My father was a firefighter, and during his tenure had two people in his department die from cardiovascular disease.
He himself had quadruple bypass about 14 years ago.
That sucks. His department, and every one I e ever encountered, has been tight knit. My father still regularly spends time with people from his department even though he had to retire from there 14 years ago. My deepest condolences.
I suck at meeting new people, and at extending current friendships. I have an old friend who has been on me about getting together “to catch up” for some time now. I just haven’t made time for it, or have made excuses. Things finally confluenced tonight and I could get out to have a drink with her. She put her kids to bed and was able to go out for a beer.
We were in one of my favorite theater experiences together. She played Ophelia and I played Laertes in Hamlet. She’s a cool person who runs a company that teaches kids Shakespeare.
We went to a local place and had a couple of beers and started to catch up after not seeing each other for about fourteen years. Man, it was so good. It’s been a tough week, and it was good to connect with an old friend.
Lesson learned. I need to put myself out there more. I’ve let too many friendships lapse.
-xtien
That is a really nice story Christien, thanks for sharing. I’ve been meaning to drive down to where my childhood friend and family live to visit and just haven’t gotten around to it. We’ve kept in touch and it would be nice to see them.
As an enormous extrovert who is also vastly overcommitted, lapsing friendships are one of my great fears/regrets. The people who once were so central to my life and who did nothing more “wrong” than simply live far away for awhile drift out of my vision, and sure, new folks tend to flow in to fill the gaps, but I regret the distance with the old.
I’m glad you both were able to make the time and get out to see each other. It sounds like it was a lovely experience <3
And my condolences, @ddtibbs. Best to you all at the station in these trying times :(
Or have kids. I don’t know how many people I called friends who basically disappeared once they had kids. And I admit I probably did the same thing.
Oooh, yeah, that was a big one. Lots of my high school friends were having kids while I was graduating and going to college; by the time I was done, they were fully wrapped up in child care stuff.
It is incredibly difficult to maintain friendships as parents of young kids. I literally get about two hours a day to entertain myself or y’know run errands and pay bills and such. Love my kids dearly, but it hugely changes your life no doubt.
Thankfully I can fit shitposting in during other activities ;)
I’m definitely guilty of that. I disappeared for months after we had our miscarriage, until a good friend came over and basically did an intervention on me. Then I emerged. Then I had my kid. And it became a lot harder to maintain relationships.
Combine that with an eventual divorce and just forget it. I should have worked harder to keep those friends in my life. I’ve got new ones who are really good to me, but I lost some of the old ones. I’d like to get them back.
-xtien
Totally. The social gulf between people with kids and people without is the biggest one in typical social life. Bigger than marriage or work situation or gender or relationship status or age or divorce or etc.
Yeah it’s kind of weird how divorce can give you cooties with some people, like they don’t want your relationship issues to rub off on them. They just stop inviting you out or responding to your invitations.
One thing is that as your kids get older and involved in either school or other activities you tend to make new friends. Currently the two couples who are probably our best friends are parents of kids our kids new in high school or before. But it is the old friends, unless they have kids the same age as yours, that you tend to lose.
Or they choose sides. Which is understandable. But still hollowing.
-xtien
I’ve found that people with kids like talking about the kids and the people who tend to like hearing about kids are other parents. It’s pretty common for people with kids to drift apart from friends who don’t have kids. It happened with me, too.
It makes sense. When you have kids and they are little, they are sucking up most of your free time. It’s what you’re doing so it’s what you naturally talk about.
That’s really true. And you know, as a new parent, when you’re becoming tiresome about that. You can see it in your friends. But it’s your whole world, so it’s hard to not talk about it. You also need to unload a bit, but it’s inappropriate with folks who cannot connect to it. So that contributes to the drifting apart.
-xtien
I just got back from working our 80s Cruise – Kenny Loggins (fantastic), Starship, OMD, Berlin, Sheila E (fantastic!), The Fixx, Dee Snyder, Cutting Crew, English Beat, Club Nouveau, a couple of cover bands, and Grandmaster Flash, who was also fantastic. He had everyone up and dancing. He was great.
I worked a lot of hours but I also had time for fun, and it was just a great time although I got by on about five hours of sleep a night. Lots of costuming by the guests (pop icon night, nightmare on the 80s cruise night, Mardi Gras night, etc.). Really a great time.
It was also great to get away from news for a week. I have no idea what Trump did last week that would have embarrassed me as an American. It was blissful.
Man, it is hard to maintain friendships with both halves of a dissolved relationship. They’ll both tend to unload on you and it’s hard to tell what’s true and keep your head, not to mention your opinion of each of them. And sometimes if the break up is bad enough, they won’t want you even dealing with the other partner, might hold it against you.
But yeah, I am a pretty poor friend for keeping up with other friends. I could blame it on my kids, but really with me, it’s kind of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. My closest friend, I probably see him every other month. Probably doesnt help that he lives nearly an hour away. But I could try harder.
I’m like that too. It’s bad because I’m like that with my family. Not my wife and kid, but family that isn’t with me.
@ddtibbs I’m very sorry to hear that for you and your station as well. Hang in there and lean on your friends a little harder these next few weeks. It’s what friends are for.
I think I’ve said it before but I was in your shoes not that long ago. I’m a huge extrovert and always tend to have too many friendly contacts I try to juggle. And losing a friend or even just losing touch with one hits me doubly hard. I’m thankful, as strange as it may sound, that as I hit mid-40s a slight personality shift started that has made me a bit more introverted and a bit more concerning of myself and my immediate relationships, not of trying to juggle all the bowling pins of others. What I’d missed along the way is that I was happy making everyone else happy, but put myself last on that list. And it finally took a breakup before someone close enough to me told me that. Be sure along the way you take care of yourself and your missus.
When I was in labor, I was on an IRC channel, and someone, I don’t remember now who because it was 10 years ago, made several derisive remarks about how now I’d be talking about nothing but my baby, and now I’d be boring and insufferable like the other parents he knows. I read the comments after the baby had come and I was home a wreck because childbirth was traumatic for me. He’d tagged me several times so it showed up in my feed. It really hurt to see it but (and?) I took what he said to heart and (1) never went back to that IRC server, and (2) decided to talk about my kid as little as possible because I didn’t want to be boring and insufferable. One of my college friends had kids when I did, so we’re still friends. The others waited, and even though they have babies now we lost touch since they’re 10 years behind me. So now I’m in the awkward position of (a) being a single parent who has no time to do anything except parenting; and (b) being a person who doesn’t talk about my non-work life with anyone because I don’t want to be that woman the IRC person was describing, the kind of person who only talks about her kid and has no other interests, except that hey, I don’t have other interests! I was joking with myself the other day that my new hobby is attending parent-teacher conferences because I’ve had like 20 of those in the last few months.
I guess the point is please don’t make new parents feel bad for actually talking about their kids sometimes. It’s alienating at a time many people already feel alone.
Said IRC person was an asshat and you should never hold back from talking about children, Fire. And this is coming from a 51-year-old with no kids. Be proud of being a parent and be proud of your kids. Even if you rejoin the dating game, don’t be afraid to talk about them. Only snowflakes need to shield themselves from the life the majority of people on the planet go through.
Being a parent, not just a new parent, can be incredibly isolating. Which is ironic because you’re looking after another person and attending to their needs. They just cannot really attend to yours. I didn’t have the time or more importantly the will and energy to keep up with friends who didn’t have kids when I first became a dad. I was often bored, and scared about not being a good parent. My friends without kids didn’t get that and just thought I was being a jerk I guess.
I had friends who liked my kid, but didn’t like kids in general. All of them, all of my close friends, had vowed not to have kids. They had dogs and cats and careers. I respected their decisions, but they never really understood mine, because not everyone is empathetic.
I know I talk about personal things too much here. Whether it be in the cooking thread or on the movie podcast. But I don’t have a very good emotional filter.
Anyway, you’re right about not making new parents feel bad. It’s a point well made.
-xtien