I don't have friends from when I was a kid, lost touch when I moved away from the area and just seemed to have nothing in common when I moved back. Got one couple that me and Mrs luv meet up with for a drink or go out to a restaurant. We also keep in touch and visit friends of Mrs luv in Holyhead and Wigan and a family in Austria.
Similar to you. I’ve moved about a fair bit and every time I do, I’m cutting off friendships. I now live by myself in a county I’m not from and I see a couple of lads about the village. Very rarely I’ll see them for a few drinks. They aren’t proper friends, though. I’m a loner. By choice. Prefer it this way in all honesty. Keeping loads of friends is too time consuming for me. I just can’t be bothered with it.
I think it's important to have some kind of friendship group, I suppose I'm a bit of a loner all our friends other than 1 are because Mrs luv is a really nice friendly person and I tag along. I'm not horrible or anything but I doubt I'd have many friends if it wasn't for Mrs luv.
I have friends I've known for decades, who I hardly ever see, but they're still friends because there's no substitute for that shared history. Not many of those, but they're deep even if we've grown apart. And I have friends I know through alcoholics anonymous, friends I know I can rely on, and they can rely on me. That's a blessing, and if I wasn't a recovering alcoholic I wouldn't even have met those people. When I was on the piss, I had lots of drinking buddies and the bond was pretty close but a lot of those people are dead now.
Had a decent group of friends as a kid, a couple of whom I still call and speak to every now and then. I moved from MK, only 20 minutes away though. The main issue is, where as I got married and had kids and got a full time job, my friends never did the same. One of them, whom I would count as my best friend since I was about 8 or 9, lives alone, quit his job and spends all time mining crypto currency. He actually does really well financially from what I can tell, but he doesnt like to leave his house, in case he misses an "air drop" or one of his coins has a spike, which means I only get to see him if I go round his house, and he lives half hour away from me and I have a wife, a full time job and two kids. My other good friend of both mine and my best friend, decided to move to Ireland and work as a games dev for EA. He also spends most of his time gaming, lives alone, and sits there dropping acid, taking mushrooms and playing whatever the latest game is, so unless I am gaming with him, he doesnt seem to be interested. I had one other good friend from that group, he decided to kill himself using intravenous drugs he stole from a Veterinary clinic he worked at. Short answer, I decided to take the conventional route in life, marriage, kids, full time job, where as everyone else I grew up with decided to live alone, be a hermit, and never leaves their house and/or takes vast amount of narcotics.....which obviously isnt something I want around my kids. I have a pretty decent friend from my work, a northerner, a Leeds fan, Ex Navy who is pretty cool who I hang with sometimes, but 99% of my time is taken up by the sprogs and the ball and chain
Reckon I've got eight to ten of these from as way back as primary school, but mainly secondary school, who remain and always will be my proper friends. Type of blokes who will remain friends till I die, even if I only see them a couple of times a year because they are from back where I originate. One or two live in foreign countries so rarely see them at all, but still applies. Got a decent bunch of mates where I live as well mind. But they haven't got that childhood bond thing. Because I work away in the week quite a bit, I can take advantage of that by doing the loner thing on those nights. Got no problem at all with just my own company at these times, so pretty much have the best of both worlds.
Yeah I do, but none of them are in the UK. They're all friends I made here in Norway, through working at different places, or through other people and we just got close. Norwegians are harder nuts to crack than Brits tend to be but in my experience they're extremely loyal friends once you're at that level.
Lucky to say yes, I don’t have loads of mates but the ones I have are like brothers. My two best mates I’ve known since the first year of secondary (I turn 35 on Saturday so 24 years of friendship). Was best man at one’s wedding a few years back. Got two other mates I’ve known since 17 or 18 through my cousin, I’m heading back to London on Saturday for birthday drinks and I’ll be staying at one of their’s. Another I’ve known for about ten years now, became mates after my cousin broke his collarbone a few days before West Brom away so his brother advertised his match and train tickets on a Spurs Facebook group and the guy that wanted them has become a great mate, was at his wedding 6 months ago.
Not really but that's down to a number of reasons ranging from choice and through to death, cheating and self destructive behaviour.
Yeah I think it is important too. I know I’ve gone too far the other way. The mates I had and broke away from were animals and I caught up in quite a bit of ****e with them. Although I get bored a lot, I still prefer this to the life that I once had.
Like a lot of folk on here, I've moved around and lost touch with a lot of childhood friends. But there are friends I've made across the country from various previous lives who I count as lifelong friends, we only see each other once every couple of years, but it's like nothing has changed when we get together. I've got quite a wide circle of friends down here now from the music scene, surfing, biking and working on the markets and events. Some of the lads I work with are my proper bros now and these are the blokes who I go off camping and bike packing with. Sitting around the campfire with the lads after a 20 mile ride, chomping on some shrooms, bunnin a spliff and chatting ****e for a few hours is something I really value. I've always felt that your best friends are the ones that are in your life at that moment. Life changes and things move on. But that said, I've always been happy with my own company too and I'll happily take myself off for a couple of nights on the moors on my tod just to be with myself and my own thoughts.
On a WhatsApp group with about 15-20 guys I went to school with - went to a boys grammar school (passed the '11-plus') that was in the centre of Leicester and we came from all over the city. The group is mainly my year and most from the football team - but a few I knew from primary school football in opposition - a couple of them were also at the same Uni - 3 or 4 teachers in the group too... Going up for the annual get together on 13th December ... lots of us turning 65 in the last 2 months!
