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Re: Making friends
Originally Posted by MillieF
(Post 11629574)
The weather definitely makes for hibernation, I think that such long periods shut inside does something to the psyche...
Yes Maple Moments, the general interest clubs I hope will be good - I brought my Citroen 2CV here, and took her to a car show today, and got lots of interest as she's a bit different here. I'm in the Fredericton Marathon too (only 10k, but part of a group) - Air Cadet Parents v the Kids! Guess which group will win:blink: Whether these overtures bear fruit I have yet to find out, I know scores of people here, but only on the most facile of levels.... Wow, you actually floated yer 2CV over the big pond and can now proudly display it in Fredericton. Great stuff. |
Re: Making friends
I've been thinking of this thread, and also some comments made on the racism thread
I realise that OH and I have a mixed bag of friends here, of all nationalities (hence the thought raised by the other thread) ............ but almost all of them were made over 35 years ago. That is, within a dozen years of arriving here, we had made the good friends that we have today. We used to have contacts with parents of our daughter's class mates, went to dinner and other events with them, some for all of the 12 years the children were "together". We have had no contact with any of those parents since a couple of years after the children graduated. We all moved on. The friends we do have we both made through work or through those friends ............ except for 1 friend of mine who moved here 2 years before us. OH also made a number of friends through refereeing and coaching Rugby .... those are mainly his friends! Most are not English immigrants ........... we have friends who are Canadian born, originally American, originally Australian, originally Irish. The largest number are Canadian born I don't know how we differ, whether it was the work circles we were in, but we cannot complain that we do not have good friends who we see as much or as little as we want. The "drop in for a cuppa" has never been part of our upbringing ........ neither of our parents did it in the UK, and none of our friends do it now. It just does not seem to ever have been a part of the Canadian culture .......... one of our neighbours (a Canadian) tried having coffee mornings some years ago, but they didn't last long. After all, my experience is that most Canadians do not drink much tea Lives are busy, work schedules can be crazy ............... but you do have to put yourself out, and not expect people to come to you. The other thing I have learned over the years is that Canadians are a different people. They may have once been a colony of the UK, and are now a member of the Commonwealth, but they are NOT the UK. You have to learn the language, and the way of talking about things, and adjust accordingly. The sardonic or sarcastic British humour is not commonly appreciated, and may well be completely misunderstood. |
Re: Making friends
My wife has a fair number of friends, but she made them all when she was a child/teenager.
She is in touch with most still, but none live in this town anymore, they have all moved onto other city's and provinces. She is a social butterfly but still doesn't really make friends as an adult. She goes to a few clubs but outside of those clubs nobody really does anything with one another. I am not a social butterfly, and never had friends most of life, so doesn't really bother me too much, generally I am satisfied with not having a bunch of friends. I did look into meetup and such but being a small town nothing was on the websites, well meetup had 1 group, but I don't have an interest that type of group since I am not a business professional. I am friendly with co-workers, but I don't want to see them outside of work, nor do I have much in common with early 20 year old's. Probably just a different way of life vs the UK, or you made the friends you had there when you were younger which is generally easier to do. |
Re: Making friends
it is much harder to make friends the older you get ............. and "old" seems to be over the age of about 25 or 30!
OH's father held on to his family house in another county in England "until retirement" ........... until he realised that all their friends were in the place he now lived, and all his friends from childhood had moved away. So he sold the house. Similarly, they looked at retiring to Canada when both their children ended up here ............ the only people they would have known here were OH and his sibling and their families. In the UK, they had a very active social life. Father-in-law (if not so much m-i-l) realised that their chances of making friends at the age of 65 were much reduced when moving to a completely different country. |
Re: Making friends
Originally Posted by scilly
(Post 11629632)
it is much harder to make friends the older you get ............. and "old" seems to be over the age of about 25 or 30!
OH's father held on to his family house in another county in England "until retirement" ........... until he realised that all their friends were in the place he now lived, and all his friends from childhood had moved away. So he sold the house. Similarly, they looked at retiring to Canada when both their children ended up here ............ the only people they would have known here were OH and his sibling and their families. In the UK, they had a very active social life. Father-in-law (if not so much m-i-l) realised that their chances of making friends at the age of 65 were much reduced when moving to a completely different country. I feel old mostly from 2 things. The chronic pain that prevents me from doing a lot, and my siblings and cousins all having kids young who are now reaching adulthood. Nothing to make you feel old as seeing a now 18 year old adult that you knew as an infant...lol Good chance one of my sisters will be a grand parent before I have 1 kid...lol People often have different perceptions of home once they are somewhere new, they remember the good, but may not remember the bad. Things change, people change, all you can do is make the best of what you have. |
Re: Making friends
if you feel old at having an 18 year old nephew ............... think what it feels like to have a GREAT niece :lol:
My brother was over 10 years older than me, married young, had his family immediately. I had a great niece by the time I was 42 :eek: She is now old enough to have children ............. but, fortunately for my sanity, hasn't had any! ps ........... I'm sorry to hear you struggle with pain. It's no fun, is it? |
Re: Making friends
Originally Posted by scilly
(Post 11629605)
I've been thinking of this thread, and also some comments made on the racism thread
I realise that OH and I have a mixed bag of friends here, of all nationalities (hence the thought raised by the other thread) ............ but almost all of them were made over 35 years ago. That is, within a dozen years of arriving here, we had made the good friends that we have today. We used to have contacts with parents of our daughter's class mates, went to dinner and other events with them, some for all of the 12 years the children were "together". We have had no contact with any of those parents since a couple of years after the children graduated. We all moved on. The friends we do have we both made through work or through those friends ............ except for 1 friend of mine who moved here 2 years before us. OH also made a number of friends through refereeing and coaching Rugby .... those are mainly his friends! Most are not English immigrants ........... we have friends who are Canadian born, originally American, originally Australian, originally Irish. The largest number are Canadian born I don't know how we differ, whether it was the work circles we were in, but we cannot complain that we do not have good friends who we see as much or as little as we want. The "drop in for a cuppa" has never been part of our upbringing ........ neither of our parents did it in the UK, and none of our friends do it now. It just does not seem to ever have been a part of the Canadian culture .......... one of our neighbours (a Canadian) tried having coffee mornings some years ago, but they didn't last long. After all, my experience is that most Canadians do not drink much tea Lives are busy, work schedules can be crazy ............... but you do have to put yourself out, and not expect people to come to you. The other thing I have learned over the years is that Canadians are a different people. They may have once been a colony of the UK, and are now a member of the Commonwealth, but they are NOT the UK. You have to learn the language, and the way of talking about things, and adjust accordingly. The sardonic or sarcastic British humour is not commonly appreciated, and may well be completely misunderstood. |
Re: Making friends
Originally Posted by scilly
(Post 11629668)
if you feel old at having an 18 year old nephew ............... think what it feels like to have a GREAT niece :lol:
My brother was over 10 years older than me, married young, had his family immediately. I had a great niece by the time I was 42 :eek: She is now old enough to have children ............. but, fortunately for my sanity, hasn't had any! ps ........... I'm sorry to hear you struggle with pain. It's no fun, is it? I am at a point now where my lower back goes into horrendous pain for menial chores like standing and doing dishes by hand, add in my elbows, wrists, and knees and my body is falling apart. The pain by and large why I do not think I will work into older age. I hope my sisters kids do not have kids young, I hope their kids can break the cycle of kids by 19 or 20. Aside from me and a cousin, everyone else (siblings and cousins) had their first kid by 20. I may have ended up with a kid young if I had been interested in dating, but eh I had better things to do, and didn't even start to date until 23 or so. |
Re: Making friends
I like the Peter Ustinov quotation on friendship:
Friends are not necessarily the people you like best; they are merely the people who got there first. |
Re: Making friends
Originally Posted by Jsmth321
(Post 11629684)
It's miserable and even worse because when your young ish (36) people expect you to not have pain and then act like your lying when you say you can't do something because of it.
I am at a point now where my lower back goes into horrendous pain for menial chores like standing and doing dishes by hand, add in my elbows, wrists, and knees and my body is falling apart. The pain by and large why I do not think I will work into older age. I hope my sisters kids do not have kids young, I hope their kids can break the cycle of kids by 19 or 20. Aside from me and a cousin, everyone else (siblings and cousins) had their first kid by 20. I may have ended up with a kid young if I had been interested in dating, but eh I had better things to do, and didn't even start to date until 23 or so. I do empathise with you ............. my spine is deteriorating in 2 places due to osteoarthritis, and has been since the mid-1980s. OA is also in practically every other joint in my body. I take painkillers every day, have physio every 3 weeks, and do physio-ordained exercises regularly. But I now walk with a cane, and OH has to do almost everything around the house. However, I am a lot older than you! There is a reason why OA and RA are known as among the "invisible" diseases, because they are not immediately obvious. I was much later than my brother in dating seriously and getting married. Well, I had to finish university, and get a real job to find out what it was like not to be a student :rofl: ............... and we took much longer, by choice, to have a child! We'd been married almost 7 years when my daughter was born, and his daughters then ranged in age from 22 to 15. :lol: His daughters never called me "Aunt", I was so close in age to them ............ and that caused great confusion for the eldest one's daughter, who could not understand the relationship for the longest time! The fact that she was only 8 years younger than my daughter also added to the confusion for her! |
Re: Making friends
Lychee
thank you! |
Re: Making friends
Originally Posted by scilly
(Post 11629792)
I do empathise with you ............. my spine is deteriorating in 2 places due to osteoarthritis, and has been since the mid-1980s. OA is also in practically every other joint in my body. I take painkillers every day, have physio every 3 weeks, and do physio-ordained exercises regularly. But I now walk with a cane, and OH has to do almost everything around the house.
However, I am a lot older than you! There is a reason why OA and RA are known as among the "invisible" diseases, because they are not immediately obvious. I was much later than my brother in dating seriously and getting married. Well, I had to finish university, and get a real job to find out what it was like not to be a student :rofl: ............... and we took much longer, by choice, to have a child! We'd been married almost 7 years when my daughter was born, and his daughters then ranged in age from 22 to 15. :lol: His daughters never called me "Aunt", I was so close in age to them ............ and that caused great confusion for the eldest one's daughter, who could not understand the relationship for the longest time! The fact that she was only 8 years younger than my daughter also added to the confusion for her! I don't know the in's and out's of medical stuff, but some sort of chemical in the body comes back high when blood work is done which indicates inflammation apparently. The doctors will eventually figure it out, or maybe they won't. Does seem to be a lot people with chronic pain but with no real confirmation as to what is causing it. I just know Tylenol = does almost nothing for it, Advil = makes the pain subside and feel better. ( I use the generic versions, just easier to type out the brand names...lol) We have no plans for kids, we couldn't provide what they would need without adding huge struggle and stress to the mix. We don't say it will never happen, as we haven't taken any permanent steps to prevent a child since we don't know what the next 5-8 years hold, but accidents do happen, but we no plans at this time to have kids. We shall see what the future holds. |
Re: Making friends
I depend on Tylenol, am not allowed to take Advil because of another problem that I have that would be made worse by taking it (any NSAID is off limits for me).
So far over-the-counter Tylenol is OK, with Tylenol 3 as the "take when necessary". I'm not sure what the next medication will be if / when Tylenol stops working for me. I too have never received a definite diagnosis of which arthritis I have because the blood tests are inconclusive ......... but the damage I have is typical of OA, so we go with that I do believe that I would not even be walking now if I had not found my current physio (courtesy of my then GP) back in 1997. I hope they find something to help you. You are too young! |
Re: Making friends
Ideally the doctor would rather not have me use advil because of stomach issue, but I can't take tylenol because of its potential to damage the liver which is a higher risk for me due to something in the past.
Luckily Zantac 2 times per day keeps the advil from bugging my stomach, so taking a pill so I can take a pill, if that makes sense. |
Re: Making friends
I currently take 2 different prescribed medications for the stomach problem that Advil would make worse ................. the 2 together cost me almost $200 a month
If the problem is made worse ......... a pre-pre-cancerous condition becomes pre-cancerous and then quite quickly cancerous it's the reason I can no longer drink even ½ glass of wine. Two sips of champagne at Christmas and again at New Year is all I've been able to drink for about 5 years. :( |
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