need a friend

*nannym" - I cried when I read about your horrible experiences. Then I thought about friendship (and count myself lucky to have lots of old - as in known since childhood or early youth - as well as new ones). But friendship - particularly as we get older - does take some effort.

My late MiL - who lived to be 100 - once explained the secret of her busy and rewarding social life. "Don't wait for the phone to ring. You ring them. Otherwise you'll hear from no-one."

Needless to say, she had lots of friends. Oh how I love words of wisdom from even the most challenging of great great grannies!

nannym didnt mean YOU needed age concern,meant volunteer for ageconcernxxx

Wise words Butter ...x

jack your MiL gave good advice! nothing ventured nothing gained ..though understand unhelpful & thoughtless rebuffs can make it difficult to persevere!

Neither my Mum or Dad were huge mixers and I was a shy child - with a stammer, brace and for some reason considered 'posh' by classmates hence making friends has never been easy - had several episodes of classic bullying to cope with. I've learned to push myself especially if work related and to some extent have invented a persona that is brasher than I realy am. Now my problem is that I think I over compensate and come over more confident than I am and this gets me into a fix. The latest disaster happened at Christmas time when I offered to help out in our tiny hamlet's Christmas party/panto. Because some people dropped out I ended up helping out and doing quite a few things only to put the reigning 'Queen-Bee's' nose out of joint. I thought I was being helpful and making new friends - turned out I was viewed by this woman as trying to take over which was the last thing I wanted to do. The resulting scene was aweful and really upset me. A couple of the other ladies, and all the main actors have told me to my face I was doing nothing wrong and was infact a huge help BUT they dont want to 'fall out' with this person. I am left feeling very wobbly about keeping in touch and because I've had a lot to put up with late (am under Drs for stress related probs) I have lost what bit of confidence I was trying to hang on to. I think I still dont 'read' people well and I know am far too sensitive, tis a bit daft being the age I am but it would be so nice to be able to make a few friends and be able to chat freely without worrying about hidden agendas than some folks seem to have.

Hildaw there is always a Queen-Bee who has to be mollified isnt there, but she is probably hanging on there because controling is her safety net,she probably isnt very confident which is why she cannot share and delegate,and how awful to have 'friends' that only stay 'loyal' because they fear your bullying,maybe those that dropped out had issues with her also....anyway you can find out and maybe become friends with them

What a horrible experience, HildaW, but sadly situations like that can occur when attempting to join in with any established group. There will always be someone who takes offence or feels upstaged and it takes a very strong personality to take it all in their stride!

Like you, I think I sometimes tend to over-compensate for my lifelong shyness and perhaps people don't know which aspect is the real me! A lot of shy folk only come out of their shells gradually, but there can be a problem finding other people who have the time and patience!

glassortwo we children of a Forces father did present problems as far as friends. I'm sure like me you went to heaps of schools [19] - so friends came and went with each posting. I have always envied my children having friends they went to primary school with - and they are 36 and 33 years old. Most of my son's friends are from the Grammer School he went to . Most of my friends here are ones from their school days - Mum picking up from the school gate. Luckily I have stayed and worked here for a long time now so do have long term dear friends. I also have friends from my time in London. Thanks to the internet I have re-connected to a friend I knew in New York - but most of all I've actually been in contact with a girl I went to High School with in Canada - my only school friend.Nuttynana I'm sorry you feel a bit lonely - if you were close by I'd invite you over for a walk along the Prom and afternoon tea.So please accept this from a Gransnetter friend.

dorset ours does sounds like the same story.

When the children were younger my DH wanted us to consider emigrating and I refused, I did not want to leave the place I now called home and did not want to uproot the kids from their established friends as I knew how hard it was to make new friends. I suppose you could say it was silly as they would have settle down and made new friends it was not as if we were going to drag them from school to school as I had been.

Lots of good advice here but particularly agree with jack and grannya. I have a really diverse group of female friends and meet up with them separately and regularly. However, I would say that it has taken me a good 5 years, since I stopped working, to build up these friendships. This has involved contacting old school and college friends, using Friends Reunited, joining Facebook, going to adult education classes, volunteering, and generally being interested in other people. It can be hard work but gets easier the more you do it..and I think it has to be a definite invitation, not a vague ' we must meet up for coffee/ have a drink sometime!

This is a very honest thread and a bitof an eye-opener.I think it is quite normal to think everybody else is enjoying a full socail life with non-stop invitations and "very dear friends" around every corner, when the reality is that most of us are shy, reluctant to risk rejection (hard enough when you are young, but doubly so as you get older) and mostly have been too busy with work/partners/family to look after no. 1. Is this why Gransnet is such a success?
We moved out of London when the DDs were 10,8 and 3 with the idea that a smaller community would provide them with a healthier lifestyle but I missed my London friends terribly. The "county" farming set were too snooty, the "company wives" too hung up on whether you had this or that company car and the long-term locals just didn't like incomers. I drifted from coffee morning to lunch to tea (often meeting the same people) and hated it. Thank goodness I went back to work after a couple of years and was too busy to notice. The DDs social lives and collecting them from all parts of the county put paid to Saturday nights out - yes they still did dinner parties up here- then DH's redundancy and subsequent illnesses compounded that. Since retiring, I have gradually come to enjoy the company of like-minded and similarly aged women, enjoyed the book group I belong to , and to enjoy my own company. Compared to the DDs whose lives seem to revolve around their hundreds of friends, I feel a Johnny no mates, but have to accept that we are different at different stages in our lives. On a sad note, I have tried to catch up with friends from the "past" and it hasn't always worked, our paths have diverged too much over the last 27 years or perhaps the friendships were not as deeply rooted as I thought.
U3A or similar organisations are great, I go to the Retirement Education Centre in Bedford at least one half day a week (Art History Literature being my favourites) and have met some wonderful ladies there. I aplogise for going on a bit!! Nuttynana I am sure you will reesolve this - I don't know were you are, but if you are anywhere near, pm me and we'll meet up! And Good luck!

Wow! Thank you all so much for kind thoughts and advice. I shed a little tear to think there are so many kind people out there. As I said I do get out as much as possible. I actually still work although not in what was my full time career. I do 15 hours a week but everyone is MUCH younger than me. It is nice to have the contact but they obviously see me as someone outside their normal circle because apart from the fact I am much older than them they have all worked together for about 12 years. They don't mean to be unkind but you can't help but feel left out when they are all chatting about everything they do together outside of work etc. Middle aged and invisible I think. I also volunteer, helping at a special needs school. near me. So human contact but as I said somehow I lack the" making friends" gene.

Enquired about the u3a locally some months ago. Apparently they are full but said enquire again in a few months as they "may " re -open their waiting list. As you say they meet in peoples homes for groups and have luncheon groups but it sounds cliquey and not all that promising.. Last year someone told me she was a member of the National housewives or something and when I said that sounded interesting she said yes , they had all been meeting for over 20 years and had spoken about new members but felt it would be very difficult for someone new to come into such a close established group. Not everyone is as welcoming as all of you!
I feel I have perhaps been a little too ready to do favours for everyone in the past and hey , it has not won me any friends!. Even now I cover for the others when they want certain time off , always do the extra hours to help out even though I don't really want to. So I think from now on I am not going to make myself a dogsbody or doormat in the hope of pleasing people (except for my family! I can't help it) Just this morning my boss asked if I could do afternoons for the next 5 weeks, he scarcely has a word for me when the pretty young things are around. I said No. I don't feel as bitter as that sounds-- you all know where I am coming from I bet. For 2 years I privately tutored a young boy who lived nearby for nothing because my DIL told me how worried his parents (her friends) were by his lack of progress at school but could not afford to pay for help. As soon as his SATS were over I did not see or hear from them again. Apparently when he got the results he had got Level 5 in everything , which is very good but they did not let me know. I heard it second hand. I was hurt but I am not going to stop being a decent person maybe just a little less eager to please.

Well , what a lot I have got off my chest , sorry everyone. I guess if I'd had a friend to chat to it would not have all built up. I bet you are all thinking that no wonder such a moaning Minnie has no friends. Anyway I appreciate all your kind words.

grace I think you have hit the nail on the head why we all love Gransnet so much. It gives us the confidence to be the person we are not in the outside world.

We look around and see other people who we think are confident and have lots of friends and they seem to sail through social situations with ease, but are we really seeing that confident person or someone who is as shy as us but force themselves to mix with other people and have managed to forge friendships?

Before I moved to France I was living in a small village in Kent and thought I would join the WI and make friends. I am not in the least shy or lacking in confidence and I tried to join in the conversation with several groups of women. They all froze me out. My daughter had exactly the same experience in the village Mother and Toddler group. Everyone else seemed to have been to school together and they did not welcome newcomers.

I think that's true of a lot of small communities, Greatnan

I don't think you're a moaning Minnie, nuttynana! It's true that other women are the best people to share such problems with, I found this when I worked in a busy office. The trouble with trying to tell your OH about such day to day things, though, is that men always want to give advice and that's not what you want, necessarily! So I don't usually bother any more.

It is known now that aspects of our personality are genetically determined and I do feel this ability to make close friends is one of them. It is the ability to move a relationship from being a close aquaintance to being a personal friendship, the person you meet up with for coffee etc etc. I am involved in a lot of organisations and on very good friendly terms with all the people in them, many I have known for 20 years or more, but I would not count any of them as friends. I am a chatty and friendly person and will strike up a conversation with anyone. My daughter says that dropped into the Sahara desert within 5 minutes I would be deep in conversation with a passing bedouin, but again this is not friendship

Like other gransnetters I used to put it down to a peripatetic childhood as an army brat but in recent years I have realised that there is a strong genetic pattern in my family. It was only after my mother died that I realised this trait existed in my father, and that all their friends, and they were many, were made through her. She left him embedded in a wonderful friendship network that supported him for over 10 years. More recently I have discovered that his mother had similar traits of character, in my father and grandmother's case they lacked the ability to chat. My daughter is very similar to me even though I did everything in her childhood to encourage her to make friends.

This difficulty making friends is very difficult to explain to people who have no problem. They always feel if you do this or join that the problem can be resolved but it isnt that simple. I am fortunate I do have several friends but I notice that they are all very successful friend makers and at various times in my life I have been fortunate to come within their orbit, we have had a meeting of minds and they have swept me up into friendship.

I think you have something there FlicketyB - my mother was very sociable and had a huge amount of friends, as do both my sisters. However, one of my brothers is very like me and he and his wife would have a very small social circle if it was left up to him!
Nelliedean don't worry, I didn't take your comment the wrong way!
nuttynana what area are you in? Maybe we can meet!!

There are hundreds of psychological and biological theories about personality traits and types, and some see environment as being wholly responsible for a person's ability to relate on whatever level to others. You can bet that, each time a theory is posited to claim that personality traits are genetic, along will come a few more to claim the opposite. You take your pick. Twin studies don't help that much - some confirm this theory and others disprove it.

Studies also show that the way people identify their traits can be different when the tests are repeated. Some days they'll claim they are just like other family members and are extrovert, whilst other days, different mood, and they will say the opposite.

Personality traits can be changed or moderated by life experience and certain psychological interventions. If our genetic makeup is fixed, it doesn't account for personality traits changing over time.

I have said before how much Rotary has meant, and does mean to me. I am President of a club which I founded, and DH is in another.You'll have seen how much I get out of it from my recent posts and photos from South Africa. but there is always something happening, people to meet in your own community.

Won't bang on any more, but I do love it. (Blog on the way!)

Oh, and where are you, nuttynanna?

Many years ago I joined what is now The National Women's Register [formerly the Housewives Register] and was made very welcome. I don't go a lot [we meet in members homes] but when I do it's very comfortable. I'm not a very sociable person really which is probably why I've not made close friends but I enjoy meeting up with other women from time to time. In between I have lots of projects on the go which involves contact with other people, my work - although I'm supposedly retired, and of course the grandchildren and so I'm lucky that my life is very full; too full sometimes!

Just had a thought Nuttynana, Do you knit or do crossstitch as there are many craft related clubs and the people are very keen to chat about their latest project and to hear about yours.

It is sad to hear that WIs and U3As have come across as cliquey and unwilling to welcome newcomers - I am happy to say that this has not been my experience. The WI in our village broke away from the main organisation many years ago and is just a group of women who get together and enjoy themselves - I am quite a bit younger than many of them who have been a part of it for years, but they have always welcomed me whenever I have gone along - and it is the same with all the organisations (of which there are lots!!) in this village. This is why we stay put even though we know that the house and the hilliness and isolation of the terrain are not ideal for those getting older. It is a warm community - I do not have any particular bosom buddies, but know lots of people. We do not live in each others' pockets, but I know where to turn if we are in trouble. Everyone helps each other. We are very blessed and it is pure luck.

I hope you find your niche with some friendly people by whatever route nutty - don't aim for bosom buddies - no point setting oneself up to fail - hope you are able to enjoy those friends that you do make.

When I read through this thread, one of the comments was about some one trying to help>>>>>>>>>>(HildaW) it reminded me of "Housewife 47" (Victoria Wodd) im sure you will have all watched it at some time, it just rung a bell with your story HildaW
Like other poster have said..sometimes we see people buzing around here there and everywhere but yet they can still be lonely and when you do meet any friends, you have, you think the last thing they want to hear is you moaning and groaning..but a true friend will always be there for you.(thats when you find! that true friend) and always remember
"strangers are friends we havn't yet met"! (from Billy no mates) hmm

Not all U3As and WIs are hierarchical, so it might be where you are nannym and nuttynana that they are OK. I had to move on retirement and knew no-one in new town. One can be choosy about what you do in U3A, and small groups, perhaps "Needlework" where you take you own knitting or sewing and chat as you work means you do meet like minded people (or ones you can make your mind up about!!) Or try joining in as a volunteer driver with your local Link Scheme or Ring & Ride; then you get to meet fascinating people as you drive them to and fro. Do you have a National Women's Register Group near you? I was first a service wife, then a clergy wife and I found an NWR (formerly NHR) near each of the places where I lived. They are a good way in and like minded people who have often been serial movers. Please don't let your patch experience put you off. I weathered that storm and am working my way in here now.