A good friend from college days reached out to get a meal and catch up. Aside from the past of being single bachelors hanging out in college, we’ve grown separately. He’s about that married with kids life, and I’m not. We don’t have anything in common anymore, and frankly I’m not interested in many things outside my nerdy hobbies. The majority of catching up feels one-sided to me, like I need to talk up foodie adventure or spill the tea on dating lifestyle while they provide the generic “oh you know, just work and kids”. How do I reject future hangouts, and how should I navigate conversations when agreed to meet up?
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I am slightly introvert, so during hangouts I ask questions I’m interested about to keep the other people talking and engaged. I chime in every once in a while with my own stuff but largely spend the time redirecting conversation with questions and prods.
If you don’t want to socialize though, just apologize and say you can’t make it. No need to make up a detailed excuse. However, continuously rejecting calls to catch up would lead to people assuming you’re busy and just not inviting you. If that’s a risk you’re okay with, go ahead.
Option a: You can choose nicer words, but you basically say: I am not interested in seeing you.
Option b: You make excuses until that person does not try anymore.
Honestly, I could be your friend.
When it is all work and kids, we try to live viciously through you. Which, I bet is one sided and taxing.
If he is like me, he is trying to maintain the friendship until he has free time and then it will be less one sided.
Just say no. You’ve got single life plans. But honestly, it’s not that they’ve got nothing going on. It’s just everything they’ve got going on likely won’t be much of a conversation between you too.
You probably don’t care about the outdoor BBQ pit they’ve built into the outdoor kitchen by hand, or the children’s milestone, or the married life struggles with a legally committed partner. So they don’t get into it. It’s a MEME almost, but every parent will violently roll their eyes when telling a non parent something about children and they reply back about something they’re doing with their pet, as if the two are somehow related.
And I’d also not be so quick to judge that they’re all that interested in what you’re saying as well. They may be just polite.
But I’d not feel bad about any of this. Relationships have a life of their own. When they form organically, it’s because conditions were right. When they start to slowly die, it’s because it’s no longer needed by either party and has run its course. I treat every relationship as if it’s a temporary thing. Even family, they have spurts of deep bonding followed by some period of low effort texting. It’s ok.
Your old friends may just be having trouble making new friends. Ones that are more aligned with their stage in life. Maybe ask then of they’re making new friends to subtly suggest an alternative.
Well, at least you’re honest.
Just tell him that you’re super busy these days, but you wish him all the best. Then hopefully he can find friends that want to spend time with him and don’t assume that just because he’s married with kids that’s the only possible thing he can talk about.
I’m on the married with kids side of this. I have an old friend who’s been single/childfree forever. I’d say we meet up once every few months. I’ll talk a little about kid stuff but also hobbies I’ve been doing, we talk about gaming which we both do. We do run out of stuff to talk about but whatever.
Maybe just reduce the frequency of hanging out?