Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
You & your 'circles'
When you were at a certain 'point' in life, where were most of your friends? By that, I mean, when you got engaged, married, TTC, had your baby, bought a house?
For me - when I got engaged/married/bought a home, my friends were mostly about the same. But I think my circles of friends have changed, because now that I live in Albany, most of my friends don't have kids of the same age (they have younger kids). Not sure why.. I just realized many are younger (DH is a year younger than I am, and a lot are his friends).
I was thinking about this b/c of my cousin. She just got married at 26 lives in an apartment, none of my cousin's friends are married (for most, this was their first friend's wedding), none have homes. My aunt was totally shocked when at 26 a lot of my friends were homeowners - but she lived in a big city where home ownership was basically unheard of and didn't buy a home until much later, and her daughter is nowhere near buying a home, which makes sense since she lives in San Fran (high cost of living!!). Also she and her her friends are mostly still doing environmental internships (I know for a fact, and that most are near broke, because my aunt paid for all of their lodging when they came to the wedding- they wouldn't have been able to come if they had to pay for anything, including a gift).
Don't get me wrong - I absolutely do not think one should 'model' themselves after friends - nor am I judging. It is just interesting how perceptions can be so different or how various circles of friends can be so varied.
Re: You & your 'circles'
I have two "circles" I guess- My circle of highschool friends- had one of us marry at 23, two marry at 26,27 and we have 3 unmarried but we all have houses and the three married gals- all had children this year (jan, feb and june- and all boys!)- so I guess we're all kind of in the same place but we have some differences and its nice to talk to my non mommy friends...
My other circle is the albany girls I met when I moved here and I have to say that with most of them my milestones are hitting with theirs...we all got married around the same time, bought houses and are now having/adopting babies - its nice to have the support of women going through the same thing.
I would say that most of our friends are friends are somewhere around where we are. I would say 90% of our friends who are married/engaged own their own home. About half of our married friends have kids, and the other half do not. We do have a few truly single (as in not dating) friends, but they are mostly DH's buddies from HS.
One thing I really like about having friends at different points in life is that it definitely varies our activities. For example, we are much more likely to eat out, catch a movie or a drink/coffee with our childless friends. We tend to hang out at the homes/our home with our friends who do have children.
We want to start doing group vacations with our friends, but it is so hard bc we always have some part of our friends group who is getting married, having a baby, or getting a divorce!
Most of my friends got married before me....by about 3-6 years. I was single while they were engaged, I was dating when they got married, etc.
My oldest friends have husbands, houses and kids for the most part.
My "Saratoga" friends are mostly all married (one is engaged) and no kids. They are all never-ever's on the baby issue like us.
Most of my very close friends are married or arre in some kind of committed relationship. However, out of all that are local, I am the only one with a child. This is because Emma was a big surprise!!!
We'll most likely be the first to have children too which will put a spin on the whole thing I'm sure!
:Blog:
Most of my HS friends got married before I did, but some of them didn't go to college, and got married then. Some of them are no longer married. Most of them have kids.
I was the second of my college group to get married, and most of my college friends are either newly married or not at all. Only one has a baby. We were the first to own a house.
My friends I met after college all got married around the same time as me, and most of them have kids.
I would say overall, we have very few friends who are just like us - married without kids. Most of our friends are married with kid(s) or very single. The only friends I've really "grown apart" from are the ones who still go out every night, and the ones who get mental about their kids (though some of them have calmed down as their kids get older).
Clomid + Met = BFP#1 12/27/10, missed MC discovered 2/9/11, d&c 2/11/11, 10w3d
Natural cycle (just Met) = BFP#2 6/3/11, Baby A arrived 2/16/12
<a href="http://s1091.photobucket.com/albums/i390/tlneff0108/?action=view