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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 we’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 definitely has.
Fairy bridesmaid and I have both 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?
Mr. Star and I have found that we really enjoy having dinner parties or games nights or going out for cocktails with other couples now — the trouble is:
Have any of you dealt with drifting away from your friends? What about feeling like you’ve become boring? How do you cope?
Girl I’ve always been boring! 
Just kidding. I can totally understand though. My best friend (and BM) has never been in a relationship or on a single date, so for her we just don’t talk about most of that stuff because she has no idea. I too would rather go home for dinner with the FI than downtown to hit back a few drinks. Just my thing I guess. Have you thought about trying to find a young married couples group to do dinners with? Sometimes they have those kind of groups online you can meet up with and get to know. As for your single gals, I say just remain in contact and do what you can. Life does change, there’s no getting around it.
Miss Star, our friends are the same way. Yes most of them are in a relationship, but they don’t understand how we don’t want to go to parties or be crazy. It is hard to find a balance, but it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice one or the other. I find that I go out with my friends just as much, except we all do stuff together. His friends & mine. We’ll do movies, or a dinner night out instead. It’s still being with your friends, but it’s not bar hopping, or partying until the wee hours of the morning.
Maybe have a dinner party at your place instead? It does get easier once you balance everyone in together. I swear. We’re not even married yet and I think we’ve just about got it down pat!
My fiance and I have experienced the same thing. We are the first in our group of friends to get married and we started to notice that we saw them less and less. Once we realized this, we started finding other activities that we could do with our friends that didn’t involve late nights, bar hopping and massive hangovers. Our friends are still important to us so we try to find things that we all enjoy and can still do together.
i don’t think it necessarily equates to just marriage. it’s more of you’re in two different times in your lives now. it happens. once i was perfectly happy and secure in my relationship with the boy i stopped going out clubbing with friends and we weren’t even engaged. and i was 24, still in my prime clubbing years. even now as i stare down 30 i’ve noticed the shift between the friends that are in committed relationships, either married or not, have slowed down that club/hang out all night thing.
i will admit i used to think my friends who got married in our early 20s were boring but that was because they wouldn’t even hang out for coffee or a quick dinner with the girls. i think as long as you make a good balance between events, like you’re doing now, you’ll be fine.
My friends and I were never into drinking, partying, etc., so I’ve been far more lucky in terms of being able to stay together. That is, most of them. There’s one friend that I met in grade eleven who was TOTALLY different (steady long-distance boyfriend for 3 years, didn’t drink/party/etc), and when she started dating another guy she suddenly became a different person. So I lost touch with her, but it was a combination of her changing so dramatically and me becoming a little more anchored.
I’m a little older (26) but still have a close group of friends from college that I would consider my “best friends.” Ever since I’ve gotten engaged and been planning my wedding, I’ve noticed that they’ve treated me differently. Even though I still do want to go out and have a good time with my girlfriends, I think that they feel I won’t “fit in” with the partying scene because I’m settling down, I guess.
On the other hand, they also tend to be shocked and appalled when I talk about getting a two bedroom apartment over the next few years and thinking about having children.
It’s definitely been a weird time for me in my life because I still want to hang out/party/whatever with my friends (which has always been fine with FI and still is) but it is strange because I am literally the only one engaged or even in a serious relationship.
I haven’t really felt like this is an engaged/married or age thing. I think most people have a time in their life that they are move more inward. They want to go out less and would rather spend “quiet” fun time with friends and family. I don’t think it makes you boring, or “old and married” just introspective.
Then again, many “old and married” people like to go out and party until the wee hours, but I think most people at some point in their lives hit that point where a board game and a small group of friends is more appealing.
I think the important thing to remember is that your friends, just like you, aren’t defined by their relationship status. You may think that when they go out and party that they are doing “single” things- but that could be far from the truth! They could be talking about art, politics, philosophy- or any of the things that made you friends in the first place. I feel it’s incredibly important to spend time with all of my friends- regardless of their relationship status- because they make me a better person. Maybe try and be more proactive by asking them to do things that you enjoy- going to theatre, free concerts in the park, etc. You definitely don’t want to become isolated from your friends, because it can put a lot of stress on your relationship with your partner.
@365: That is awesome that you guys get all your friends together — how fun! Trouble for us is that Mr. Star and I met through our group of college friends, so they’re all the same peeps! 
Well, I can’t exactly relate because being a few years older than you, most of me and Mr. Powder Puff’s friends are engaged or married. I think we only have a couple of single friends left. And while that’s made it easy for us to have people to hang out with who have similar interests, it makes it all that much more difficult to relate to my single friends.
Recently a single friend came to visit, and she just wanted to go out and party while I just wanted to stay home and relax, talk and watch a movie. I felt bad because I felt like I was being boring (this girl and I used to go out together ALL THE TIME), but my priorities have definitely changed. There’s no getting around that.
I would say try befriending a slightly older couple (we’re 26, so we’re not THAT much older). They’ll probably have more in common with your situation, and have other couple friends they can introduce you to.
I guess I don’t have the same problem. I’m 25 and several of my friends have gotten married since college so maybe I’m in a different boat. I really don’t see a big difference in my young married friends. They just have a different last name, altough I tend to forget that part. My friends have never been big on clubbing but we go out bar hopping quite a bit. My fiance and I have continued to go out as much as possible, but I do notice that we beg off some nights to just watch movies and have dinner at home. I attribute that more to having a long week at work though.
I know exactly how you feel! I met my FI when I was in college, I was only 19, all my friends were ready to party all the time and couldn’t grasp the fact that I just wasn’t interested anymore… Here we are almost 5 years later and we are still together but I have a lot less friends and the ones I do have are much older, my FI and are almost 10 years apart so I am mostly friends with his friends because we are all at the same place in our lives, when I see old friends or hear about them, their lives dont seem to be as “organized” as mine… which I love, I love that I have time and money to travel ALOT and we own a house. None of them are that secure in their lives and heck I don’t think this is a bad thing we all shouldn’t want the same thing at the same time. But I just knew at 19 I was ready to settle and work towards bigger goals then going out to the bars on a friday night… I had lost a good friend in college because she resented that I wanted to “settle”… we just started really talking again about a year ago and shes confessed that she now sees where I was coming from and has apologized for how she treated me when it all went down.
I totally agree with tea - I don’t think it has so much to do with being married versus being single, I think it has to do with where you are in your lives.
I’m 24, and I have friends that are (very) happily single and love to party, married friends that still like to have a good time as well as married friends that have pretty much totally given up the bar/club nights. And then there are friends our age that have kids! Very different places in life, and we are all chronologically the same age.
Yeah, I definitely understand this feeling… we’re not only one of the only married couples in our group of friends (which is not too weird, because there is another long-term dating couple and our interactions aren’t much different), but we’re also parents-to-be. I work 8-5, I can’t stay up until 3 am going to all night burger joints anymore. Not to mention I’m pregnant so I fall alseep by midnight when we get together anyway.. it has become a running joke that December usually ends up asleep in a corner somewhere at any party we’re at.
Sometimes I get frustrated with the lack of maturity and priorities I see in them, like the friend who complained about not having a job, then refused to follow up on a lead I gave him and is having his daddy take out a loan to pay his living expenses while he goes to 2 credits worth of summer school.
I guess I try to see it as being more mature and responsible, not old and boring. And we host some pretty rockin’ game/movie nights at our house every week, where I routinely blow my poor bachelor friends’ minds with homecooked meals. We may not make it out to the restaurants or the movies or to happy hour anymore, but I think we’ve got something to offer in having a settled lifestyle, a house, groceries and such.
I completely relate. I’m the first of my friends other than my sibling to get married. We have started hanging out more with sister and her friends because we find them more relatable and enjoy the same experiences they do.
I still like to go out to bars and clubs, but not as often. I’m a lot more budget concious than my firends now that I have the wedding to pay for. My firends like taking expensive trips, shopping and going to bars and clubs with $20 covers and $15 drinks. I don’t like blowing that kind of moeny in one night. I just can’t afford it anymore.
I’d prefer a fun low key game night with my sister and her friends who are married or couples. My friends do not relate at all. I know they think I’m boring and cheap.
I try to make it to the important things., I’ll splurge on a night out like their birthdays or when soemone gets promoted, but I can’t afford going out every weekend, nor do I want to.
I put things in perspective and realize I’m not boring, I know once they get to this stage in their lives, I’ll be there for them. I try to host parties to merge my single and coupled friends, but people tend to stay in their own groups, but I keep trying anyways! I think it’s improtant to still stay conencted and do things that work for both of you. I find myself miserable when I go to things because I feel like I have to, when I really dont want to. I try to include my friends when its soemthing thats fun for both of us. I thinks its great you still have coffee dates. We have tried routines, liek in the fall we do Monday ngiht Tv- Gossip Girls and the Hills, since we all enjoy it and get to catch up.
I’m getting married at 29, a time when most of my friends are starting to settle down and I wouldn’t have given up those single twenty-something years for anything! That said, when I was younger, my friends and I always thought that our older married friends who would still come dancing every once in a while or show up at a happy hour were so cool and the opposite of boring old ladies. We really appreciated them and talked about how nice it was to have role models who could be married, have stable lives, but still have fun now and then. I hope I’m one of those cool old married ladies!
Miss Star, I feel your pain, but not in the way you might expect.
I’m in a long-term relationship with a proposal on the horizon. I’m not married, but I’m not single. My married friends tend to spend time with their families and my single friends don’t tend to ask me to go out, because I met “the one”, so why would I be interested?
The past year especially, there are friends I seek out and that seek me out. Married and non, to go out for drinks or grab dinner. It’s really helped me see the value in those relationships. They may not have be who I expected, but when I stop and think, I realize they are exactly who I need.
It’s important to remember, just like when dating, one person cannot make a relationship/friendship work.
On the upside, perhaps when they get married, you may reconnect!
@balancingbeingbridal: Oh, that must be really tough to be caught in the middle like that. I, too, have friends who have been helping me get through this transitional phase and they aren’t always who I expected it would be — but I do appreciate them dearly. Here’s to the unexpected awesomeness of friendship!
Miss Star I feel like I could have written this post myself….My FI and I have been together for almost 4 years and I am also 24…We have found it odd at times to hang out with our single or younger friends. We often feel like we can’t relate to them since to them a good time means bar hopping and getting wasted. The FI and I are often more content with a movie or snuggle time at home. But, we both urn for friendships with people that can relate to us. Don’t get me wrong we do have our couple friends who we sometimes do dinner with, but we feel like we are missing out on the social scene. I think a lot of it has to do with maturity and finding the right people to hangout with and understanding that sometimes we grow up and it takes longer for some of our friends to get where we are. Another difficult thing was that I chose to stay in my college town while my close friends moved off to the west coast or the city. It has been hard to build close relationships since then and I miss having friends that have the same interests and likes as me and also miss the trust I had with them. I have even thought of posting to personals to find friends for my FI and me because right now we are each others best friends. Which is fine, but sometimes we both would like to have a girls or guys night out. Lucky for us we have made some recent progress and have met a great couple whom we always have a great time with….but, as I had mentioned it would be nice to have separate outings.
Thankfully, many of our single friends are in tough grad schools, so they would rather get drinks/dinner and go home and sleep too! But I still love going out with my girls (probably bc it only happens 5-6 times a year :))
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Mrs. Star, New York City Age and Occupation: 22, Actress Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Casting Assistant Wedding Date: October 2009 Venue: Ceremony: The Kraine Theatre, Reception: Midtown Loft & Terrace About Me: I’m a professional actress who’s always had New York City in her blood and I'm finally getting the chance to make a home in Manhattan with my fiancé, my dog, and my big dreams! I love polka dots, craft projects, Dunkin’ Donuts’ iced coffee, and anything sparkly. I’m having a blast planning our elegant/dramatic/New York City/acting-themed/largely-DIY wedding and am thrilled to be the youngest current Miss Blogger!
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