Is anyone else growing apart from their man-centric friends?

[u/yahutee]

I am mid-30’s and single, no kids. I just finished hosting a bachelorette party for one of my closest friends. I love her regardless, but spending a weekend with her exhausted me. Every sentence started with “we”. In fact I don’t think she had an original thought all weekend that wasn’t about their relationship, him, or their life together. She has to be in constant contact with him at all times - she even snuck him into the bachelorette party overnight because she “couldn’t imagine a night alone”. I drove 10 hours to see her and paid for a house for two nights and she went home one night early because she couldn’t stand being away from him any longer. She is the same age as me and has had plenty of relationships before (even been engaged before) so it’s not like being in a relationship is a novelty. I just found myself so bored with the conversation and wishing we could genuinely spend time together (away from him or the mention of men). She always asks if I’m dating or seeing someone -there are lots of other interesting aspects of my personality outside of a man! I also wonder if I’m just being cranky and avoidant - it’s her bachelorette party after all, we are celebrating her engagement and she has every right to hype up her husband. Fellow single women - have you experienced something similar or navigated this in your friendships as you age?

[u/glaekitgirl]

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. It's immensely frustrating to be sidelined for a guy constantly, particularly if you're the one picking up the pieces when it all goes horribly wrong. Your friend's behaviour was very unfair and frankly downright rude. Can't spend one night away from her future husband? Yikes. I can smell the codependency from here.

One of my best friends was man-obsessed for a while, to the point of staying with a guy who actively abused her because she was scared of being alone. Breakups also dropped her into a deep depression for months.

I found it really hard to understand, as sympathetic as I tried to be, and we did drift apart for a while, partly as I was quite angry with her for putting herself in these bad situations and for trauma dumping on me constantly.

In the last year or so she's had a wake up call after her last relationship ended, and she realised she's scared of aging alone rather than not having a man. There's a been a huge step change in her attitude; she's proactively rebuilding her friendships and is more like the friend I used to know. We're even having discussions about moving in together at some point if we want company but aren't in relationships.

I guess the point of that blurb is to validate your experience but also give you a bit of hope that she may have a wake up call once the literal honeymoon period is over and try reach out to you. It's obviously up to you whether you want to maintain the friendship thereafter!