child free adult here: we are few, but we exist. personally i don’t expect friendship from people with children, or it would be as shallow as heck. lonely? i agree. but thats the price to be paid for not being part of the crowd.

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Hate to break it to you, but making any friends in/past your 30s is very difficult. But I do get your point that choosing childless makes it even more difficult. I’m lucky enough to have had a couple of close friends who chose to remain childless before I had kids, and we are still close. But we would have remained close in any case.

I’m in my 50s now, and maybe I’m an asshole, but the last time I made a new friend (a real friend, not acquaintance) I was in my early 40s, and that friendship did not survive me moving an ocean away, to my great sadness. This happened with me several times starting in my early 30s, but I’ve moved continents three times, so mostly my fault.

Alow me an observation from the other side. I am a parent and I’m friends with two childfree couples (as well as with several other couples that don’t have children now but plan them in the future). I meet my childfree friends when I have someone to babysit, so I have a free evening for them. Sometimes we spend holidays together and on those occasions they don’t mind the children. In general, they choose the activities they want to participate in with me and it doesn’t influence our friendship at all. In the end, I think it’s about mutual respect (and finding people that are capable of it).