meeting him "saved" me/my life. Now I am going to have to work really hard to "catch up" and try to make a new life for myself with other/new friends, activities. Sometimes it appears quite daunting.

The last 5-10 years I have adopted the idea for myself, "it will be okay" and wish I had been able to tell/know that when I was 26. I try to imagine what I could have done differently when I was younger but always end up with the realization that I was doing the best I could at the time and what I did/did not do is what I did/did not do! We cannot really change the essence of who we are. Yes, we can try new things even though they are scary but a lot of things are not necessarily going to work out. I'm taking knitting lessons next week, for example and I have identified a knitting shop near where I am moving next month if knitting turns out to be a thing I want to pursue but I'm a computer researcher, reader, writer and I am doubtful knitting is going to be a new thing for me?

Who we meet and how we feel about them and how all that shakes down is similar I think, to what we like/do? We have to be open to new people coming into our lives and the surprise of their becoming friends and I think we have to even "look" for that to happen in order for it to happen but I don't think we can predict or change the details that much? You can use your non-dominant hand until you are pretty good at doing some things with it but you cannot actually change your handedness. So I am trying to recognize my handedness and work with it (and my imagination, humor, literary skills, honesty, and other traits), see what it attracts rather than go out and try to catch something we think we need. My Self knows what it needs and is on the case I just have to get out of its way/see if I can identify what it's trying for and help it?

thanks, i also took up knitting and have made several piece cat and dog blankets. they look funny, i know because it was hard sewing the pieces together, but people like them. i also waited to do cross stitch. i was talking about who i would turn to for everyday things too. i am disabled and can't work or drive, i'd be stuck. i'm sure my family nearby sort of, could help although. again, thanks for you're reply.

this is really beautiful and so nicely written!