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Health & Fitness

Single Revelation

Suddenly single after a divorce or loss of a spouse, many often find themselves at a loss for other single friends.

I have been so focused on helping single friends find new loves that I missed something altogether more important in helping my friends out. I had a single revelation: while my newly single friends wanted to find love again, they also missed companionship and not that of men but that of friends.

My single friends that never married created close groups of other single friends and have that camaraderie and tightly knit social circle they can rely on for plans and socializing. But my friends who have recently divorced found themselves alone. 

When you are married you socialize with other married couples but when you are suddenly single it is not easy socializing with these friends anymore. Your former spouse may have won some of them in the divorce and for the ones that remain it becomes uncomfortable going out on the weekends with them. I often hear that my friends feel like third wheels.

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I have a close friend who I met when she was separated. One Saturday night I had invited her and her kids to come over. While the kids were playing, we sat in the kitchen and talked. She had told me that I was her only married friend that ever invited her over with her kids on a weekend night. 

She felt that many of her married friends abandoned her. One even said to her that she was sorry she didn’t invite her out on a recent weekend but that she would have if she was still married  This former friend of hers didn’t realize how insulting she had been. 

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A new woman I met recently told me that she is the only single person in her entire group of friends. She said she spent the whole summer socializing with her married friends but wanted to go out with other single people.

This summer I introduced two of my single female friends. For them the situation was similar. On the weekends when they didn’t have their kids and didn’t have a date, they were alone. My mother says this was the best match I ever made. The two of them hit it off and have become very close. 

Getting divorced or becoming widowed doesn’t mean your married friends just drop you but it does change the dynamic in which you socialize them. Married people may meet their single friends for lunch or dinner during the week but are usually unavailable on the weekends. A social circle of other single people who understand where you are and where you’ve been may be hard to come by. 

It started to make me think that my website ‘s focus only on helping single friends meet dates was such a narrow scope. Why can’t it help single friends meet other single friends? 

In life love fills us up but friendships make us whole. 

If you have a story about a good friendship you would like to share, please comment.  Also to find out more about my website www.friend2friendnetwork.com, or to share a dating story or tip feel free to contact me at friend2friendnetwork@gmail.com.

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