Cooking for one

karcher

Poppy I often despair at how inconsiderate and hurtful people can be too..a simple text to say 'sorry I can't make it' would suffice...disappointing, but at least they let you know.

Pour yourself an extra large G&T and try and put it out of your mind x

Hollyharvey

poppystar wrote: »

I sometimes just despair of finding people with the same values - it seems particularly hard where I live now. I still have friends in places I have lived before and when we meet it is just like it's only yesterday since I last saw them.

I do sometimes think that people are less thoughtful nowadays or is it just so much harder to meet like minded people as you get on?

Having failed on the food front I think it will be a G&T - I shall try it with cucumber as someone here suggested

Like you I still have friends that I get on with in other places that I have lived over the years, but hardly ever see them as we are now so far apart. I only really have two close friends who live in the same town.


I do think that it is harder to meet people of similar values to yourself these days, I don't think that people in general meet in the ways that we used to, for example, no one goes out to their 'local' for a drink anymore. It used to be that I could walk into one particular pub and there would always be someone there who I could sit and talk to, and that is how I made a couple of good friends who live a long way from me now.


I also think that it is harder to meet people as you get older. A neighbour of mine seems to have joined every club going, from the archaelogical society to a choir (where she goes to concerts, but doesn't sing) and a few others but she hasn't made any real friends as such.


It does seem to be hard.


The G & T is the way to go right now though I hope you enjoy it

PasturesNew

Re friends/older. Once you hit about 20 a lot of people are dashing off to get married and have kids. That's them out of the equation for the next 20 years as they "drop" their single friends (nothing in common any more) .... and then, when people are older they're all about their grandchildren.

Many simply don't need "friends" as they have a spouse, children, grand-children for starters.....

As for those always single being friends .... well, we're just too weird for people to want to be our friend ... and we don't like them much either as they're weird too.



The only "friend" I've got (er, used to have it seems now..) puts me behind: parents, pet, sibling, other local friends with similar pets and neighbours with the same pet ....

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

I thought that was just me - I sometimes get "dropped at the last minute". It's annoying as I've usually planned my food/what I eat and what I buy for 4-5 days before I think I'm going out to eat, so I don't waste food, or over-buy it.

I must attract self-centred flakey people

Even if I said 4 months ago that I'd be round at 6pm on Thursday, you can set your clock by it and there'll be a knock on the door at 6pm prompt even if nothing's been said since the initial discussion/agreement. Plans, to me, are plans.

I agree as well - with the proviso that unexpected emergency stuff and the like can come up (ie not just "a better offer"). BUT, in this day and age, there is absolutely no excuse for not letting people know as soon as one knows oneself (what with mobile phones/email/message services as standard on landlines).

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

Many simply don't need "friends" as they have a spouse, children, grand-children for starters.....

..

That is very true imo from what I can see.

One way I deal with this personally is I'm pretty used to being "adopted" as a sort of relative iyswim. I'm a sorta "daughter" to one friend and a sorta "sister" to another one. Those sort of relationships do tend to start with both parties almost making a deliberate decision to get on with each other - as they would have to (or at least try to) if they were birth family iyswim. My best friend (ie back in Home Area) and the best friend I have in this area are both sort of "adopted relatives" type scenario.

But then I've gone through my life "adopting relatives" :rotfl:

But I do know what you mean and I think many do have a priority order for time/effort that has everyone else so low down the list that the slightest little thing means they cant/wont find time for anyone outside their family.

Some people do have very demanding relatives too - I can think of a friend that will put family first and a large part of that is she has allowed one particular relative (ie a daughter) to basically treat her time and money as her own and she will agree with me that she should reclaim her time and money for herself - and then the daughter is being "demanding"/refusing to grow up again for about the 6th time that week.

SunnyGirl

Good morning all. It's so much cooler here today it's lovely :j

I get what everyone is saying about friends and also find they change over the course of life. When I was first married we were friendly with other young couples, then the children came along and some friendships changed and some stayed the same as we all went through the trials and tribulations of parenthood together. Once the children were older and I was working full time my friends tended to be work based. When my husband died a lot of couples who had been friendly with us both suddenly dropped off the radar which was sad but I've had to accept it. I am an only child, and had moved around the country 21 times by the time I was 15, so I don't have any childhood friends that I grew up with. I am close to 4 people now and that's ok for me. Plus my parents and the children.

That turned into a bit of a long one I'm still in bed atm but am getting up shortly and clearing the airing cupboard out.

moneyistooshorttomention

Not forgetting the way that full equality between sexes still hasn't been achieved yet. There still isn't a 100% acceptance of women as people first and sex irrelevant iyswim.

One only has to watch a few tv adverts. They're better than they were - but it's noticeable that it still tends to be the woman seen doing the housework in any advert for household products for instance (that washing-up liquid ad with the young boy in it is an exception - as it's Dad doing the washing-up that time). But most of the time - it's still the woman. Then watch those cookery programmes teaching a family to eat well for less - and the woman seems to be the one with the attention focused on her as the cook of the household.

Witness the fact it's still deemed acceptable in at least one context for women to get less income than men (home equity release schemes I'm looking at you). Some of us can afford to boycott these schemes unless/until they give equal treatment but that must impact on some womens Lives (ie they need the money - but are boycotting them anyway).

All of this stuff means women getting the message they are deemed to have lower priority Lives than men and (if only well into pension age group) have less income to live their Lives with than men.

Put like that - it's understandable if women might be less inclined to find time/effort/money to put into friendships than they otherwise would.

SunnyGirl

MITSTM You would have loved some of my
criminology lectures this year as we have gone into depth about how women are treated by the media both as victims and offenders. Women are treated so much more harshly than men in the media, the criminal justice system and society. At first I was convinced that it was all bo**ocks and that the lecturer was biased or something. My eyes were opened well and truly and it was both horrifying and fascinating. We have also looked at the 'ideal victim' in life and not surprisingly the ideal victim for CJS, media and public is white, middle class, female, monogamous and must have been going about their 'normal daily business.

The men don't have to subscribe to this school of thought either as victims or offenders. This isn't me getting all political and feministic fanatical it's how it is. One of my friends regularly texts me while we're both watching programmes or the news to say 'ideal victim there' or 'she's no chance'. We are both single parents who work and are at university and it appalls us both whilst fascinating us in equal measure that this is how it really is.

PasturesNew

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Witness the fact it's still deemed acceptable in at least one context for women to get less income than men (home equity release schemes I'm looking at you). Some of us can afford to boycott these schemes unless/until they give equal treatment but that must impact on some womens Lives (ie they need the money - but are boycotting them anyway).

That's not because they're women, but because they live longer on average, so they pay less, for longer.

Maybe the answer is to formally have a sex change at the age where you want one, then you're a man on the forms

PasturesNew

Sooooo ....I have this fridge full of salady stuff. If were a family that would have already been consumed in 1-2 meals... leaving the fridge pretty empty.

It looks like 3 days of salads, but it'snippier

I had toast crusts and scrambled eggs for breakfast; I will use the final two slices of that loaf to make tomato sandwiches later ...and that is the end of the 45p loaf I bought so NONE of it went into the freezer! Hurrah ... because the freezer already has the half loaf I put in it a week ago ...which, of course, needs using up at some point.

I'm now "stuck" with bread as I wish to use the freezer bread, which is best used as toast, before buying a new loaf (which I prefer for sandwiches) .... but I do have one half-baked baguette still and an unopened pack of pitta. So sliced bread is off the menu for at least a week and sandwiches are off the menu.

Looks like I can't avoid/ignore all that salady stuff then ....