Friends - Austin,TX

My wife and I have always found church to be a wonderful place to meet new friends when we move into a new area. When we were newly married, we went to the "young marrieds" groups and found them to be wonderful. We traded babysitting, had play dates for the kids and young marrieds pot luck dinners.

My kids all do this now.

If you want to go to my church in Austin, e-mail me.

Good luck to you and yours.

1 mom found this helpful

Because you're talking about women?! Some are catty & some really just don't like change or to add new people to their "circle". Finding friends is like dating, I often say. Just when I think I've found someone great, their true colors show & I have to dump them. I'm all about quality, not quantity. I'd rather have 2 good friends than 10 crappy ones.

One thing I've learned is that you have to make the effort. Being a wallflower will not make you any friends. People are not going to come to you. Learn how to be outgoing & just start talking to moms in the park, story time, etc. If you think you click, then ask if they'd like to hang out sometime with the kids. Make sure you follow up & make it happen.

Making & keeping friends can be hard as an adult, when you have so much to juggle. It's a constant effort. I think you if you are open & flexible, it makes friendship a lot easier to find & maintain.

1 mom found this helpful

It is so hard. For a long time I had some wonderful friends, but last year they all began moving away for various reasons (jobs, marriage, etc.). I'm 40, happily married, with a 13 and 7 year old, but I was lonely without my friends to go do things with. We still talk and email, but I wanted people to SEE. I'm a teacher, but I don't always want to talk about school.

I was on a mission to make new friends. At the beginning of the school year I met a woman at my youngest son's open house that seemed nice. I deciced to try to get to know her better, and talked to her at each school event. Then we had her son over to play. Now it's summer and our kids are friends and so are we. We have passes to the local waterpark and do other things together too. We aren't just moms who have kids who are friends, we are friends as well. It took some effort, but it was worth it. There is another mom that is hanging out with us some at the waterpark that is becoming a friend also. Yay!

I hope you can meet some women soon. It does take more effort than it did when we were teens and in school, but it is worth it to have companionship.

1 mom found this helpful

I was in your same shoes! :) Except I'm from Iowa and moved to Dallas 6 years ago. A husband and two kids later it's so hard to meet women. It's not like we're in the "dating" scene anymore- I haven't stepped into a club/bar in a long time. But we could meet guys there? Where do you meet friends? I have joined meetup.com with various mom groups and have made some good friendships and one real BFF! :) Being outgoing and asking for a girls' number/ email is hard but I've actually done it a couple times at the mall playarea or fastfood/yogurt store. Good Luck! Let me know if you ever come to Dallas and I would love to get a mani/pedi with you!

1 mom found this helpful

Well i might be moving there

:0)

I will certainly be visiting it several times a year, my brother and his wife are moving there. Maybe you could meet us up at barton springs one of these days soon and meet my sister in law.

Its hard. And as your kids go through different years you will see parents leave you and some join in. I use to bring my kid to the park in the morning when I noticed other moms there. Contact your local My Gym. We also have a Amanda's Place by us. Same concept. Mommy and me classes. They are as much for the parents as the kids.

find Mommy & Me groups through story & play times @ your library or meetup.com

You can find playgroups on meetup.com.

momsclub.org - check to see if you are in a neighborhood that offers a moms club. Specifically for stay at home moms. Also some churches in Austin host MOPS groups - mops.org. Usually run Sept - May. Hope this helps. Also check meetup.com for SAHM groups.

I'm glad you are seeking friends as it is important for your son to have friends, too. It will be good for him to learn how to 1) share you with another mom, 2) share his personal toys with another child, and 3) learn to relate to other kids.

MOPS is a great organization that I loved going to with my kids. Go to mops.org and look up "groups" and then "find a group." Most break for the summer, so in the meantime, go to the library, water parks, etc. Compliment a mom on her child. It always softens a mom's heart and she will be open to talk to you when she sees that you are interested in others and aren't just self-focused. Come up with questions ahead of time to ask, like where she gets her nails done or her hair, where she gets her child's hair cut, where she finds the best sales on kids' clothes, etc. These all imply that you like the decisions she has made enough to use her contacts.

If you belong to a church, get involved. The advantage of meeting people at church is that they are usually people who care about others beside themselves. That is not to say that non-church goers care only about themselves, but in order to find nice people, you want to go places where nice people hang out. Of course there are some not-so-nice people in churches, too, but the odds are in your favor.

I would love to introduce you to my sister-in-law who has a 3-year-old son and they have no friends in this area, but she is so shy that I doubt she would return a phone call or email. She won't even go across the street to chat with the lady and her son when she has been invited over. I met the lady and she seemed really nice.

You should join South Austin Fun Moms if you are in the South Austin area. It's a great meet up group and I have met all my friends with children on there and have developed some great friendships. We do stuff with and without the kids and to tell you the truth my circle of friends that I met through this meet up group we rarely do things scheduled on the site anymore because we just make our own plans now :-) good luck with your friend search!

It will get much easier as your son gets older. I would look into putting him into a two year old preschool program-mine did one 2 mornings a week. They both really liked it and I ended up making some good friends as well. You get to know people there by helping out at parties, standing in line at pickup and through arranged playdates with their friends. This will also partially hold true to anything that you put your child into-although I have personally found school to be much easier to meet other moms than soccer and baseball. For now I would look into all mommy and me programs that you can do along with a MOPS or something similar. Gymboree, My Gym, etc. as well. And when you get to these you really need to reach out to the ones that you think you will click with. I know it is hard but being the first one to break the ice or to suggest a playdate is going to be important. The answer may be no-for sometimes no other reason than the person has no time. But the answer is ALWAYS no if you don't try. Good luck to you.

I wanted to add to my reply....always talk to the moms you see at the park. Chances are they are just as lonely as you are!
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I hope you feel reassured by how many women are coming forth saying that we've been there too. After living in the Chicago area for almost ten yrs, I am finally making mommy friends. What a relief, because I was about to lose my mind!

A mom at my church had started a Moms & Tots group...very informal...we just meet at a park every Mon in good weather, and in poor weather we take turns hosting in our homes. Usually there are about 4 of us, which is plenty for our kids' age groups (toddlers & preschoolers).

If you don't havea church, perhaps check out Meetup.com, where you can find groups for pretty much every interest group. I participate in one for Catholic moms in my area, but you can find everything from Vegan, cloth diapering moms, moms of hyper kids, moms who are looking for girly time, Buddhist moms, etc...

Wow, this brings back memories. I had never felt so isolated in my life as when I decided to become a SAHM after my 2nd child was born. All my adult life my friends were the people I worked with. Even during college I always worked part-time, and I didn't really have a lot of friends at school but my friends were my work friends. Suddenly, I didn't have that pool of people to choose from for my social life. I'd attended monthly meetings of a support group for infertility for a couple of years, and they had a playgroup, so I called up the organizer and asked if I could join. She said well, we're pretty full, but I'll talk to the other members. Then she never called back. I called her a few more times, left messages, and got her on the phone a couple of times, but she always said Oh! I'm on the other line, I'll call you right back...and then she never did. I kind of considered these people my friends so I'd never felt so rejected in my life. I finally joined a playgroup through a Mom's Club, which helped some, but I still didn't have a lot in common with those moms so I would talk to them for a couple of hours each week when we met to let our kids play together, but I never did anything with them outside of that. Finally, we moved to a new neighborhood with a lot more young families and kids our children's ages. I started to make friends with some neighbors and things got a lot better. So for me, it was all about location location location! Our original neighborhood had very few young children and a lot of people of retirement age. So moving to a younger neighborhood really helped. Shortly after that I started working part-time which really helped tremendously as well. All I can say is don't give up and keep trying different mom's groups until you find something that 'fits'! Best of luck to you.