I feel like this is how our single friends see us
From what I hear, it's pretty common for engaged couples and newlyweds of all ages and persuasions to have a hard time continuing to relate to their single, unmarried friends. I never really understood how that could be until it started happening to me, and then it suddenly started to make a lot of sense how it could happen to anyone.
One thing that I think is different for young-ish couples, though, is the proportion of single, unmarried friends that you're likely to have and how weird or unnatural they think it is for you to be taking the next step. Let me explain.
The other day I was having coffee with one of my dearest single friends. She has been nothing but supportive of my relationship with Mr. Star, but couldn't stop expressing how she doesn't understand being in a place in your life where you're ready for marriage -- and that's fine. I don't hold it against her because I probably wouldn't understand either if I was her! The hard part for the young-ish bride (and groom!) is how isolating an experience it can be when pretty much all of your friends feel that way. Fairy bridesmaid and her husband are really the only married couple in our group of college friends, which just so happens to be a group of friends who pretty much all moved into New York City and remain quite close even a year after graduation.
What this means for me is that I've been drifting away from the group of friends that has kept me happy and sane for many years now. I still have coffee dates with some of those girls, but I usually politely decline their invitations to parties and bar-hopping. Not that I don't still like to have a good time, I just often end up feeling awkward because I can't relate to what they're going through and they don't understand where I'm coming from. I never would have thought that marriage would wedge such a gap between us, but it has. It has.
Fairy bridesmaid and I have both talked expressed this strange feeling that we'd rather go home and have dinner with our husbands than drink at a crazy party with all of our college ladies, which has surprised us because we both used to love a good party in college! And we've both noticed that, as time goes on, people have been inviting us to fewer and fewer parties because they can sense that we're not that into it. That makes us both feel like "lame, old married women," but what are we supposed to do?
Have any of you dealt with drifting away from your friends? What about feeling like you've become boring? How do you cope?
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