Friendship Frustrations

This is a hard season for friendships. I feel like I talk about this a lot, but it's not getting any easier. I'm 30. In the South. 90% of my friends are married and about 70% of them have kids. (Statistics are completely made up, but likely pretty close to accurate.)

Last weekend, I went to dinner with some friends (all married) that I hadn't seen in a while. We ate and caught up on life. We They talked about marriage and the hardships of it. I smiled and nodded and continued to eat. They talked about spiritual life as a couple and some of the hard things about marriage that no one ever tells you before you get married. I'll just file that away for later...

Then they talked about friendships... how they each had their own friends coming into the marriage but they want couple friends that they both like and connect with.

I get it. That's totally normal and I want that for them. I want them to have couple friends that they can do couple-y things with and go on double dates and all that fun stuff. But when they were talking about it, all I could hear was that I'm not in a relationship and so I don't qualify for this potential new friendship that they are looking for and therefore will get phased out. Logically, I know that's not how they meant it, but I can't help but feel a little bit hurt by it.

I had a good time. It was good to connect and catch up, but I left the night feeling a little discouraged. Expectations are crazy. They'll get you ever time!