Old man issues

Fruitbat

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Maybe some of you relate.

my close friends form teenage/early 20s. You know, your real friends. The kind of friends it’s hard to make as a grown up:

1 is dead
1 has become an alcoholic recently and is off to rehab.
1 turned out to be an *******. Cheating on pregnant wife. Tried subtlety to Mack my wife = the end
1 became an extreme liberal and can’t be friends with me, just talks politics all the time
1 split up with wife and is moving 2 hours away. See twice a year

leaves me with

my wife and child
Parents
Sister and nephews
My golf/social clubs

I miss my old crew before it changed. It’s not the same now.

anyone know what I’m talking about.


old age calling. It’s not the same

truth be told am drinking alone. Where all my buddies at?

how to take the loneliness of aging?
 

AmsterdamAssassin

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anyone know what I’m talking about.
If you see your life as a road, other people's roads intersect your road and you'll maybe live parallel lives until their road veers away from yours again. Life goes on, you'll have to connect to other roads.
 

Slag

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I can relate, but it's just the way it is. My circle of friends is always evolving. I have maybe 3 friends that I'm close with that I've known most of my life, but that's it. I've lost 2 good friends to accidents, and drifted away from others for various reasons.

Honestly though, I find it easier to make new friends now than ever before. I used to be quite socially awkward, but now that I'm a lot more outgoing, meeting new people and making friends comes much more naturally.

As you get older, the age range of people you become friends with expands greatly, too. There's a guy in my hometown that owns a business I frequent, that I've become good friends with, even though he's 20 years older than me.
 

Scaramouche

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Maybe some of you relate.

my close friends form teenage/early 20s. You know, your real friends. The kind of friends it’s hard to make as a grown up:

1 is dead
1 has become an alcoholic recently and is off to rehab.
1 turned out to be an *******. Cheating on pregnant wife. Tried subtlety to Mack my wife = the end
1 became an extreme liberal and can’t be friends with me, just talks politics all the time
1 split up with wife and is moving 2 hours away. See twice a year

leaves me with

my wife and child
Parents
Sister and nephews
My golf/social clubs

I miss my old crew before it changed. It’s not the same now.

anyone know what I’m talking about.


old age calling. It’s not the same

truth be told am drinking alone. Where all my buddies at?

how to take the loneliness of aging?
You poor Old Bvugger,it sounds like Hell being Old!
 

Roober

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Maybe some of you relate.

my close friends form teenage/early 20s. You know, your real friends. The kind of friends it’s hard to make as a grown up:

1 is dead
1 has become an alcoholic recently and is off to rehab.
1 turned out to be an *******. Cheating on pregnant wife. Tried subtlety to Mack my wife = the end
1 became an extreme liberal and can’t be friends with me, just talks politics all the time
1 split up with wife and is moving 2 hours away. See twice a year

leaves me with

my wife and child
Parents
Sister and nephews
My golf/social clubs

I miss my old crew before it changed. It’s not the same now.

anyone know what I’m talking about.


old age calling. It’s not the same

truth be told am drinking alone. Where all my buddies at?

how to take the loneliness of aging?
ive found that as you’re life goes through stages, you’ll have periods where you leave the old group behind in favor of something better. This is especially true if you are consistently growing, or even maintaining some semblance of what you were before.

My high school friends are similar, however they are all married with kids and doing well.

We grew apart philosophically and I would say this is normal…
 

ThisIsSparta

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leaves me with

my wife and child
Parents
Sister and nephews
My golf/social clubs
About the same here......

being an introvert i have to say though i find myself to be my best company.

That said, the lack of "real friends" is sad but, the older i get the more people i deem to be morons, which doesnt make things easier.

I also love to be at home, doing my shyt and be left alone.

And yet, i dread the day when my close relatives will all be gone.
 

SW15

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I am in my early 40s and an elder Millennial.

It is common to lose friends with aging.

Bougie Millennials having their "Last Call Babies" has drastically affected a number of my friendships, which I have detailed in the thread below.


A number of my high school and college friendships have dissipated for a variety of reasons. The most common one is relocation. I have had relocations and most of them have had relocations.
 

ManFromTartarus

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Maybe some of you relate.

my close friends form teenage/early 20s. You know, your real friends. The kind of friends it’s hard to make as a grown up:

1 is dead
1 has become an alcoholic recently and is off to rehab.
1 turned out to be an *******. Cheating on pregnant wife. Tried subtlety to Mack my wife = the end
1 became an extreme liberal and can’t be friends with me, just talks politics all the time
1 split up with wife and is moving 2 hours away. See twice a year

leaves me with

my wife and child
Parents
Sister and nephews
My golf/social clubs

I miss my old crew before it changed. It’s not the same now.

anyone know what I’m talking about.


old age calling. It’s not the same

truth be told am drinking alone. Where all my buddies at?

how to take the loneliness of aging?
By evolving socially.

The notion that the social network you built up in your teens (basically a child), and your partying 20's, are your only "real friends" is the farthest from the truth.

You're now at a place in life where you can choose your friends based on the merit and quality of their friendship, and not proximity, like the kids you grew up with, went to high school, and partied with as a young adult.

With your immediate family and hobbies/social clubs you're a lot better off than you might feel right now sitting home drinking alone, but you're older/smarter/wiser now and you can afford to choose your social network more wisely.

The notion that your crew from back in the day is the end all be all of your social life is just that, only a notion.
 

Giovanni SouthSide

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This pinged my radar to a degree. I’m a lone wolf by nature but I can still count on 2-3 solids in my small circle with just a phone call even if months or years pass by without a handshake. That is the bedrock definition of your “day ones”. When it’s time to ride, my boys just ask me which car we taking.

The current male loneliness epidemic (covid drove the nail into the coffin) is what happens when a society drifts towards individual and instant gratification with short term pleasures, polyamoury, FWB, Tinder etc.

Male third spaces are severely lacking.

The more loneliness many men experience the more difficult is to recuperate social faculties.
The problem is that loneliness beggars loneliness. There's this positive feedback cycle that's very hard to break psychologically once you're in it. Suddenly in a snap, you don’t even know what hit you and you are sh!t stormin’ in a fvcken rut.

Thank God, I can go days without social company and I can still strike up a convo of any nature with anyone. I never let my snappy comebacks rust out because that would be the end of me.
Your brain is like an algorithm for finding the right sentences and if is not fed any data it will suffer.

I think men, in general, aren't trained to foster and maintain relationships in the same way women are. So it's self-inflicted because individual men can be very poor at it, but quite often they weren't really set up for success to begin with.
 
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Fruitbat

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By evolving socially.

The notion that the social network you built up in your teens (basically a child), and your partying 20's, are your only "real friends" is the farthest from the truth.

You're now at a place in life where you can choose your friends based on the merit and quality of their friendship, and not proximity, like the kids you grew up with, went to high school, and partied with as a young adult.

With your immediate family and hobbies/social clubs you're a lot better off than you might feel right now sitting home drinking alone, but you're older/smarter/wiser now and you can afford to choose your social network more wisely.

The notion that your crew from back in the day is the end all be all of your social life is just that, only a notion.
I don’t feel much connection to people I meet when older.

it also doesn’t help that my wife is foreign and doesn’t drink and she can’t relate to their wives. They don’t seem to take to her and it seems women control the social landscape.

This isn’t entirely their doing, she self admittedly says she has no idea how to relate and “all they want to do is drink”

the guys at my social club are mostly 10-15 years older. I never get invited. Then again, I never ask either. Maybe this is part of the problem.
 

ManFromTartarus

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I don’t feel much connection to people I meet when older.

it also doesn’t help that my wife is foreign and doesn’t drink and she can’t relate to their wives. They don’t seem to take to her and it seems women control the social landscape.

This isn’t entirely their doing, she self admittedly says she has no idea how to relate and “all they want to do is drink”

the guys at my social club are mostly 10-15 years older. I never get invited. Then again, I never ask either. Maybe this is part of the problem.
I understand, culture issues can be a big obstacle socially, and depending on where your spouse is from, it can play a big role. Having your significant other on board with you socially isn't always easy, but it's important, as you can see now.

On the other hand, you can take this revelation as an opportunity to recalibrate your social needs, open yourself up to possibly a more worldly crowd that might be more accepting of your wife, maybe not people centered around drinking.

Either way it seems that your life is crying out for some sort of change and if you don't feel any connection to the people you meet then that change might need to be in you.Ask yourself what are your social needs? ... cause they've changed since you were hanging with your crew.

At my stage in life I choose my friends wisely, I don't have a huge social circle, but the few friends I keep up with, are good ones.
 

zekko

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it also doesn’t help that my wife is foreign and doesn’t drink and she can’t relate to their wives. They don’t seem to take to her and it seems women control the social landscape.
At least that means they won't corrupt her with the western feminist ways. Hopefully.
 

Alvafe

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Maybe some of you relate.

my close friends form teenage/early 20s. You know, your real friends. The kind of friends it’s hard to make as a grown up:

1 is dead
1 has become an alcoholic recently and is off to rehab.
1 turned out to be an *******. Cheating on pregnant wife. Tried subtlety to Mack my wife = the end
1 became an extreme liberal and can’t be friends with me, just talks politics all the time
1 split up with wife and is moving 2 hours away. See twice a year

leaves me with

my wife and child
Parents
Sister and nephews
My golf/social clubs

I miss my old crew before it changed. It’s not the same now.

anyone know what I’m talking about.


old age calling. It’s not the same

truth be told am drinking alone. Where all my buddies at?

how to take the loneliness of aging?
can only say is, things change, I'm the kind who don't like changes, if things are good and well there is no reason to, but things change, only thing you can do really is liking to be alone, I don't care much about people going or comming because I like to be alone, I have more issue with new people then the old ones i'm used, having things you like to do who don't depend on people helps too
 

Augustus_McCrae

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Maybe some of you relate.

my close friends form teenage/early 20s. You know, your real friends. The kind of friends it’s hard to make as a grown up:

1 is dead
1 has become an alcoholic recently and is off to rehab.
1 turned out to be an *******. Cheating on pregnant wife. Tried subtlety to Mack my wife = the end
1 became an extreme liberal and can’t be friends with me, just talks politics all the time
1 split up with wife and is moving 2 hours away. See twice a year

leaves me with

my wife and child
Parents
Sister and nephews
My golf/social clubs

I miss my old crew before it changed. It’s not the same now.

anyone know what I’m talking about.


old age calling. It’s not the same

truth be told am drinking alone. Where all my buddies at?

how to take the loneliness of aging?
There were three kids I hung out with the most growing up. Two of them are dead and the other one lives by himself in a tiny little RV trailer, spending his time in Florida during the winter and North Carolina during the summer.

I met my two best friends when I was around 40. I still see those guys on a regular basis. And I also have a couple of other guys that I hang out and golf with. For me, it has added a lot of value to my life to continue to expand my circle of friends as I’ve gotten older. I would not like to be this age and not have any friends.

My daughter told me the other day: “you never meet a stranger“. It’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

-Augustus
 

Scaramouche

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My problem is the opposite. I meet people who seem to want to befriend me, but I'm more apt to want to spend my time alone. I do have a few friends but can only take them in small doses.
Hi Millard,
"I do have a few friends but can only take them in small doses."
I thought I was Robinson Crusoe in having a similar attitude....Necessary as they are I still reflect on how nice it might be if friends,family and acquaintances could be like a kitchen tap you could just turn off at will.
 

Machine10033

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My problem is the opposite. I meet people who seem to want to befriend me, but I'm more apt to want to spend my time alone. I do have a few friends but can only take them in small doses.

Sounds very similar to me... I am introverted and really need my private time. Just got back last Saturday from a ten days guys trip. With 4 days left I could not wait to roll home.... I am still recharging and can’t even bring myself to engage in text chains with them at the moment.

Over the years many different guys have made efforts to hang out but I need to keep my social obligations right where they are...
 
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