No friends

sunseeker. Have you spoken to your local Age UK? They often run coffee clubs or need befrienders and have a range of other activities - almost all daytime events.

Hi yes I have asked age concern and applied for a job with them
I've heard nothing been 3 weeks I have accepted the fact that friendship
For me is going to be hard to find

You do not have to work for them Bettyboo. You could attend some of the activities they run.

I live in Colchester

There seem to be a fair few "Essex girls" who would like a friend
Its strange, I looked on the local site and replied to a thread there (a couple of times) but nobody had answered the last time I looked. I didn't want to appear desperate!

And so it continues...........

My main problem is my lifestyle (by no means chosen I can assure you) but it makes it difficult to have very much of a social life. I work almost full time in engineering (all men) although I spend almost all of my working days alone. (Well with Gransnet for company ) I do regular child care for my three grandchildren and see my elderly dad several times a week too (although his social life is way better than mine which is almost non existent). My one little saving grace is my WI which I attend once a month however the are lots of splinter groups I would love to attend but they're almost always either during the day when I'm at work or on evenings when I have the children overnight.
To be honest I'm not sure there is anything much I can do about it.

MissAdventure I do not know Essex at all but why not choose a town that most folk could possibly get to and a cafe near transport and try to set up a time to meet for coffee. Maybe give 2-3 dates in case the first was not convenient. Good luck.

Does your local site have an editor, *MissAdventure ? Many of the local sites don't have volunteer editors, so they don't get updated and promoted so people lose interest and don't look at them.

Posting on the main GN site is a better bet. Click on the "Forums" tab (just beneath the Gransnet banner) which takes you to a list of topics. Choose "Meetups/where are we" and have a look there to see whether there is anything currently planned near you. If not, start a new thread (it is easy!) asking if anyone near you would like to meet up for a cup of coffee.

You don't have to give details of where you live - you could meet somewhere in a neighbouring town convenient to you both.

Or send a PM to "Pittcity* She is editor of the Colchester local site, and IO think she also edits another site in Essex as well.

My U3A is brilliant. I am retired but not yet 60. I do walking in the fells, cycling, table tennis and water sports with the U3A. There are 42 groups in our area so hopefully something for everyone

Things like Rockchoir , U3a and craft groups are really dependant on the people in the group I joined a craft group and everyone had their own friend group already established, it became obvious people had joined together There were lots of in jokes and I felt such an outsider I stayed for a good 6 months but was never included further than small talk. As regards rock choir, again I think it's not a blanket wonderful, my daughter went for quite a few years but never found a close friend, it is expensive, if you're poorly and miss a week or two you still have to pay Their choir master changed and it became like school with lots of nitty rules brought in , she goes to a smaller independant choir now that you pay on the night but although much younger than me she hasn't made close close friends and wants to badly
I have one best friend but she has other close friends so I m not sure if she would see me as her best friend I have a big circle of lunch friends but only one out of that amount that I feel at home with and she's remarried so does everything with her husband
I too am an only child I can talk to everyone and everything but I m still lonely

I'm another one who lacks a close friend locally. Think it stems from being an only child and Mum dying when I was 7 shattered my confidence. We moved around a lot after Dad remarried, as soon as I made school friends we moved again, so I started work very shy & with no friends at all. I am close to my SiL and another lady I go on holiday with but they both have huge circles of friends so don't see them as often as I'd like to. I also have a group of 'friends' locally but they spend time together without asking me so feel very much an outsider and sometimes feel that they only ask me along to make them look good. (They're all prettier, thinner, richer etc. etc.) I just long for that one close friend that will pop in for coffee at the drop of a hat and who'll share life's up and downs. Thought I'd found one when my kids were little but turned out she was fickle and dropped me for a succession of others! I am sociable, love going out when I get the chance (OH never is bothered, would rather watch TV) music, dancing, cinema, meals etc. so it's not that I'm a misery guts ? !

Oh and I have another lady I see occasionally who I used to work with before she retired but she's ten years older than me and much less physically fit so we don't share the same interests (apart from grandchildren) or abilities....

I went to a new group on Monday, a clique of 4 ignored me, and 2 ladies sat on the end seats of a row of four ignored me. If that had been the other way round, I would have said, oh, come and sit here, but, I decided to persevere (I have been known to sneak away as I feel really awkward in this sort of situation) and I sat on my own at another set of four seats. Another lady came in, saw the spare seats near me, sat there, but looked in the opposite direction, so I started to talk to her, she was really glad I had and said she was glad to have made a friend, we enjoyed the class together, no one else spoke to anyone other than who they had come with, we swopped email addresses and are both looking forward to the next class. Success!

Well done Kateykrunch! She may turn out to be your new bestie ?

I'm in Essex too, I attended one lovely GN get together at Bluewater but had to miss the 2nd.

I'm meeting one lady I met at that get together tomorrow in Rayleigh but I'm sure we'd be happy to meet up with anyone else.

Do pm me if you're nearby , we could arrange something for a couple of weeks time - after all you can never have too much coffee and cake ;-)

Arrr, thanks Carol.

I also don't have any friends,the odd acquaintance via texts or fb. I left all my friends behind when I moved from middx to east coast with my children several years ago ( lone/single parent) My oldest ones grew up and moved out and are now mostly busy with their own family lives (don't see GC as much as I'd like) or clubbing life lol and I guess I'm feeling that loss. Now its just me and my youngest two (10,13) although I'm busy with what that still entails and I'm not 'alone' I do miss female company, camaraderie and it would be nice to have friends to chat with, confide in and meet up with regularly. I've gone through so much in the last decade on my own and I'm fed up with talking everything through in my head because I have no friends,no idea how to change things though?
I've accepted,in my early 50's I will remain single but would like to think I could still have at least one female friendship ?

I live in cardiff have 2 sisters who don't bother with me and no friends. I feel very lonely and it's making me depressed.

Any one here from cardiff

If any of you ladies are in Manchester or Trafford area I would love to meet up. Please get in touch. All my friends are still married.

If there's anyone living around the Gloucester/Cheltenham area I would be interested in meeting up for a coffee and a chat.

lonely at 72.Any one live in or around Preston ,who want to chat ,

Civil Service, NHS and other large organisations have Retirement fellowships. If you ever worked for them, look on line for your local branch. They are always ready to welcome new members and they usually have regular meetings and trips.

There is also the WI and U3A. Some local community centres hold coffee mornings and lunch clubs. Local churches often have similar schemes.