How do I make friends?

shablulim

I moved to Ireland from England two years ago, and have literally one friend in this country; I've not seen him for two years because he lives on the other side of the country with his wife and kids. When we (me & husband) made our plans to move over here, we expected to have a baby not long after and that was how I was going to meet people and make friends.

Well, that didn't happen; I had my eighth miscarriage instead. So I'm basically left with no way to make friends, because it seems like everyone has kids & there doesn't seem to be any other way for me to meet people. Fertility treatment has made my various health problems much worse, I live on a farm and can't go anywhere without my husband driving me, I can't work or go to any sort of organised hobby thing because my illness is so unpredictable and I have constant pain and exhaustion, and I'm a very fat (shouldn't put people off but it does), pierced & tattooed, disabled, autistic, infertile, Jewish weirdo with no kids and nothing in common with 99.9% of the people I speak to.

I want to like living here; currently I am utterly miserable and feel like I made a huge mistake coming here, but we can't leave for various reasons, not least the fact that my husband's job is here.

I want to have friends and feel like I am participating in life, but I really can't see how that's going to happen. I have good friends in England but they're, you know, in England. I'm eternally grateful for the internet but I want friends who live near me and who can come to my house. I want to feel like a real person, but all the usual methods people suggest for making friends just aren't options for me. I spoke to my neighbour a while ago and she said in six years of living here (she's from Waterford, we live a couple of miles outside Naas) she's never managed to make any friends because it's very cliquey. She's thin and normal-looking and able-bodied and although she has no kids either, it's alarming that she's not managed to find friends. If she's had no luck, what chance does someone like me have?

Sorry to blither so much with my first post; thanks if you read it all. I don't know what I'm hoping to get from this, as I can't think of anything that would help in my situation, but as my husband pointed out, that's why we ask other people, right?

Black Swan

Well, you have a grand start by posting to boards.ie indeed. Welcome! You can make friends here, and perhaps meet some of them at a boards beers or some other social gathering in the future. In the mean time, surf our forums, post, and interact with others on issues that are of interest to you.

Roselm

Hi OP, Sorry to hear you're feeling down.
I wonder if you could set up some sort of meetup group yourself? Perhaps a bookclub where the club met in your house every second time or something so that way people would be coming to you frequently and you could get to know the regulars at the club.
I suppose you could use this idea for any kind of group (and not just book club). Depends what you're into. What about an art group (drawing and or painting) group, embroidery/sewing, cookery, music (everyone brings a cd), drumming circle?!