I consider myself a friendly, outgoing person. I had a great group of girls I was friends with in high school. I like to think people find me easy to talk to and easy to get to know. I can easily kill a half hour chatting it up with someone. I especially love to make people laugh.
What’s weird, then, is that I actually have very few close female friends. I have a lot of women with whom I am friendly, but few really good friends. I am aware that many women have lots of really close female friends. I see pictures on Facebook of girlfriends hanging out together. I know of high school girlfriends who get together for reunions every year or five years. I hear tales of Girls’ Nights Out, shopping trips, Bunco nights, karaoke nights, and weekend beach getaways. I’ve even been invited to come along on a couple. I can recall one specific Girls’ Night Out invitation I got via email that asked, “Want a night away from your husband and the kids?” and then the details followed. I remember scratching my head and thinking: “Hmm. I’m always up for time away from my kids, but a night away from Brent? No, thanks.” When someone asked whether I was coming, I told a lie about why I couldn’t come.
I just couldn’t bring myself to say, “I’d rather hang out with Brent than with y’all.” It seemed to violate some sort of unwritten girl-code. What does it say about me that I’m not interested in these kinds of things?
If I have a few free hours, I just want to spend it with Brent. I like him better than anybody else, which is nice because of the whole marriage thing.
He’s the same way, although worse (better?). Over the 18 years we’ve been married, Brent has had even fewer close male friends than I’ve had female friends. A big part of it, I’m sure, is that Brent is not interested in many typical guy activities. He’ll play basketball or racquetball, but that’s about it. He’s not interested in watching sports on TV (with the exception of maybe 15-20 minutes of an LSU football game once or twice per season). He doesn’t hunt. He doesn’t golf. He doesn’t do fantasy baseball (is that what it’s called?). He doesn’t gamble. He doesn’t smoke cigars (but boy, he plays a mean Scrabble game . . .)
So I’m curious-is this an issue with other couples or is it just us? Are we missing out on something important?
I don’t think it’s an issue or that you’re missing out on anything as long as it’s working for you and your husband.
I love hanging out with my girlfriends and I love hanging out with my husband. I think it’s good for a marriage if both people have their own ‘things’ that they like to do. I also think it’s good for couples to have time together that isn’t all about the kids and family and home responsibilities. There have been plenty of times I have decided against girl time to spend time with my man.
I think the only problem would be if you didn’t ‘allow’ each other to have a social life outside of your marriage. It doesn’t sound like that’s the case at all. What it sounds like to me is just two people who enjoy each other’s company. That’s cool.
Perhaps it has to do with times and seasons. I’ve had times when I had a best friends or a group of them. Now I don’t and I miss them. A matter of geography I think. So for now my husband and I are best friends and it works just fine. We eat lunch out everday and go to movies and watch tv and It’s just really nice after 46 years of marriage.
I do not consider myself an outgoing person (although, I think I can do a reasonable impression of an outgoing person) and I’ve usually had one or two really good female friends that constitutes my entire social life. I’ve often felt a bit out of step in groups of women, like I’m not quite getting all the lady dynamics. That said, after a kindred spirit dry spell (only in real life, on-line I am kindred spirit rich), I’ve lately fallen into a group of ladies that I’m really enjoying. My husband and I have different interests and we seem to work best when we have a balance between lots of space to pursue our own things and time together.
Oh, that kind of sounds like us. I’ve just recently declared myself officially friendless. :) Overall, I’d say my husband and I are really social people. We enjoy spending time with friends. But, we’re slow with developing any friendships or particularly good/deep friendships, because my husband is also kind of the atypical guy (he likes flowers and plants, and studied music, and he raised bunnies as a kid, doesn’t know/care for watching sports or really playing any sports, other than cycling and running with me…and we’ll watch the soccer world cup…he’s sensitive, and sweet, and likes to play with kids). I just suck at all the small-talk and also at faking interest in things I’m not interested in. :) Since most people around us are usually pretty different from us or what we like (like discussing politics and religions, and reading books that go beyond juvenile fiction) we’re always a bit outcast-ish.
And, we also like being around each other, and doing pretty much everything together. With all that said though…I DO miss my girl friends I used to have. I had such wonderful friends in college. Then we all spread out. I think, the moment we’d have a chance to get together it’d be like the old days. So, I know the friendships aren’t gone, but they are a lot like me, so we’re busy doing our thing, thinking back on the good days, and maybe hoping/wishing to see each other again one day, and then to be able to sit at a lake like you, without kids, with some yummy food, to talk of life, of things that mean something, or to just read a book quietly and then say something when we feel like it.
I miss having good friends. I’m pretty social and I miss the interactions passed my immediate family. I just have a hard time enjoying the social opportunities available to me…(who wants to talk endlessly of potty training, church callings, sexist husbands, and crafts? Not me…)
I think your situation is more common than the opposite. I have few close girlfriends, no one that I spend 1-on-1 girl time except occasionally my sister. My husband is much worse, and I feel guilty any time I have to/get to spend extra time away from him, but I think a lot of that is because he’s the stay-at-homer and I’m depriving him of well-deserved breaks. I’m horrible at small-talk, but usually up for almost any kind of adventure. So, me and my man find lots of our own adventures, and I feel so lucky to have such a friend.
You’re saying that after 18 years, you and your husband still can’t get enough of each other? Miss Heather, I don’t think that’s a problem. :)