Best mate moved to Kent last month. Turns out he was holding up most of my social life
Last month my best friend moved to Kent. New job, good opportunity, obviously the right call for him.
What I didn't clock at the time was how much of my social life had been quietly resting on that one person. He was the default text when a plan fell through. The 9pm call. The guy who'd actually show up at short notice.
After he left I did the standard stuff. Run club. A couple of Meetups. Said yes to things I'd normally bail on. Some of it was fine. None of it really took.
The weird bit is on paper my social life looked fine. Decent number of friends, plenty of WhatsApp groups. But when I actually looked at it properly last 7 days, who I'd called after 9, what I'd done Saturday the real list was a lot shorter than I'd been telling myself.
Anyone else been through some version of this in Manchester? Specifically the relocation / returner / post-30 version. Not after sympathy, just genuinely curious how common it is here and what, if anything, actually worked. The standard advice (run clubs, hobbies, "put yourself out there") felt like it was solving a different problem than the one I had.