Making all the effort.

I'm a planner but it's based around things I enjoy doing and the circle of friends that I have made over the years who enjoy what I enjoy. Most of my friends have busy lives, as I do, so I'm happy to fit around them and for them to fit around me. eg I've got a group of horsey friends and we share a whatsapp group, I'll post "anyone fancy coming to X with me" and usually someone will be free and interested, same with my arty group, or theatre group etc. I don't have a best friend but I do have friends who are kind and supportive eg visited me when I was in hospital and when I was home recuperating. I have friends who will just contact me to say they haven't heard from me for ages, am I OK and I do the same with them. TBh I don't care who makes the first or the most move to arrange something but I do care about how I value and enjoy a friendship and recognise I'm not always as important to someone as they might be to me.

Some people are natural leaders and do-ers, some just blithely follow on and never take the initiative.If you are a leader and do-er OP, your friends have got used to you being the dynamic one.

I am known to be a planner... (and teased about it).
I don't think "get-togethers" or "meet ups" involve much planning...

Oh, I know that feeling! Years ago we were very friendly with a couple of work colleagues and would regularly meet up for lunch or an evening out………I soon worked out that it was ALWAYS me doing the planning, arranging, and sometimes even cooking…….I don’t bother since I had a serious fall and didn’t hear from them! Fair weather friends I call them!

I have 3 friends from school and I mainly initiate meet ups , they all have grandchildren and are involved with childcare . Whereas I don’t . When we meet up , we all have a great time and say we should meet more often .
I also have 2 friends from collage and it’s joint thing with phone calls and texts .
But I do think as someone upthread mentioned , that some people are planners and organisers and others are followers.

It's not a word game. I am pointing out that not all single people have fewer commitments than married ones.
Expect to be called out when you generalise.

I dont personally play word games.

.....and make all the effort with some people.
Being married does not necessarily mean a person has m8re commitments!
Single people can have many commitments too!

The issue was about making all the effort.

I am married and work...I still find time to contact people.

I am feeling slightly guilty here.

I think the difference is, in my group of friends at least, 2 of us are married and four are single.
The single people acknowledge, at least I hope they do, that us two married ones have other numerous commitments.

I’m in exactly the same situation with few friends. So in the last 2 months I’ve decided I’ll give the same energy back that I receive and guess what I’ve received no energy, so I’ll see how long it takes them but after 25 years of friendship I’m giving up doing all the contacting.

Let them go, not true friends, just acquaintances

I have some friends who phone or text me as often as I do them, others whom I only hear from when I get in touch, and few of them evince any real interest in travelling to stay here , or meet me elsewhere.

I have accepted that this is the way it is, and have tried and ,to a certain extent , suceeded in having a circle of friends in the neighbourhood who drop in, or ring and invite me to theirs, or invite themselves here.

I too have a friend I have not seen for twenty years, althoug h we e-mail often. She has been open and said her husband dislikes travelling to such an extent that going away even for a few days is not really an option.

Others - well I suspect there are reasons there too, but do not know what they may be - we cannot know how others are placed if they will not speak candidly to us, after all.

I learned long ago that most friends I had, had an agenda. One used to come round to my house every day when our children were small, mainly during winter! I used to provide heat and food. Another didn’t drive so that every time she needed to be somewhere she’d ask me for a lift and never offered petrol money. This same friend asked me to collect her son if she was working because we lived in the same street. Then there was the friend who tried to dominate my every move and get me to go out with her so that she could see the married man she fancied. For over a year she was around me constantly as we were studying together. Once I got into a relationship she didn’t like it and tried to put me off him, luckily it didn’t work and she eventually found someone else to cling to. I have one friend now, who I see once a fortnight. We have lovely chats and that’s enough for me.

I have quite a number of regular local commitments which keep me busy several times a week and I enjoy the company of fellow members, but we almost never meet up as friends outside the groups.

I have two separate groups of long- standing friends, one lot from university days, and others from the area where I used to live, but though we still communicate occasionally and always at Christmas time, we almost never meet up. When we do, it is as if we have never been apart.

But now it is as if nobody can be bothered to make the effort any more. Who will make the first move?

Or else are we just all busy in our own little worlds?
I think this is just the way it is with many people.
The longer it goes on, the stranger it might seem to suggest meeting up out of the blue, maybe?

By the way, lunch, coffee and cake etc was never part of out history once our children no longer played together and had sleepovers...

We met up before/after conferences or at festivals or met to walk or at a pub.
Occasionally we met/meet "half way" for a curry.

I have found that the best way to keep friendships alive is to plan a regular meeting (weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever...). Make a date for the next get together each time you all meet. Sometimes the plans don't work out but the expectation is that communication happens between us all and it's everybody's responsibility to figure out when to meet, not just mine. It usually works well and I have friendships over time and place that have endured. The ones that have dropped contact, stay dropped. As has been said, life is too short to expend energy where it is not returned...

MarieElla

NotSpaghetti
Can I ask why you rarely initiate contact?
Is it because of the pattern of her being the main contactor over the years?

I have no idea...

Maybe because they generally suggest a specific date for something she and her husband want to do together and that they can "fit in".
We always meet as a 4.
We don't meet up just the two of us.
This last get together was suggested by her husband to mine...

I suppose they also do a lot of childcare (they have had a very sick grandson) and are generally booked up weeks in advance.

I am also quietly content on my own - as I'm lucky to have a really great husband who is truly my best friend.

I hold her in my heart and think of her a lot though. Not contacting someone doesn't mean no love.

MarieElla

NotSpaghetti
Can I ask why you rarely initiate contact?
Is it because of the pattern of her being the main contactor over the years?

I was going to ask this too. Might help us to understand how some friendships work.

srn63

SpinDriftCoastal

I think some people like organising and being sociable and others who sit back and see what happens. They are often involved with their home, pets, family, and garden and their world does not progress beyond that. There are others who have get up and go and like company, to travel etc. Some people just can't be bothered or don't have the health and resilience they once had. We are all different. It depends if they light up your world. If they do, stay in contact. If they cast a shadow, then let it go.

It doesn't mean that you have no 'get up and go' if you enjoy time in your garden, with family, in your home and with pets. I enjoy those things much more than passing time by lunching, having endless coffees and cakes out, wasting precious time in airports etc. I spent the best part of my working life travelling and living abroard in many countries on different continents and I found no better place on earth than than my home and garden no better company than my pets or family. Many people know that instinctively without endless travel as well. It's not that people like me have no 'get up and go' it's just that we have found our our own slice of heaven.

Please note I use the phrase 'we are all different'! All these opinions proffered, are just that, opinions! Mine was simply my opinion, yours was your opinion.

NotSpaghetti
Can I ask why you rarely initiate contact?
Is it because of the pattern of her being the main contactor over the years?

My closest friend is someone I hardly ever contact and who hardly ever contacts me.

We are both very content I think with our friendship but always say "let's not leave it another eight months before we get together next time!"

I do think it's mostly her who initiates the meeting though...

I still love her a lot.

As a PP said above ...life is too short.

So if it were me I would carry on being the one to keep the contact going, but I would be a little bit miffed if I left it a long time and no one asked if I were OK.

The friend whose DH won't travel North is a bit sad. Surely she could have travelled on her own. Maybe a bit late now.

Do you offer accommodation? I have a family member who apparently really wanted me to visit (international flight and long drive), but they don't want to offer us a bed. I don't mind that but it makes the logistics much harder, so I don't go.