Making friends and confidence issues

[Franny]

This is me. I don't actually have a problem with making small talk (if in the mood ) but have difficulty in finding like-minded females I gel with. I daresay, if I asked, I could get plenty of people back for a drink (but there's always the fear that everyone thinks oh no and no one turns up at all! ) but sometimes I feel it is fairly pointless unless we can all have a good time. I am sure people find me boring when I am not because they get fed up with talking about the weather and I can't think of anything else exciting to talk about because, well, I don't do anything exciting apart from work or look after the children.

I don't really like mixing children with socialising. I spend all the time self-conscious when I have to correct their behaviour over something or other. Am I being a fishwife or am I annoying everyone by letting them get away with murder? And I am too distracted to concentrate on conversation or to enjoy it.

I have been on a couple of nights out with Mums from school, which has been weird. You'd think it would forge a friendship but one is all chatty over a chablis and then completely blanks you thereafter. I have also been to people's houses for drinks but it is fickle. You'll be in with them for a while and then it will suddenly fizzle out no warning.

I do find it personally a lot of effort for little gain and sometimes feel it is easier to just resign oneself to an evening of bad TV and a glass of vino.

[Bop]

We moved last year and making new friends was one of my biggest fears - I'm not hugely outgoing so I had to make myself get out and about - walking the dog, outside school, church, shopping etc and now a year on I realise that I do have quite a few friends...albeit no-one hugely close.

Bop

[scrobble]

This is me. I don't actually have a problem with making small talk (if in the mood ) but have difficulty in finding like-minded females I gel with.

I am sure people find me boring when I am not because they get fed up with talking about the weather and I can't think of anything else exciting to talk about because, well, I don't do anything exciting apart from work or look after the children.

I don't really like mixing children with socialising.

These bits really resonate with me too. I'm happy to go out to groups and chat with people about our kids, talk about fairly trivial stuff, but don't really feel like I've made any 'friends for life' (well, maybe one or two, but all we seem to talk about is kids when we get together!).

I've always struggled to really 'gel' with people - like Bluebabe's original post, my best friends all live miles away and I've known them for years. People here that I thought I'd get on really well with I find myself running out of things to chat about in no time at all.

Re mixing children with socialising - sometimes it feels like the only way - I don't get any time in the day to meet up with people, and it's pretty full-on when all three are up and about, so I feel guilty for doing anything apart from them for long. I do go to singing on a Monday night and we don't talk about our kids there, and I feel like there's the potential for a couple of people there to become 'friends for life' - but I've only ever met with them socially once, and that was as the same group of people rather than with one or two from the group.

It probably doesn't help that I'm quite reticent when it comes to opening up and really talking about myself - but I'm not sure how to change that!

I've felt more able to be open and myself when meeting Damsels in the past as it's so much easier to write things down and get that bit out of the way first - and I've made some really good friends via here and online forums in general - but they all live so far away it's not like we can just get together one evening - we have to make a weekend of it, and that gets increasingly hard to arrange the more children are in the picture!