moshquerade
No Lifer
you sound like you have a case of "getting old", and not being able to party with the young kids any more 😉
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Why don't people make plans anymore?
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bad phrasing is phrased badly.
didn't mean to say that his wife padlocked him to the house or something, just that he can't go out with the kid at home. or something.
idk, we attempt to make plans and they're always like come over and let's hang out, which is fine once in awhile, but as a single 20something with mostly single 20something friends, that's not how I want to spend every Friday/Saturday night.
moshquerade
No Lifer
well then... you just agreed with my last post.
Before I was married and gainfully employed, I hated making plans. I so much preferred just flying by the seat of my pants. But now that I'm married and have kids, spur of the moment decisions really wreck havoc. Unfortunately, it's usually my wife's asshat father (not stepfather - he's great) who's totally oblivious to the lives of others who's the worst offender. He'll call us up at 5:00 on a Saturday and demand that we come over for dinner in thirty minutes. Never mind that we have two kids, are both in school, and have constant soccer/baseball/gymnastic/swimming practices going on with our kids. Thankfully my wife finally told him to stuff it about a year ago. "Either plan ahead or don't plan it at all."
I felt like i was "getting old" since I was 15! Then I acted like a total douche/party maniac for 3 years (early 20s) and thought I had the time of my life, but the truth is I was just drunk all the time 🙂 honestly, we're saving so much money by staying away from alcohol.. I honestly hate drinking now, yet most of my friends still bar hop.. Maybe that's a part of the equation?
moshquerade
No Lifer
so move on to the next phase of friends. anyone is lucky to keep a friend for a life time. we seem to out grow each other, or move away, or just lose touch with many friends over the course of a life time. you sound like you don't have anything in common any more with your current friends. if it's causing you this much misery then find some friends who are more your speed.
Where do people find adult friends? Hah, that sounds creepy. I don't want to get to know any of my co-workers, we go to church but I'd hate to be a church person (my faith is personal, and I have no desire to watch "The Passion of Christ" over potluck), my neighbors mostly speak languages other than English (this is NYC after all)...
I don't want to ditch my friends over my lack of time, but you're right.. I should "supplement" things. The funny thing is that my wife and I both used to be very social but discovered that we're kinda loners, once we found each other.
waggy
No Lifer
man that first year is fricken a pain. out of my friends i was the first married and first to have kids. Some didnt understand that i can't just pack up and go for a 3 day motorcycle ride or go out drinking all night.
They would call and ask me and the wife to go out with hours notice. then bitch when we say no we can't. They didnt understand we need to get babysitters and such. its not always easy to find a babysitter you trust on the spure of the moment.
now that all oure friends have kids they understand now. We still go out often but we plan stuff out more then a week.
nanette1985
Diamond Member
Amusing that the "spontaneous" group is the one that is having trouble being flexible with changing circumstances of their friends.
meh. I have no problem understanding that my friends' circumstances have changed, but I wish they'd grok that mine haven't.
like, when a blanket email goes out to everyone saying "let's get together Friday night," and there's the unspoken understanding that getting together will likely lead to going out to a restaurant or bar, I'd rather they didn't show up at all than show up with the baby.
it's funny, though. since the center of the circle has changed, I've actually gotten closer with my other friends... three of us have similar work scheduled (in that we all have thursdays and fridays off) and have started frequently planning mid-week outings to go shopping together or drive out to a casino or something. last week we had a picnic followed by an impromptu drive out to Sands in PA.
Here's an additional rant:
My friends are great about this stuff, my inlaws on the other hand drive me crazy. There is nothing worse than excitedly looking forward to the game all week long, then have your mother in law call you 20 minutes before it starts and invites you over for some family activity. Yous say thanks but no thanks. Then she says well we're doing 'so and so' tomorrow, come then. Well no thanks I have plans (it's called walking around the house in my underwear all day long). Then she says well why don't you come over for dinner the day after because 'so and so' are going to be over. How about leave me the F alone? I was over at your house 3 nights ago for some other BS family activity, and only did that to give you off my back for a while. Give me more than 3 days without having to take your crap.
Then my brother in law and his wife (neither of which I can stand) call my wife and I up to go play tennis randomly. That's weird considering they live like an hour away and we have never hung out together outside of a family event. But whatever, I make sure he can play tennis so I'm not bored out of my mind. He and his wife both claim to play tennis. They then show up with their 2 month old baby that needs attention every 2 seconds, and not only can neither of them play tennis, but getting my brother in law to focus on the subject at hand is like trying to teach a special needs child advanced calculus.
Word of warning to you single guys. If you grew up very independent with a lone wolf kind lifestyle with only occasional family activities, do not marry into a family that does tons of family stuff with their grown children all the time. Or make sure you live a thousand miles away. Although I have the feeling even if we lived 1000 miles away we would still get the calls inviting us to dinner 3 times a week.
My friends are great about this stuff, my inlaws on the other hand drive me crazy. There is nothing worse than excitedly looking forward to the game all week long, then have your mother in law call you 20 minutes before it starts and invites you over for some family activity. Yous say thanks but no thanks. Then she says well we're doing 'so and so' tomorrow, come then. Well no thanks I have plans (it's called walking around the house in my underwear all day long). Then she says well why don't you come over for dinner the day after because 'so and so' are going to be over. How about leave me the F alone? I was over at your house 3 nights ago for some other BS family activity, and only did that to give you off my back for a while. Give me more than 3 days without having to take your crap.
Then my brother in law and his wife (neither of which I can stand) call my wife and I up to go play tennis randomly. That's weird considering they live like an hour away and we have never hung out together outside of a family event. But whatever, I make sure he can play tennis so I'm not bored out of my mind. He and his wife both claim to play tennis. They then show up with their 2 month old baby that needs attention every 2 seconds, and not only can neither of them play tennis, but getting my brother in law to focus on the subject at hand is like trying to teach a special needs child advanced calculus.
Word of warning to you single guys. If you grew up very independent with a lone wolf kind lifestyle with only occasional family activities, do not marry into a family that does tons of family stuff with their grown children all the time. Or make sure you live a thousand miles away. Although I have the feeling even if we lived 1000 miles away we would still get the calls inviting us to dinner 3 times a week.
12/10!!!!
Both of my parents are deceased. You would think this would make planning life easier, but no.
My Wife's Mom's Side: Have to get together for every little thing. There are a total of 6 different birthdays that span August, September, and October. Do you think we could consolidate a bit? Hell no. We need to celebrate each and every one individually (this includes mine and my wife's, by the way). If a family member drops into town - usually unannounced, of course - everyone's expected to show up. Regardless, I've worked hard over the years to lower everyone's expectations. And once my wife went back to school, she was on board, too.
My Wife's Dad's Side: Already went there in a previous post... recap: calls out of nowhere and demands that people bend to his will. "We're going out to our cabin this weekend, why don't you guys come along." Well, his cabin is a little shoebox in a mosquito-infested, gasoline-tainted swamp, and again, we can't just carve a weekend out of nowhere without any notice. Even with notice we probably couldn't. But when we decline, he pouts like a little child. Then we get the phone call from my wife's step mom. This lady is just a witch. She'll try every angle at a guilt trip that she can think of, and she'll try to "solve" our problem for us:
"We can't make it, jbourne77 has midterms next week so we need to study."
"Oh, well why don't you just come without him."
"Well, jbourne77 jr. has a soccer game Sunday morning."
"Oh that's ok, one game won't matter."
Bitch, can't you see we're trying to be polite here? Try it sometime. Us declining your offer is not a bloody invitation for debate. If we wanted to be around you, we'd find a way to make it work. But we don't, so we didn't. Take a hint you nag.
This is pretty funny - my parents are getting older and I personally am feeling guilty about not spending as much time with them, so internally commit to seeing them twice a week. My wife would rather stay home most of the time (not that she doesn't like my parents)... I understand that it could get annoying, but maybe twice a week is too much..
Gunslinger08
Lifer
Meh, my family and my wife's family are pretty easy. I'm the youngest in my family, so everyone pretty much has their own lives and things to do. We get together once a week for a family dinner at my parents. It's nice to catch up then, but not have any other real obligations outside of holidays (mothers/fathers day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). That said, I do enjoy spending time with my family and will drop by my parents house, sit by my brother's outdoor fireplace with him and have some beers, or go out to a bar with them.
My wife is the oldest, so we get pulled into a little more of the family type events (siblings sporting events, family day trips, etc.), but they're usually good about giving us plenty of warning and it isn't too hard to convince my wife to blow things off if we had something else planned (or just want to take it easy at home).
Yes, that seems a bit excessive. Especially once you have kids, I'd even say once a week is too much. Special occasions aside (and assuming those occasions are in MODERATION, unlike my wife's mom who likes to celebrate even-numbered Tuesdays), 2 or 3 times a month seems appropriate. To each his own of course, but there was a time when we were at my wife's parents' place at least once a week, and I started losing my fucking mind. It was like, "cut the friggin' cord already, we're adults with our own lives - can we start living them already?".
The frequency was mostly due to guilt my wife felt since it was obvious her mom wasn't ready to let go (even after having kids, we still had to go over on Christmas morning so my wife could open her presents - it was fucking ridiculous), so I finally put my foot down about 6 years ago.
"If you're going to insist on entertaining this nonsense, then I'm going to my parents' (this was before they were deceased, obviously, or that would have been weird). Your parents are divorced - we can't be at our house, your dad's house, your mom's house, and my parents' house for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and every even-numbered Tuesday. We're going to need to ration our time, and people are just going to have to deal with it. Otherwise, you and I are going to be spending a lot of time apart." It was ugly for awhile, but it's sorted.
They say that money is the hardest part about being married. Nonsense. Partitioning time between families is.
:thumbsup:
now that my sister has a kid, her plan is that all family events have to either be at her house or our mom's house (which is like 3 blocks away from her house). I volunteered myself to help cook for any event that she wants to host.
I'm looking forward to not being expected to gallivant all over the entire state on Christmas to have breakfast/lunch/dinner with different relatives in different areas.
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