BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Number of Child-Free In-Person Friends

I am curious - how many in person child-free friends do most people here have? Off the top of my head I can think of 8 couples, plus 5 singles, in my immediate social group who do not have kids who we go out to dinner with, go drinking with, or so on.

The only "in person" CF good friends I have live two days drive away so we seldom see them. We have single CF friends, only a few. Otherwise, everyone else has kids. That's the type of community we happened to move to. I have found it hard to make "in person" friends because the majority of people I meet have kids.

Do they have wine tasting nights, chamber of commerce meetings, golf outings? Those are a few of the sorts of events that draw people who are child free. We can brainstorm!

I imagine for example that my town has a ton of parents in it, but because I rarely go to parental types of activities, I rarely if ever run into them ...

Just off the top of my head, I've seen this in the past few days -

bike path biking = lots of parents with kids
mountain biking down hills = no parents, no kids

What types of activities are you interested in?

I hate to stereotype but we live a Irish Catholic community. It's rare to find a young couple without children here. In fact they seem to start really young here, at least I think it's young. DH and I pretty much just do our own thing: hiking, camping etc. Neither of us drink or do the bar scene.

I use to belong to a Women's in Sales and Advertising (was actually President at one time) for about four years but again, everyone I met had kids. It's funny, but since I've moved here the majority of people I've hooked up with have been over 60.

The majority of people that we "hang out" with, are CF.

We've gotten to know other parents over the years, through school events and athletics, but our really good friends - thaat we like to get togethe with are CF, mostly married, but a few are still single.

Most of these friends are old college friends or HAM radio friends, so people that we share academic interests with. We enjoy talking movies, books, whatever. (My younger brother calls us the "geek brigade" - I tell him he's just jealous of the IQ level)

I have ONE left - one lousy, measly, child-free friend!
All the others have "succumbed"... I keep telling them, do what you want, I will NEVER become a member of that club! I think that as you go up there in your years and once you hit that 3-0, you notice that they are few and far between.

Very few here and the ones I do have are planing on having children so they are not CF. Fortunately I have yet to lose a friend because of a pregnancy or child, I don't see them as much but they are still willing to find a babysitter so we can hang out. So when the baby has to come with it doesn't bother me.

We have two couples that are childfree (but planning to have kids). Our two best friends (also couples) have kids and the amount of time we spend with them dwindled to almost non-existence. Of course, this is hard on us. No, I don't want to hang out with their kids, but they can't find a single night where we could go out as adults? I'm not greedy. Once every month or two would be great.
I have one girlfriend with three kids. She always makes time for us without her kids. I think she appreciates that about our dates.
My childfree couple friends are happily waiting for the right time. All are pushing 30. Their families are supportive and I love being around them.

It's funny, because I never found that growing older made it harder to find child free couples. I am 39 right now and have had this same group of friends since my mid-20s at least. One couple loves motorcycling and hiking and they have a dog. Another couple runs a series of websites on job search. A third couple runs websites on senior issues. A fourth couple owns a pair of horses and are into high tech fields. So it's really never been an issue at all. I haven't seen any attrition. In fact I can only think of one couple that ended up having kids, and I had not seen much of them before that anyway.

In fact, if anything, two separate couples both had one kid each and when the kid turned 18 and went off to college, they in essence became child free. We can see them all the time, go out for dinner, have fun and do whatever we want to do with them.

I wonder if it is a "field" situation. Most of these people I know are in computer / tech fields. They are quite bright and are doing genetic research or computer chip design or so on. They are independent and do what they want - they would never put up with pressure from family members. So it was never like they were "swaying". They did what they wanted to do and were very content with it.

If it's not age, then is it a "social circle" kind of situation? I don't mean money, but interests. I am sure there are lots of parents in the area I live in - but really, I rarely meet them.

In fact I was at a wine dinner a week or two ago and the couple we were talking with was child free, in their late 20s. He loved soccer, she was a hotel manager. The couple next to us was child free. Biotech people.