If you thought this blog post was going to help turn you into the perfect friend magnet then well, you have come to the completely wrong blog. This post is more of a me asking for help on this subject rather than me helping you. Sorry about that.
I have been thinking lately about how hard it is to make friends as an adult. I am learning from my two 6 year olds that they determine their friends by who plays with them in the playground, who likes football or who likes the same Pokemon character. If only it were that easy for the grown ups. I had high hopes for when they started school, I had been told by a couple of my friends that they made some of their closest friends on the school run. I often blame COVID for the lack of social activity in our group of school mums but can we still blame COVID for everything?
When they first started in reception we had to stand apart from the other parents and even wear masks so how could you get to know each other in those circumstances? But now three years on I still feel like we are all social distancing from one another. I smile at the other mums, I say hello in the morning, goodbye in the afternoon. I say ‘have a good weekend’ on a Friday but that is as far as any friendships go. I am, I will admit part of the Whats App group we have for their class but this is mainly used for updates on homework and reminders about non uniform days and PTA events.
Now this leads me to my big fear that they might all be meeting for coffees and walks and not inviting me. I once saw a meme on instagram that basically said that if you aren’t part of the break off group chat then you might actually be the weird one. Guess what, I know of no other group chat. I am polite and helpful when i’m around the other parents so I don’t really think I could have done anything wrong in particular but then I am left feeling like I haven’t done anything right either as I am not flooded with requests for coffee dates. I do see other mums from the school in different year groups in Costa sometimes or walking in the forest chatting with a takeaway coffee cup and I wonder who made the first move. Its like dating, you have to be brave I guess and ask that Mum you like the look of to meet up after drop off, unfortunately for me that is just too scary.
There is one mum at the school that started later than we did, her little boy joined their class late as they moved to the area and I honestly thought from the moment I met her she could be the friend I had been waiting for. She is a twin herself and probably about my age maybe slightly younger and so we have those things in common but still no friendship blossomed.
So what’s a 41 year old mum of three to do? What advice can you give me? I would love to hear how you struck up friendships as an adult or maybe you feel the same as me and we can simply feel sorry for ourselves together 🙂
NJ x
nicola jayne 