Weird one but everytime I speak to old social groups they just seem to gossip, throw out jokes that aren't just banter they are showing how they think about me/others, I'll see them talk about others in a way and then go hang out with these people, they have expressed jealousy/envy when things go well for me too.
I'm at a point where I don't emotionally have the time for any of this, it feels like high school or something.
Not going to go all out guns blazing burning bridges but I just haven't been as drawn to reaching out ever really anymore due to all this. The people I speak are people I've known since teenage years.
But that also leaves me with no real social circle – of course I have to go make one.
Anyone else been through something like this in their 30s?
(Also if you have true honest solid friends, you won the jackpot, kudos to you)
Not to be all cheesey but a few sayings ring true when I'm thinking about all of this:
"your new life will cost you your old one"
"You can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick"
"Crabs in a bucket"
26 comments
Yes I left my friends I’ve had since I was a teenager, I left my home town and they didn’t, instead of being proud of me they just got jealous and pissed off. I lived in another city and now a different country.
I entered my 30’s when Covid began. I mean, literally, my 30th birthday was in march 2020. I had a group of friends that I was mostly going to bars and raves with. Obviously that wasn’t possible for like a year and a half so we naturally just drifted away and the group never recovered.
My example is very specific but groups of friends often drift away due to external factors.
Yeah man totally. But for me it’s not a group, more like individuals. Actually, I’ve come to realize that certain individuals have always given me a weird energy, I’ve just always overlooked it because when you’re in a friend group things kind of get lost in the sauce. But certain people make back handed compliments or put you down when they should be celebrating your achievements. It usually happens when you level up in life. You have to realize that some people are just stuck. Stuck in jobs they hate, relationships they hate, or just stuck in the same place mentally or emotionally. People that refuse to grow hate to see you doing better than them. Like you said, you don’t have to make a big deal out of burning bridges but I’ve just been kind of letting the friendships die down slowly. That’s life.
Yeah around my 30th birthday actually. All my buddies who i hung out with regularly since high school. There were two of them who over time became really racist and kept making racist jokes towards me. I asked them to stop, they wouldn’t, i was a hair away from beating both their asses so i decided to cut off the group and still message the ones i like individually. Pretty freakin sad dontcha knoow but I’ve made a lot of new friends to help fill the void as much as i can.
I’ve moved a lot and this understand that friends come and go. It’s a shame but it’s a fact of life. Friendships can be seen in the same way as romantic relationships in some ways. People change. They move on. I’m at an age now where I don’t crave social interaction. Don’t get me wrong, I need it, I just don’t crave it and I think what I’m feeling is largely universal amount men. It’s why so many of us end up alone. I just keep it in my mind and take up offers for socialising when they present themselves if I feel like it. I guess I’m choosy at this point.
I’ve moved about 4 times since school. Social circles simply can’t survive that.
I moved to a new city when i was 32. I’ll turn 37 next month and have 1 friend plus work friends. I just think i don’t need them the same way i needed when i was younger.
Me and my friends mostly just drifted apart. Some moved away and some sunk deeper and deeper into their alvohol problem and far right politics and just seemed to give up. I wanna move on, be happy and keep on learning new things and getting new experiences. After all this time I’ve also realized how much toxicity and backstabbing was in my social circles when I was young.
For me, it became a lot about life choices, direction and ambition. Its fun and games when you are 25 and you have a mate sleeping on the couch without job and you smoke some weed and play video games but when you are 30-40 and starting a family, getting married maybe 1-2 children, your career takes off and you start looking for houses, the idea of the manchild or ”only party-friends” who you only could hung out with if you used substances is more and more of an ”ick”-Idea.
I had a good time but for me, the rave-community with all their preachers about love and unity is so much bullshit. Ofc there are steady in life people out there and partying once in a while but it maybe 1 in 100-200 people?
And besides, to get up in the morning at 7-8 and drink coffe and make breakfast with my wife, sober is so much more fun.
Going thru this now with my supposed childhood best friend. Basically he’s miserable and complacent in his career/life and he can never be supportive of my risks and successes because he refuses to get out of his own slump. I put a boundary up, he crossed it, and we haven’t spoken in weeks now. Interesting enough, my mental health has improved drastically
Those aren’t friends. Friends should be happy about your success, encourage and support you. Those people have a scarcity mentality and sound toxic.
Be careful with whom you surround yourself with.
Your social circle never really stops evolving throughout your life. When you move house, have kids, change careers, etc you’ll find yourself spending your time with completely different people whether you mean to or not. I think a lot of us get established in adulthood and think “right, this is going to be my life for the rest of my days” and that’s rarely actually the case. If certain people mean a lot to you, it’s definitely worth trying to hang on to them but it’s important to make time for new friends and experiences as well. It’s normal to reminisce and miss people but it’s not some great tragedy to move from a situation you’ve outgrown into one that’s more suited to you and who you want to be. Change is the only constant.
i left that circle when i was like 18, very long time ago
i do not wish to have a social circle
if i need help i have people i can call, if they need my help they know they can call me
Most of my old social circle didnt show up to my wedding I had when I was 30. They didnt text me congratulations, didnt send me a card, didnt say sorry we cannot make it. I took that as a clear sign that I needed to spend my time caring about different people.
Make your new social circle out of other people who aren’t about that bs either. You’ll be happier when you really start listening to yourself about what you want out of life. Just by writing this post, you already know what you want to do, even if that means facing uncertainty or doing something outside of your comfort zone.
I only have 1 friend from my former life left. Now my social circle is comprised of “work friends” and family. At one point I had a new group of friends, but I found out after I quit drinking that all they want to do is drink, and I’m too old to the black out drunk every weekend when there is a whole world to see.
I mainly spend time with siblings and their spouses and kids. Less drama, more fun
I didn’t leave them. I’m still on group chats with high school friends and college friends (separate circles) but I don’t have a lot of effort. A Christmas meetup here and there.
I try to connect with individual people though.
I’m glad I didn’t stay friends with anyone from school, I can image how it would be, like OP describes.
Best to make new friends as an adult
Happened to me when I had a career and kid in my mid 20’s.
High school friends didn’t finish school and weren’t financially successful. Couldn’t relate and resented my life.
Some of my college friends were successful but were still partying and riding motorcycles at land you in jail speeds, new girl ever month etc (stuff I used to enjoy!). Totally normal for their age
Had to go monk mode for a little bit. Found new friends at my kids school, church etc. Then my college friends hit 30 and were living a life like mine.
But “New Life costs your Old One” was absolutely true for me
I used to game with a group of guys for years on Xbox live. They started getting homophobic at times. And when George Floyd was killed a few years ago, they were more worried about statues than about human rights. I just stopped showing up. They’re never going to mature.
Yeah man. I’ve been working on forming my social circle. It takes work for sure. I have a few men I have dinners with every couple of months that either serve as mentors or mentees to me. I’m working on getting this to be a men’s group. I think this is the way. And we talk about our business lives, books we’ve read, etc.
Totally broke with a friends circle at 29. They were all stuck in immaturity, childishness, partying all the time. I met a great woman, moved abroad, and never reconnected with those people, save for one. I’ve “bumped” into these people on FB and their lives are what I’d expect, honestly. Ni regrets.
Yes
Never had to but did it anyway, it’s literally a waste of time.
Yup. My friend group was what you described plus also drank and did coke basically every weekend. It took leaving my partner and all of them behind. It’s been a strange couple of years (will be turning 33 soon). I don’t drink or use drugs (other than vaping a little weed at night), I have any amazing partner I intend to marry soon, I have a whole new friend group who are both supportive and into the same type of nerd shit I’m into. I will say a lot of my friendships are more or less still newish and lack the depth and history my old ones did, but I figure it will come with time. My life is a lot better now but also experienced a lot of tragedy the past year and a half. My little sister died from an OD after ten years of sobriety the day after my 31st birthday and my mom hung herself a few months ago. She’d been suffering from mental illness for a long time. It’s been really hard. I’m struggling with the fact that my life is on a much better path but all this terrible shit is happening. It’s been really scary rebuilding more or less my entire personal life at this time but it’s been worth it. With time I’ll be really glad I stayed the course
Bold of you to assume that I ever had a social circle.