How our housing choices make adult friendships difficult

[ECB]

Nov 4, 2015 10:25:40 GMT -5 ttt said:

 that big snowstorm that happened in the afternoon a few years ago and it wreaked havoc on the roads? I saw the weather forecast and said, eh you know, I'm going to leave now. I left at 3:00 and it was raining when I left. Fifteen minutes later, it was snowing as I pulled into my driveway. She left at 5:00 pm and didn't get home until 1 am. 

OMG!  I remember that.  I'm in Baltimore.  I left work that day also at 3.  Got home as it was starting to snow.  BRIEFLY debated going to my parents house (10 mins away) where my son was.  Then decided not to. THANK GOD.  People were stuck on the highway for 8+ hours trying to get home.  The roads to my parents house?  ABSOLUTELY I would have ended up getting stuck. 

[shortstax]

This spoke to my soul. In fact, I'm tearing up, because this eloquently described what I haven't been able to when discussing our future housing goals with DH. I've been in an "auto-dependent land use" suburb area for 5 years, and now with young children, it feels like it's strangling me.

Some funny attempts I've made:

me: I love the smalltown I grew up in, I want to live somewhere like there....
DH: really? you don't identify with small town living at all. You would go crazy living in that area. You've changed a lot since 18.
me: true, but I want to know the community. I want to bump into randoms when I go to the bank---stuff like that. I miss seeing old people who I know and find adorable...
DH: What?!? you don't even go to the bank. I don't think we should move so you can see randoms with gray hair.
lol

[msmerymac]

I've always wanted to live in a commune. A normal one.

I live in a walkable community, and this is partially why. I walk a lot. Because I want to. I take transit. Because I want to.

I work at home and I moved across the country from my closest friends almost 3 years ago. And now I feel like I have acquaintances and "closer acquaintances" here.

I've gotten involved in my community - a church and a food co-op, mostly. There are plenty of people I recognize, and some I bump into and "know," but I haven't been able to take the step of asking to get a drink or coffee. I get invited to organized events and parties, but one-on-one friendships are tough. I also interact with a variety of people. The middle aged moms at the pilates studio probably don't have a lot in common with me, and while the older ladies at church like me, it doesn't feel like "friendship" the same way a relationship with my peers does. Thankfully, I at least have sidewalks, so I do get some human interaction. I have to re-adjust to waving and saying hi when walking, though. People in LA don't do that.

[msmerymac]

Also, I developed lots of great friendships in LA, eventually. Took me like 2 years. Then I just started to go out more, work a lot, be social, meet people through other people. When I was 23/24 it was amazing how fast I could become friends with people. A friend brought her friend from college, who had just moved to LA, to a party at my house once. Within days she and I were texting all the time and seeing each other probably every other day. And to this day, we are still really close friends. She's one of my best friends. Two more of my really close friends I met within a year of that meeting. One of them I met through someone I knew from college and said, "Hey, I hang out at this bar a lot, you should come out," and she said, "Sure, okay," and that was that.

You just have your guard down more when you're young, never home, and living in a crappy apartment. You can go over to someone's house at any time of day. You can pick them up and make last call on a weeknight. I was always out doing something anyway, so my home didn't feel like a sanctuary to which I wanted to retire at the end of the day - just a place to crash and store my stuff.

[redwino]

I haven't really tried to make new friends lately because I still have a close knit of college friends nearby. But I have noticed it's hard to make friendly connections in my neighborhood. People don't seem to want more more than a friendly wave. I'm not looking for people to go do stuff with but I wouldn't mind sharing a beer and neighborhood gossip.

[MrsAxilla]

My neighborhood is quickly transitioning from older folks who lived here 30 years and raised families to young families. Just in the three years we've lived here, ten new families have moved in on my street alone. Now we know lots of people and DH is ready to move. He does not like everyone knowing him, but you know, we're living in a society here!

[fumbalina]

Another reason it is hard to make friends is cost. It is rare to be able to go to free places. As we get older there are more constraints on both time and money. There are free activities if you have near unlimited time. There are also frequent activities if you have enough money.

I have never met a group that wants more than acquaintances. There are plenty of people who like me when I am present, but would never consider calling me out of the blue. The few times I have tried, the people I have encountered pulled away from even casual association.

[NitaX]

I've been thinking a lot about this because one of my good friends (we used to work together part-time) lives 30 minutes from me. I am never over her house except if she's having something there. But, several years ago - we both lived on the same side of town like 10 minutes from each other. Needless to say, we always hung out. 

I miss having my friends nearby. I keep in touch generally via phone with a couple of friends. My BFF lives in FL, so whenever she's in town we hang out from the time she gets here until she leaves. My other friends are all part of my church so, it's really easy to see them. 

I have two friends from college that I am still in touch with - both live in the DC area tho. I miss them too.    

And I agree that attitudes on dropping by your neighbor's house makes a difference. My super cool neighbor just rolls in my house if the garage is up. It irritated the hell out of me when I first moved into the neighborhood - but nearly 10 years later, I don't care. LOL Ignore the mess and give me the latest dirt on neighborhood shenanigans.  

[downtoearth]

Nov 4, 2015 6:46:09 GMT -5 tacosforlife said:

As a city dweller, I've found this is so true with my friends who move to the suburbs. Our relationships have zero spontaneity. Those of us who live in the city see each other often.

H has joked in the past about wanting to buy a giant house to share with our friends. He's referred to it as a compound, but I'll have to tell him that he just wants baugruppen.

I so agree with the bolded.

We moved from a city area partly b/c all our friends scattered to the suburbs. Between that and all having young kids, the spontaneity of quick community building was gone.  The dropping by with dinner for someone who had a rough day was a 40-min drive one way, so it started to slide.  The meeting up at a local park for a quick connection never happened.  We were connecting less and less and I was feeling more lonely in a city of people.  We were making new friends in our more city/interior area and missing out on our long-term connections to our older friends.

Oh and to the compound... we did that.  Well not exactly, but we moved to a smaller town in another state and we bought a house that I don't love, but love the community.  Our friend lives next door and another friend lives in the apartment on his property, two families we love bought houses across the street and we have a "commune" feeling.  Kids cross streets together and get fed in all the houses and the adults next door teach them to the best techniques to ride the pump track and we share food and beers all the time.  It really has made life happier for us - we all connect spontaneously all the time.

[ijack]

I have some neighbors that when I first met, I didn't necessarily love or want to become friends with - more because I felt I didn't "need" any new friends. But 3 years later I'm super close with these people because of their location and I've learned how cool they really are. Our kids play together all the time and it's so much easier to do an impromptu dinner than try and plan something. I know I'm really lucky and I'm thankful that proximity lead us to being friends.

[sfy]

This reminds me of the article posted last week about the New Yorkers who weren't ever planning to move because their children (and as a result, the adults themselves) had forged such strong bonds with the other families in their apartment buildings. I had a conversation about that article this weekend when I was talking to someone who left the city after she and her husband had their third child. They moved to NJ, but since they had several friends who made the same move it was like having a built in support system once they arrived.

I find we're at an awkward phase now. Most of our friends with children have young children, so they like being around their couple friends with young children. We don't live in the city, so we're cut out geographically from friends with no children or one child. We usually see people by throwing some sort of get-together or being invited to something. Going to dinner is popular, too, but that usually caps the group at 8, because any more than that and you don't interact with most people. I also noticed that the recession had a very real impact on how often people threw parties (us included) and although, things have rebounded, I still don't think people are entertaining as much as they were pre-2009. I wouldn't mind just "hanging out," as was mentioned above, but I know that people would think it's weird to be asked to drive to the suburbs just to hang. I think once we're in the city, we'll have more spontaneity and therefore, see friends more and less formally.

[tacosforlife]

Nov 4, 2015 17:58:54 GMT -5 sfy said:

I wouldn't mind just "hanging out," as was mentioned above, but I know that people would think it's weird to be asked to drive to the suburbs just to hang.

I will totally own my part in this with regard to my friends. I love just hanging out, but I really dislike driving. And I especially hate driving at night on the highway. Now that I've been away from the Midwest for so long, I am sure throwing snow back into the mix this winter will make me avoid driving anymore. So you want me to drive on the highway at night when there is snow on the ground just to hang out? When I have two friends who live in my apartment building? NOPE. I realize it's unfair of me to always want my suburban friends into come into the city, but I want to tell them to move near a bus line!

[sfy]

Nov 4, 2015 18:09:29 GMT -5 tacosforlife said:

Nov 4, 2015 17:58:54 GMT -5 sfy said:

I wouldn't mind just "hanging out," as was mentioned above, but I know that people would think it's weird to be asked to drive to the suburbs just to hang.

I will totally own my part in this with regard to my friends. I love just hanging out, but I really dislike driving. And I especially hate driving at night on the highway. Now that I've been away from the Midwest for so long, I am sure throwing snow back into the mix this winter will make me avoid driving anymore. So you want me to drive on the highway at night when there is snow on the ground just to hang out? When I have two friends who live in my apartment building? NOPE. I realize it's unfair of me to always want my suburban friends into come into the city, but I want to tell them to move near a bus line!

But if they asked you to come in the daytime, that would be even stranger lol. It is unfair, both sides have to work to maintain friendships. You've got two friends in your building, but I would hope that the friends in the suburbs have some qualities that differentiate them from the building friends (and vice versa). We're headed back into the city, so I'm not going to keep lamenting my suburban life much longer (especially when I recognize that we made a choice to come all the way out here), but I wish people understood that it's hard enough being cut off from all the good amenities in the city and the ability to have a walkable lifestyle without also adding in the difficulty of nearly singlehandedly having to preserve friendships.

[tacosforlife]

Nov 4, 2015 18:17:17 GMT -5 sfy said:

Nov 4, 2015 18:09:29 GMT -5 tacosforlife said:

I will totally own my part in this with regard to my friends. I love just hanging out, but I really dislike driving. And I especially hate driving at night on the highway. Now that I've been away from the Midwest for so long, I am sure throwing snow back into the mix this winter will make me avoid driving anymore. So you want me to drive on the highway at night when there is snow on the ground just to hang out? When I have two friends who live in my apartment building? NOPE. I realize it's unfair of me to always want my suburban friends into come into the city, but I want to tell them to move near a bus line!

But if they asked you to come in the daytime, that would be even stranger lol. It is unfair, both sides have to work to maintain friendships. You've got two friends in your building, but I would hope that the friends in the suburbs have some qualities that differentiate them from the building friends (and vice versa). We're headed back into the city, so I'm not going to keep lamenting my suburban life much longer (especially when I recognize that we made a choice to come all the way out here), but I wish people understood that it's hard enough being cut off from all the good amenities in the city and the ability to have a walkable lifestyle without also adding in the difficulty of nearly singlehandedly having to preserve friendships.

Yeah, it just sucks.

I have a feeling we'll spend more time with our suburban friends once we have kids because they have kids and we can all get together for the kids to play while the adults sit around and hang out and drink beer.

[loira]

Nov 4, 2015 7:20:29 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

Even though we only live 10 miles max from each other, it still takes a long while (50 minutes if I'm going to hers) to visit with my closest friend in London as she's south of the river and I'm north. But not having kids makes it a lot easier to actually make last minute plans.

I don't work with other people so I really need to make an effort to do things in order to make and keep friends. Field hockey has definitely helped with that.

I honestly can't think of a single friend who lived south of the river. I find it really does divide people. Even though I knew rationally that visiting someone in Brixton would have taken me less time than to see a friend in Acton, it always seemed like more effort to cross the Thames. Someone should really do a study on this.

[sushi]

We have a shared driveway alley, essentially. People leave their garage doors open when they're home. It's kind of an open door policy. As introverted as I am, I love it. I can go out when I hear voices or stay inside when I want peace. I can knock on any door for ingredients or just a few minutes conversation.

My sister had a similar thing in her suburban, almost mcmansion, neighborhood. People were always in and out of each other's homes.

So there's landscape but also personality of those around you.

[kirra]

It's hard to make new friends.

Most of my friends have children now, and they prefer to go on play dates and hang out with other parents, even though I'm fine with get togethers including kids. One told me it's just easier with parents because the kids entertain each other

Add in physical limitations where even a trip to the mall is difficult and has to be planned for, and I can't stay outside for more than a few minutes in the summer or winter, and I end up being too complicated for a lot of people.

[Deleted]

Nov 4, 2015 17:58:54 GMT -5 sfy said:

This reminds me of the article posted last week about the New Yorkers who weren't ever planning to move because their children (and as a result, the adults themselves) had forged such strong bonds with the other families in their apartment buildings.  

It reminded me of it too. I posted in that thread that I thought it was sweet and that I would like to live in a building like that and got a ton of people quoting me and saying "oh my god no, that's my worst nightmare" lol. 

[sfy]

Nov 5, 2015 8:52:45 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Nov 4, 2015 17:58:54 GMT -5 sfy said:

This reminds me of the article posted last week about the New Yorkers who weren't ever planning to move because their children (and as a result, the adults themselves) had forged such strong bonds with the other families in their apartment buildings.  

It reminded me of it too. I posted in that thread that I thought it was sweet and that I would like to live in a building like that and got a ton of people quoting me and saying "oh my god no, that's my worst nightmare" lol. 

Lol I was torn, but leaning toward nightmare. After talking to the couple who moved to Jersey, though, I realized I was more complimentary about the article and situation than I remembered feeling while reading it. There is something to be said for pseudo-communal living, especially for people with children. Takes a village and all.

[wawa]

Nov 4, 2015 10:23:40 GMT -5 jamaicam said:

Nov 4, 2015 10:12:59 GMT -5 @246baje said:

I live in the suburbs of Houston. I have good friends an hour away from our house in all directions who all say they live in Houston.

We don't attend the 2 hr kid birthday parties that our American friends have. But we go to kid birthday parties for our Caribbean friends because they start at 1 and you stay for 8 hrs, everyone bathes their kids there, puts them into pjs and then we head home.

An hour drive is worth it to hang out for a whole day. Not so much if you are driving for as long as the event is.

hahaha, many playdates at our house end with the kids in the bath together and the other kids going home in borrowed pyjamas!!!

Yes.  We just throw pj's in our diaper bag whenever we head to any outing with our close friends. Half the time we put all the kids to bed (Shorti will go to sleep sprawled in the middle of my friend's king bed faster than she'll go down in her own) and hang out and watch a movie or something.  Kid birthdays are never just the bouncy place - there is always the afterparty.   

[sunshine608]

Nov 4, 2015 10:05:41 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

My very best friend lives in the northwestern suburbs and I live in the southeastern suburbs. I don't blame either of us for living where we do - we live where we work. That said, getting together is so extremely difficult. It takes about 45 min to get to her house on a good day. She had her kid's birthday party even further out and it took for.ever. I almost didn't go because even staying at the party for an hour took over 3 hours out of my day.

This is my life exactly! I've always said that living in Atlanta is hard on friendships, but that's true for most major cities with lots of exburbs. We both live 15 minutes away from work and our parents ( which is most important) but so far from each other. We try and meet up in the city but even that's a coordination of effor because we have to find some place and something to do. We can go walk around a park ( or could when the babies were smaller or we don't have them) b/c otherwise it b/c all about the kids. I really miss just popping in and hanging out like back in college and grad school.

I've tried mom groups but then I feel like the SAH vs. Working mom issues pop up. I've pretty much just given up although every time they build a new house in my neighrboord I secrelty hope it will be a mom around my age or with kids around the same age.

[meltoine]

We are moving in a few months and our best couple friends are moving to the same town at the same time. They want to buy and we want to rent. They found a property with a 4br main house and a 3br guest house. We are seriously considering them buying the property and us renting the guest house. We would share a backyard so all the kids could play together and it would be awesome.

[wawa]

Oh...also just random sharing - I grew up with an open door policy with my neighbors despite being in the country. Our parents actually bought a big lot together (50ish acres) and subdivided. Dad's worked together, mom's were BFF's, and us kids were always together even though our houses were a half mile apart.