Your Social Life (After You Have a Family Life)

Some young ladies dream of graduating college, establishing a career, getting married, having children and pets, and purchasing a house.

You may not realize how your social life will change after you accomplish some of these “adulting” goals. 

As a young woman, I yearned to get a great job after college, marry my long-term boyfriend, and eventually have children. I have accomplished those goals (working on getting the house thing), but I neglected to realize that once you reach your goals, your reality will change.

Going out with my girlfriends on a whim is something I can no longer do.

I have to plan my “nights out” days to coincide with homework, bath times, quality family time, husband time, gym time, work time, and other times that I may have neglected to mention (read household chores). My new reality means that I cannot just go out at the drop of a dime with my friends who are still single, the friends who go out every other weekend to Manhattan to go drinking and dancing.

As I understand it now, my social life does not involve going out at midnight and coming home at 5:30 a.m. I am fine with going out after work for happy hour drinks with one or two girlfriends and enjoying their company without men ogling over us and trying to get our phone numbers. I thrive on getting my two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc or Prosecco and discussing our lives.

As a result of this change, I feel like my friendship circle is ever-shrinking, shrinking to the point of extinction.

Over time, I have concluded that having a small circle of friends is okay. I have different interests than I used to. I used to revolve my social life around what my friends were doing and where they were going. I cannot tell you how many events I have skipped out on because of what I thought my friends would think about them.

This past year and a half, I have truly evolved, and I now know that it is okay to have a select group of people I would want to go out with and enjoy their company. It is okay to go to events alone. It is okay that my social interests do not exactly align with what my friends are doing.

My social life has evolved, and so has my belief in myself. I am truly happy to be going through this mental change. I am finally standing tall in my skin.