childfree
Hate to break it to you, but making any friends in/past your 30s is very difficult. But I do get your point that choosing childless makes it even more difficult. I'm lucky enough to have had a couple of close friends who chose to remain childless before I had kids, and we are still close. But we would have remained close in any case.
I'm in my 50s now, and maybe I'm an asshole, but the last time I made a new friend (a real friend, not acquaintance) I was in my early 40s, and that friendship did not survive me moving an ocean away, to my great sadness. This happened with me several times starting in my early 30s, but I've moved continents three times, so mostly my fault.
child free adult here: we are few, but we exist. personally i don't expect friendship from people with children, or it would be as shallow as heck. lonely? i agree. but thats the price to be paid for not being part of the crowd.
I actually got more involved with the kink community events. People who have healthy sex lives often don't have children, because they want to keep things spicy. Yeah, there's a good handful of parents, but these are the people that realize that children can interfere with living, and they've all been super respectful (or openly envious) of my childfree choice. Getting my fallopian tubes yeeted was the best decision ever.
Spicy, you say! Go on …
Just add tumeric.
Fully agree with the hobbies. Also, if you're reasonably athletic, co-ed rec league sports can be a great way to meet folks.
You lost me at sports 😂
It’s tough! We joined childfree Meetup groups, and have made some couple friends that way.
This worked for me. I joined a meetup board gaming group and became close friends with the host. We were both single at the time, now we are both in relationships and child free and regularly get together to play games. It's been great.
Alow me an observation from the other side. I am a parent and I'm friends with two childfree couples (as well as with several other couples that don't have children now but plan them in the future). I meet my childfree friends when I have someone to babysit, so I have a free evening for them. Sometimes we spend holidays together and on those occasions they don't mind the children. In general, they choose the activities they want to participate in with me and it doesn't influence our friendship at all. In the end, I think it's about mutual respect (and finding people that are capable of it).
yeah, it's more about finding open minded people with empathy (and be open minded and empathic ourself) more than finding people just like us. Embracing differences, respecting and understanding eachother is key. There are plenty of people out there who keep their kids to themself and have plenty of other interests, it's easier to meet them if we don't push them away in the first place (just like they don't push us way fro being child free).
Hobbies mainly, we joined a running club (in our 50s). We go running with other couples, some are child free. The child free tend to gravitate towards each other. Perhaps because we have more free time, and tend to accept invitations, and are able to host, as a result.
The friends we still see/talk to were about half formed before I left school and half newly found through a post looking to form a D&D group in the new city we moved to. We aren't in to the bar scene at all. Most of my coworkers have kids - the younger ones who don't have similar interests but I just don't seem to hang out with them. The ones with kids never have time for anything, only the most well-off ones with stay-at-home partners even have hobbies to speak of. It's depressing.
Best option seems to sniff out the spaces dedicated to your area online. Subreddits, Facebook groups, and then see if you can find local events happening that are related to your interests, or other people looking to meet up, hang out, play games you like, etc. I'm not religious but I know a lot of people swear by meeting friends through church or church-related groups.