41 and no friends

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Leave the house and talk to people. Have you looked at volunteering anywhere, what about a walking club for weekends there are loads of those around.

As far as holidays there is a lady at work who went on a holiday for single people. From that holiday she met 3 other people and they have holidayed together for the last few years, going to Iceland the US and all over!

You might feel alone but there are loads of other people in the same boat probably desperate for a friend like you.
 
Dont worry OP,

As soon as you start going out you will realize how expensive "going out" is and want to stay in. It makes PC gaming perfectly financially viable :)

Join meetup, although it does get clique to a degree.
 
I'd say I haven't had a genuine good friend since I was 12-18, I'm 39 now. I have acquaintances at work, even outside of work I suppose. What I would call my 'friends' now aren't really friends, to me at least. They're the kind of friends you have an 'okay' chat with, maybe have a common interest. You say 'oh we should get together and do X sometime' they say 'yes we should', you make an effort but they can't do it for some reason, maybe you bring it up again later, and it still never happens, then you don't bother anymore because you realise you're not that fussed. They never contact you about it again. That's my experience anyway.

I give up with the amount of times I've tried to get together to do something, and it's just a 'yeah we'll do that' and I even think to myself as they're saying it - 'that'll never happen'. And it never happens. Skip on a few weeks, and we're having the same conversation and go 'oh we never did that did we', and promises are made to 'arrange something', and it never happens.

I realise it doesn't really bother me. I could make more of an effort, sure. But then I don't want to be the one making all the effort - if they're not bothered, then I don't want to spend time with somebody who can't be bothered with me. That sounds childish reading it, but I don't mean it that way. I'd just rather spend time by myself, or with my girlfriend as we get on. Even she's said similar to me about her friends, and doesn't really see them and they give promises you know will never happen.

Queue 'everybody hates you both' comments ;)
 
Met all my current friends and gf from meetup. Most of what we do isn't on me anymore.

Before that I had zero friends.

This weekend I'm playing DnD, board games and computrw games with about 7 people (equal mix of girls and boys).
Thats all friends I need to be fair.

I also go kayaking (ie take up a sport) with people or on my own

Go To gym (fills other time)

And do other random bits.

Turnaround time from. 0 to this was under 2 years
 
OP, trust me when I say this.....it's not uncommon

You will find most people who concentrate on their career drift away from friends and family naturally over time. I was in a similar situation.
This may not be to your taste (it wasn't mine at the time), but have you thought about following your local football team? Go to a few of the home games (tons of people go on their own) and see if you enjoy it.
 
Go on holiday by yourself, it's not that unusual these days.

Otherwise, as others have said find a social group you can join, plenty about if it's something you really want to try.
 
Its good to go on holiday on your own. I always do, I'm actually off to Budapest and Vienna tomorrow for a few days.

You get to meet different people and make new friends and "friends ;) " If you both hit if off within the first hours you meet. Gets you out your comfort zone.
 
Welcome to modern life OP.
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Actually going on a coach holiday by yourself could work wonders. I went to Austria Christmas day by myself because everybody I asked either had other commitments - being that time of the year--or couldn't afford it. It was the best thing I ever did and the thing about going by coach is you're stuck with a group of people who will soon get to know and be friendly with you because they have little choice. They will be more inclined to be friendly because they intend to have a good time.
 
Thanks for all the advice.

Joining a gym is a no go unfortunately as I have restricted mobility due to multiple operations for bone cancer and having a femoral prosthetic in my right leg. I will look into meetup.com I think as plenty of people have suggested it. Weird to hear plenty of others are in the same position.
 
Very true. I had three very close mates, as children we all grew up in the surrounding streets, went to the same schools and colleges and even stayed mates when we scattered to the four corners of the country to attend different universities. Despite this we were still good mates after graduating and enjoyed many boozy weekends away at various events like airshows, music festivals and the like. Then it happened, two of them got engaged and then married. It was as if they fell off the face of the Earth, they weren't allowed to do this, weren't allowed to do that.

Angilion said:
Take me, for example. I'm in a very similar situation to you, although I'm a bit older and I haven't been on holiday for almost 40 years. Other than that, pretty much the same. In the past it bothered me to some extent, but I realised that was because of what other people wanted, not because of what I wanted. I don't conform to what they want for themselves. I realised that's not my problem. If they don't understand, that's their problem. My only regret is that my donor registration will probably be useless because I will probably die on my own and therefore none of the potentially reusable parts will be reusable. Transplants are only possible when someone dies on life support in hospital - the parts have to be functioning to be reused. Mine will probably be downright rotten before anyone notices I'm dead because it will probably be the smell of my rotting corpse that tips people off to my death. A shame for whoever has to clean up afterwards.
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Hello darkness, my old friend.
 
sigma said:
Unsure how anyone could find post 7 comical :confused:
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Same. I found it desperately sad that he's now convinced himself that you only need friends because society tells you that you should :/

Then I was equally sad to see that many others replied saying that had no friends either. As Houses said, there's a underlying hint of depression and self isolation in these posts.

Not to sound harsh, but meetup.co.uk sounds like a weird way to meet some weird people. I'm guessing it's like going on friend dates? I keep imagining it being like the film "I love you man" just without the Hollywood ending.

Before i saw of your medical condition I was going to suggest sports as this is a great way of getting out of the bloomin house and chatting to people. Sports clubs also often have great and regular social gatherings which is great.

I would forget trying to pick a friend like you're shopping for a car on auto trader. Just do anything that gets you out of the house and busy. Night classes, volunteering, wine tasting, whatever. Sitting at the computer on your own night after night is not a good thing to do and is a guaranteed way of ensuring nothing in your life will change.

It's going to be tough but you need to be the driving force in your life. Things will fall into place if you put yourself out there a bit more.

I still remember reading an article on the BBC about an end of life nurse who worked in a Marie Curie place or similar and wrote a book about how people are at the end of their lives. She says that the common theme she found terminal cancer victims saying is that they wish they had kept in contact with old friends and spent more time with them.

A few years ago I had started neglecting seeing my friends for a while, coming up with various excuses like feeling tired after work etc and started not getting invited out to things anymore as a result. The article I mentioned above made me realise how lazy I'd actually been and to get off my arse.
 
my only friends are my dog and my ex .i do emjoy my lifestyle down here on my own but my grown up kids (who dont live in cornwall) are always on to me to join a meet up
tbh though i find social stuff quite tricky and conversation never flows ,always had friends at school and college and found it easy then .
 
moon man said:
my only friends are my dog and my ex .i do emjoy my lifestyle down here on my own but my grown up kids (who dont live in cornwall) are always on to me to join a meet up
tbh though i find social stuff quite tricky and conversation never flows ,always had friends at school and college and found it easy then .
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Yeah conversation has never been natural to me either.

But more worrying than that, is that I actually get pretty bored listening to other people. Small talk is just so tedious. And very few conversations ever lead anywhere interesting.
 
I'm 27 and not in all too much of a different situation. Been in the same relationship for 8yrs now and have a couple of good friends but they all live far away now so only see them a few times per year, I don't really have anyone close to me other than my partner to do things with; which is nice but I can relate to it being lonely when you don't just have that mate asking if you want to go for a drink or whatever else.

I think a lot of my reason is probably down to having depression since I started puberty that never went away, this meant that I did shut myself away a lot so missed those connections at important times in my life, and now when I'm in social settings where I could make friends I don't really know what to do.
 
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