<p>The going out to eat thread got me thinking about how wide is my social circle. My husband and I used to have a very close friends that we did everything withwhen we were first married, but as the years moved on these friends have moved on or we lost touch with them. Our nights out are usually just the 2 of us. Very rarely do we go out with another couple. We dont even entertain like we used to.
As a couple, Our social circles consist of, our church family, lots of pot luck dinners and a barbecue once a week in summer. Dinner out with daughter and boyfriend in NYC once every 5-6 weeks. A musician venue evey other month at a restaurant since many of them are friends of my H.
Monthly dinner out with a Pub Theology group
On my own, I have lunch with a friend occasionally and dinner with some moms that have been together for at least a decade nd will be going to my first book club event.
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Seems like the few friends we had live in other states now, making it tough to keep in touch.
What does everyone else do? Do you socialize with others? Family, couples, etc?</p>
<p>After 25 years of living in the same town, DH and I have four separate circles we hang out with – parents of S1’s friends, parents of S2’s friends, folks we met at the dog park, and some former work associates of mine. Also have other friends as well. We love to entertain and have dinner parties probably eight times a year. Also attend dinner parties at others’ homes. </p>
<p>When I say dinner parties, these are by no means grand affairs! Generally very casual, with lots of wine.</p>
<p>On my own, I keep in touch with many friends. I typically have lunch with one or another of my lady friends twice a month. I also am friends with five other women who religiously have breakfast together on the first Saturday of every month.</p>
<p>We’d love to move to a warmer climate but I don’t want to move somewhere where I don’t know anyone. I love being able to go to the grocery store, the dentist, the gym and run into people I know.</p>
<p>milkandsugar, It doesn’t sound like it usually just the 2 of you. You seem to stay fairly active socially.</p>
<p>If not for my DH, we’d rarely be out and about with others. He is extremely social and has lots and lots of friends from many different arenas. I happily go along and have made some good friends as well among these people, but all the credit goes to DH since I’m actually a major homebody at heart.</p>
<p>Milkandsugar, we are similiar to you but without the church activities. I see friends at book club or once in a while after work. Dh works so many hours that when he comes home, he just wants to watch basketball and relax. I am fine with that but I do sometimes think that we have become rather inward in our lives. Dh does golf in the summer with a league, so I guess that is his outlet.</p>
<p>We really have no social life. DH and I pretty much just hang out together on nights/weekends. Occasionally I go out to lunch with co-workers. </p>
<p>DH works very long hours and prefers to spend his “off” time relaxing around the house or hiking,kayaking,boating,traveling. His parents were verrry social (part of a big party crowd) when he was growing up…went out with friends practically every weekend leaving him and his (3) sibs to fend for themselves. I think that has a lot to do with his preference to lead a “low key” life outside of work.
I don’t drink and find that almost all social occasions w/ others involve drinking. </p>
<p>Together we are pretty active. We walk,hike,bike,kayak,boat,travel and enjoy going to live music venues. We just don’t do it w/ other people.</p>
<p>^^^^^That’s just how I would be if not for DH’s social leanings. I wonder though, how that would work out if something happened to one of you. Would the surviving spouse adjust and become more social, or would they become lonely and stagnant? I know the answer to that with regard to DH, but I’m not so sure about myself.</p>
<p>^^My parents had no social life. My father was the Sheriff of our county so was not home many nights and weekends and preferred to stay at home when he was off. He died of a heart attack at age 53. My Mom was 49. I was almost 12. </p>
<p>We were active in the church so that helped. My Mom worked and was friendly w/ the mothers of my friends in the neighborhood. They had their own little social circle that didn’t include the husbands. We lived in the small town where she had lived all her life so knew everybody. I know she was lonely after I left for college but she still had her lady friends who dropped in reguarly and her sister who lived two doors down. She never remarried. When her health deteriorated, it was those same lady friends who took great care of her and looked out for her. They even saved her life once. </p>
<p>I have often wondered about how DH and I would live without each other. Since I lived through it w/ my Mom,it’s a recurring thought esp. as I get older. Since we aren’t social now, neither of us would have good friends to “fall back” on.</p>
<p>We too pretty much don’t have a social circle. Besides doing things with our kids and limited family who are sort of local , we don’t hang out with anyone else. Our neighborhood is not friendly that way, work people are not people I would want to spend time with outside of work. I have one friend that is D1s best friends mom that I meet often for coffee for a day trip a couple times a year. We’ve had dinner with her and her husband a couple times over the last few years. </p>
<p>I’m fairly satisfied with life this way. Neither of us are party type/mingling type people. We don’t drink. We work hard during the week and are pretty satisfied to be home quietly in the evenings, spend free time working on the house or spend time at our cottage. </p>
<p>Different strokes. :)</p>
<p>Having moved to this town from a big city, we made all of our friends through our kids and many of them have become close, almost like an extended family. There are five families in our social circle. When we plan larger events, there are easily 10. </p>
<p>Last year, we threw a joint high school graduation party for 5 of our kids. It was great! This same group has gotten together to make care packages to mail to the 8 college kids.</p>
<p>We probably have three circles of friends. Really close friends, probably four to six couples we see regularly with and without our kids and then close friends that we see sporadically and our kids know each other, maybe another 5-8 couples and then just plain old friends we known for ages, but we see only once or twice a year at a large social gathering like a wedding or party that our kids may or may not know. We’re not terribly social but there’s always something a couple times a month either a two couple dinner or a small gathering around an activity, event or dinner.</p>
<p>Single and quite the homebody. Might work on changing that next year when the nest is empty, though. Right now I have a group of friends I go up north with a couple times a year for weekend retreats. A few friends I meet one on one with sometimes for lunch, a drink, or coffee. Lots of acquaintences, and friends who live far away that I chat with online pretty often.</p>
<p>I am perfectly happy to do things… anything(s) with just my wife.</p>
<p>See if you detect a pattern here: We socialize with, people my wife met at exercise class, people my wife met out walking the dog, people my wife met at a neighborhood social gathering, people my wife knows from New Jersey (a surprisingly large number). </p>
<p>Sure honey, whatever… :D</p>
<p>We have a few couples we are quite close with and that we go out to dinner and/or movies with and that we have over to the house for dinner and superbowl type events, etc., </p>
<p>Then I have a large circle of girlfriends I play tennis, mah jongg and go to lunch with. </p>
<p>DH doesn’t have any friends of his own.</p>
<p>No social circle at all. Dh and I have always worked long hours on different shifts and then come home to deal with house and kids separately. Now that two of the three are grown and the third is in high school, we have begun to look at each other and say what now? We are in our late middle 40s and in a god financial place, so we do have options now. We just have to meet people!</p>
<p>I recently went to a memorial luncheon in honor of a man I had worked for for 12 years. The cause of his death was suicide, after he had struggled with a very painful condition for years and after he had received a disappointing diagnosis for something else. He never wanted to live like that, so he took his own life.</p>
<p>His wife had always anticipated this is what he would do. He spoke about it quite openly.</p>
<p>At the luncheon, she said that the day of his death, she called one of her friends from college (where she graduated fifty years ago!). That woman and four others came and spent the week with her so she wouldn’t have to be alone. When his wife mentioned that, I realized that I hope I too have friends like that. I would never want to be alone if something catastrophic happened to me; I hope my friends would gather around to support me.</p>
<p>Pretty much what emilybee said, except without the mah jongg. However, H does have a number of friends of his own, mostly colleagues he’s become close to (he’s worked at the same company for nearly 30 years). In some cases I’ve gotten to know the spouses of those colleagues and we’ve become friends and do things together as couples.</p>
<p>I’ve developed closer friendships with women as I’ve gotten older. (I’m still very close to some of my high school and college friends, but they don’t live nearby, so it’s mostly a phone and email relationship.) When my kids were small I was preoccupied with them and with work, but I’ve slowly developed a circle of women friends from either my kids’ high schools or the volunteer work I now do. Each new friend seems to beget more: I feel much more surrounded by friends than I did 10 years ago, and I value that a great deal.</p>
<p>We are like Zoosermom & her H. I have my own friends, but DH has no interest and if we socialize with a group he sticks to me like glue. He had friends in college (where we met), but everyone has scattered. It’s gonna be very lonely when S2 leaves :-(.</p>
<p>Often the men don’t have their own friends.</p>
<p>We dont have a huge circle but the ones we have are excellent. We are pretty introverted, and quite frankly tired. We both have demanding jobs. We are starting to redefine our lives with the empty nest. Interesting does better with people, and like to do more things. Good thing we like the same things. likeTravel etc… I doworry about this sometimes.</p>
<p>My Dh and I went to the same high school and grew up in the area where we live now (although we lived on the other side of the country during grad school years.) We still hang out with some of the people who were our friends in high school- in fact, we’re going to a wedding of one of their daughters this evening.
We also have friends we’ve met through our kids. Some of these people have become my best friends over the years. My husband has people he works with that he likes, too, and we socialize with some of them. (Going to a jazz concert with a couple tomorrow night.) He is also on the board of one of our orchestras, and we’ve made several friends through that venue, especially lately.</p>
<p>My son will be married this summer, and most of the adults that will be there are parents of the bride or groom’s good friends, and also friends of ours. The bride-to-be’s mom had a dinner party last month with 10 couples, all good friends of ours, and one another.
We live in a suburb of Los Angeles, but in many ways it feels like a small town because we’ve lived here most of our lives and have a lot of social ties. I think all of us with grown children have come to value our friendships and put in some effort to maintain our connections.</p>