Got me thinking of my RL friends.... totally losing my BFF.

MelissaMc22 · July 2010

The post got me thinking about my girfriends and how hard it is to keep a good friendship in your 20's and 30's since everyone seems to take such different paths.

My Best friend and I have been close for about 7 years... but the past year or so the phone calls, emails, etc have gotten further and further apart. I don't think I have talked to her in a good month. =(

She is 30, single, career minded and still looking for "mr Right". She likes to chat at night (when I am exhausted) I like to chat during the day when she is working. Plus we are finding a hard time relating to one another anymore....things have just changed.

I hate it. I really miss her, but we are just growing apart. Makes me sad.

Mrs.Babbsy · July 2010

if it makes you feel any better me and my IRL friends are all besties again.

I was that single friend, not that I am married and have babies, it's like we never missed a beat.

MelissaMc22 · July 2010

Thanks Babbs, I am hoping that will happen for us too!

sistrkate · July 2010

I read an article once - a very long time ago - that in life, we only have 3 or 4 really good close friends that will be your friends for life. Not that you don't love the friends you've made along the way, because everyone in your life serves a purpose -- but there's just very few that are in your life FOREVER.

It made me sad to read it at the time and I could not believe it. Now that I've lived as long as I have and probably 15-20 years have passed since reading it, I find that it is true.

I'm sorry that you and your BFF are drifting apart, I'm sure that's a big ache in your heart. It is so tough when lives take different paths, like you said, but I think it is completely normal.

But your friends here will be here to support you!

KristenBtobe · July 2010

I hear you. This has been on my mind as well. I've gotten very lazy about maintaining relationships with people since the kids came along. Either we are all busy with kids or several of my friends are like yours, single and focused on dating and career. We're homebody types anyway so I have to motivate myself to put myself out there even more. We really don't have that many people we could call up for an adult evening out these days. It's kind of lonely.

Lyons_in_2007 · July 2010

I am in the EXACT same boat as you and Kristen! In fact, I was JUST thinking about this, last week, after finally catching up with one of my best [single, childless] girl friends for the first time in MONTHS. I looked at my cell phone call log and, anymore, I only really *talk* to five people - DH, my sister, my mom, my dad, and my boss. That is SO sad! Sad

Mrs.Babbsy · July 2010

MelissaMc22:
Thanks Babbs, I am hoping that will happen for us too!

it took some time, but you wouldn't believe us now. We can't get enough of each other.

MelissaMc22 · July 2010

Lyons and Kristen,

I am going to invite you and your DH'e over (as soon as we finish all the crap from the basement flooding) for a cookout.

Your coming. I don't care what you say.

mcmann05 · July 2010

I found out about 3 weeks ago that my BFF of almost 15 years is moving to Baltimore. I burst into tears and became a complete drama queen about it. She is more like a sister to me than a friend. She has a baby girl that is turning 1 next week and she refers to me as "aunt". I know Baltimore isn't more than a car ride or a super short plane ride but I honestly feel broken hearted. If ever there was a friend that was a soul mate, it is her. (Making myself tear up now). Luckily, her sister is my other BFF and she only lives about 20 minutes from me so I still have her and her DD.

I understand the different path's thing but mine is the opposite. While, I'm married, I'm childless so I still have different likes than some of my friends that have children. I'm sure that will change once I have kids but for now, I still like to for lack of a better phrase "live it up" while I still can. :-)

KYmama9286 · July 2010

Im feeling the exact same way! Except for me since I am pretty young to be married, have a kid, own a house, etc. I am the odd man out--I'm only 23 years old so all of my friends are off doing what I suppose is "normal" for 23 (partying, dating around, traveling all over the place, doing wild and reckless things). Not that I would want to change my life for anything (I actually dont envy their lifestyles at all) it is hard that all my friends that I'm now close with are quite a bit older than me in their late 20's/early 30's (which is fine w/ me because mentally we have more in common and having similar life circumstances has made us really close) but there are some things that get lost in translation when we try and talk about high school or college or just other life moments--I am hoping as my friends are all starting to settle down a little that we will catch up in the future, 10 years from now when most people are married, some have kids hopefully the gap that has grown will close

Lyons_in_2007 · July 2010

MelissaMc22:

Lyons and Kristen,

I am going to invite you and your DH'e over (as soon as we finish all the crap from the basement flooding) for a cookout.

Your coming. I don't care what you say.

I'm there! I buy a mean pasta salad. Wink

curlypie1 · July 2010

Yeah, it's a rough transition. For me, most of my oldest friends are a bit older than I am. I was the one to finally catch up. My main problem is distance. Those I was closest to have gone and moved away. It wasn't a problem traveling to see them before kids, but now I'm lucky to see them once or twice a year. We don't skip a beat when we do get to see each other though. I've found out with the closest friends I have, it's quality time, not quantity that keeps our friendship special.

Meg41208 · July 2010

All of my BFFs live back east. Keeping up with them now that I live out here has been hard, now that we all have careers, men, and now that I have a baby. We do make efforts to keep in touch, but when we do get together, it picks up right where we left off. I wish I had the same close kind of friends here.

My closest friends here are probably people I work with. I do have one former coworker that is a pretty close friend who is also at the same stage in life - has a baby about the same age as me, we have a lot of the same interests, etc, but we are both so busy that we only get to meet up for lunch once a month or so.

When I was home last week, one of my oldest friends and I were talking about one of our other oldest friends, who barely talks to us anymore. This other friend of ours has a "hip" job in NYC, a cool apartment in a cool neighborhood, a hipster husband who's a "filmmaker," and a bunch of hipster friends. She's worked hard for what she's got, and it's what she's always wanted to do- she hasn't changed much. I guess I'm not that interesting to her anymore, with my conventional husband, conventional job, house in the 'burbs, and baby. What kind of irks me about it, is that neither of us have changed - I've also worked hard for what *I've* got, and it's what I've always wanted. It's not like I was always on the fast/cool track and all the sudden decided I was just going to be all uncool. I've always been this way. Whatever.

curlypie1 · July 2010

P.S. Check your FB messages!

JoJoGee · July 2010

skyllingstadl:
Im feeling the exact same way! Except for me since I am pretty young to be married, have a kid, own a house, etc. I am the odd man out--I'm only 23 years old so all of my friends are off doing what I suppose is "normal" for 23 (partying, dating around, traveling all over the place, doing wild and reckless things). Not that I would want to change my life for anything (I actually dont envy their lifestyles at all) it is hard that all my friends that I'm now close with are quite a bit older than me in their late 20's/early 30's (which is fine w/ me because mentally we have more in common and having similar life circumstances has made us really close) but there are some things that get lost in translation when we try and talk about high school or college or just other life moments--I am hoping as my friends are all starting to settle down a little that we will catch up in the future, 10 years from now when most people are married, some have kids hopefully the gap that has grown will close

This sounds like me, minus the baby. But the fact that we are TTC and going to become foster parents does put me on a whole different plane than my friends from HS (who are still my best friend). I think the worst part for me is that I am so shy, I don't know if I'll ever make friends who are in the same stage of life I am.

Moesten · July 2010

I think lots of us run into this in some form or another. Life takes us in so many disparate directions sometimes and we drift away.

What has been hardest for me is moving here pregnant at 31. I started from ground zero, friend-wise, and have had to work my way up from there. It's very, very difficult since I don't work and I am still struggling with it more than two years later. But I keep plugging along trying to meet new friends and people with whom I click. I miss my friends out in Vegas and while we keep in touch, it's certainly not the same as having those weekly get togethers and happy hours and whatnot.

I try to stay optimistic that as my kids get older I might make some friends through their activities but that's a long way off still.

JenRose05 · July 2010

Chris and I feel this way about our good friends we left behind in SC, They are married but not ready to have kids yet...when we first moved here they actually visited a lot and are fantastic with Ben but this past year we've just grown apart. We just finished having this conversation a few days ago and we know that we'll always be friends but its getting to the point of finding time for each other, esp 500 miles away. It makes me sad too

warriormomerin · July 2010

Have you talked to your friend about this? You might be surprised to find she's feeling the same way. What you're describing sounds exactly like me and my BFF during the years I was married and having children. She was (and still is) single, career driven and looking for Mr. Right and I was settled down with a family. It was a struggle for us to relate to each other, but we tried to stay in touch and be there for each other.

Then, two years ago my life imploded. She was the first person I called. The only person I even thought of calling. She left her vacation in Arizona early to fly back and be with me. She stayed with me, never gave up and is one of the people who literally pulled me out of the gutter.

Things are a lot easier now that we're both single, but we often talk about what it was like before. How much we missed each other and how we just assumed the other was too busy with our different lives to stay close.

If you think it's important, fight for your friendship. Talk to her.

Superchicy · July 2010

I am having the same problems. I have no IRL friends that have kids, most now live out of state. My BFF is 33, single, year 5 of a post-doc (so she works 70-90 hrs a week) and lives in Boston. I haven't talked to her since I was 3 mo. pregnant, she never calls back b/c she is apparently too busy at work. I have a hard time finding places to make friends too. I have a couple of old friends that I reconnect with now and then, but nobody I see on a regular basis. Guess that's part of being in a different place in my life though than most of the rest of my friends are.

alisonada · July 2010

MelissaMc22:

The post got me thinking about my girfriends and how hard it is to keep a good friendship in your 20's and 30's since everyone seems to take such different paths.

My Best friend and I have been close for about 7 years... but the past year or so the phone calls, emails, etc have gotten further and further apart. I don't think I have talked to her in a good month. =(

She is 30, single, career minded and still looking for "mr Right". She likes to chat at night (when I am exhausted) I like to chat during the day when she is working. Plus we are finding a hard time relating to one another anymore....things have just changed.

I hate it. I really miss her, but we are just growing apart. Makes me sad.

I could have written this exact post about my "best friend." She also lives in Michigan (with pretty much all of my college friends,) so it's even harder to stay close. Although I doubt we'll ever completely lose touch, it's to the point where I (sadly) don't really think I can even call her my best friend anymore. Luckily I feel like DH and I have made some good friends here in Cincy, but I do miss her. And I'm jealous of people who have the same big group of friends they've had their whole life (which seems to be the case for a lot of native Cincinnatians!)

becca070707Ken · July 2010

KristenBtobe:
I hear you. This has been on my mind as well. I've gotten very lazy about maintaining relationships with people since the kids came along. Either we are all busy with kids or several of my friends are like yours, single and focused on dating and career. We're homebody types anyway so I have to motivate myself to put myself out there even more. We really don't have that many people we could call up for an adult evening out these days. It's kind of lonely.

This exactly!! Total homebodies. I would rather stay home in comfy clothes and hang out in the backyard then go to a bar (plus I don't drink).

kel716 · July 2010

We're homebodies too, and sometimes I feel the exact same way. All too often I think about going out, but then life happens... and well, staying at home with my dh and the dvr sounds like way more fun to me. How sad is that? The 3-4 really good friends things makes a ton of sense.

I have 1 friend from childhood that I really keep in touch with. She lives 4 hours away, but we talk to each other on average once/week. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

My BFF from college defriended me on FB. No, I'm not kidding. That one hurt. Some of my other old friends frustrate me which just makes it harder to keep in touch with.

And I have 2 good friends from work... and one just moved to Charleston because of her dh's job. Crying

DH and I have some friends from our pre-Brandon stage of life. One couple doesn't have kids, one couple has a newborn, and the rest we've lost touch, moved away or had a falling out with (ie, we didn't use one friend as our realtor but rather another. Said realtor refuses to talk to dh for not using said services... even though we asked both friends for help at the same time and one followed through and the other did not... )

But the reality is? My DH is my best friend. The childhood friend is my other true friend. I hope the Charleston friend moves back to Cinci sometime because she and I connected at a different level than most, but only time will tell. And I guess you could say I'm still looking for the other 1 or 2 to add to my true friends list.

doodlebug914 · July 2010

I couldn't agree with Kristen more. It seems like the end of the day is always here and I have been busy all day doing so much. It's hard to stay connected with my friends and we used to be such a close group. This has been an absolutely crazy year for us between everything with my grandma and moving so that really has not helped. I had a "falling out" over something stupid with my best friend almost 2 years ago now who was part of my group of close friends and things haven't been the same since, although it is better now and we get along when we are together with a group.

teacherjess · July 2010

I think everyone is just so busy sometimes. It's not like I have no friends, it's just that our schedules never align. I'd love to see more of my friends from high school, but they're in Wisconsin, and the idea of just taking a quick trip up there with a baby is laughable. I do try to see my other friends here in Dayton regularly, but even then it's usually once a month. It is hard sometimes, but it helps that I work and that I have a lot of friends at work. I do get lonely when I think of my single friends from college down in Cincy hanging out without me, even though I don't miss the partying life.

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Got me thinking of my RL friends.... totally losing my BFF.

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