I'm 33 now and I'm curious how many of you other guys in your 30's and 40's are suffering from what I call Last Man Standing Syndrome? That's when you are the last of your group of friends who is still unmarried and kidless.

I've reached the point where I basically don't go out much on the weekends anymore, simply because I have run out of people to hang out with. My friends are pretty much all married and/or have kids and I just can't get them to go out anymore. When they do go out, they just go to small little dive bars to watch sports and don't talk to any women. The kinds of activities they do for fun now involve kids and neighbors, and it's just not how I want to spend my time, being a single kidless guy. I'm just not interested in "game night" with my friends' kids on a Friday night, ya know?

When I do go out, I find myself surrounded by college-aged kids in their early 20's that I just don't have much in common with. I'm at a really difficult stage in life where I just feel like I'm kind of caught in between two realities and fit into neither.

I'm wondering how you other guys cope with this, or how you go about meeting new people or finding new friends to hang out with? I'm fine with being single, and can pick up women when I want to, that's not a big deal. But, not having friends left to hang out with is much worse than that.

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You can create the image that you are with people very easily... When you approach, just drop in your opener "I've gotta get back to my friends in a second..." There are plenty of bars/clubs with a much more mature crowd.

My issue is not that I'm afraid of going places by myself or afraid of looking like "that guy who's alone in the bar." This isn't even a pickup issue at all, it's a social issue. I genuinely want other people to hang out with, lol. My issue is how, in your 30's, do you go about building up an entirely new circle of friends?

You can try it in sports. When you go to a new sport/gym it's easy to make new friends because you have a similar interest and teams usually bond. You could try to find a sport/gym with younger people and befriend people in their 20s. A (second) college is more radical, but the same idea.

^^So true. I met an older friend of mine at the gym. He's over 35 and I'm 22.

Thing is, you need to be really social to do so. When you approach younger guys, they'll think you're a bit werid at first. But if you're social enough, it's entirely possible!

Sup Sidnne,

You are not alone dude. I am 31, just got through divorce, and all my friends are married too. I worked with my ex, so found another job 3 months ago and havent gotten to know anyone at my new company well enough yet. It sucks. I go out with the married friends when possible, have really had success lately with online dating sites that Ive never had before ("divorced" status lol) so met some new people through that...even just posted in the "Wingmen" topic on this site the other day just to go out with some people!

You gotta be proactive about it and really tap every resource to grow (rebuild in my case) your social circle...Ive even befriended a few females with an eye towards freinds of friends type thing. Just stay up - youll be good

I'm in the same "sinking" boat as you guys; I'm 28, and come to think of it, I AM the "last man standing" now. EVERYONE I know is either married, in a serious relationship, engaged, and/or are parents. When (IF) they do go out, it's to a dive place, and/or by 11pm they're about ready for bed. I LOVE to go to clubs, and stuff, but no one goes anymore (no money, time, interest, etc.), so as a result, my social life face planted into the street.

I remember when I was a kid I could make a new friend every day, now it's VERY hard to make new friends (at least meeting the type of people I want to associate with).

Funny... I ran into this again this past weekend. Met my brother, who is married with 2 kids, and another couple who is engaged, out at a bar Friday night. I had never been to the bar before, but heard good things about it from my brother. I get there around 10pm, and the place is dead. Inside is my brother and his wife and the other couple sitting at a table drinking beers, and a few people sitting at the bar watching a game on tv. Mind you, I had no idea who was going to be there and how it was going to be. I had received a text from my brother earlier in the week that him and "a bunch of people" were going out Friday night.

When I got there, they all asked me why I was getting there so late. At 10pm, on a Friday night. That was late to them. So, I'm sitting there on a Friday night at a table in a dead dive bar, as the 5th wheel for 2 couples, listening to them talk about their bed times, their kids, their dogs, what they had to do the next day... So, I'm trying to make the best of it, and trying to get them to go somewhere else, where there might be music, real drinks, girls, people in general... But, they weren't interested in any of that, because it was getting late (almost 11pm) and they were going to go to bed soon. Then when they started playing shuffle board, I couldn't take the excitement so I called it a night and went home.

You're 28, so my suggestion to you would be to find some younger people (~25ish) to hang out with. I know that's easier said than done though. It's easy to make friends with people when you're younger, but for some reason we just forget how to do that when we get older. I guess because we have had the same group of friends for so long, we didn't HAVE to make friends, so we lost the skill. Making friends is a passive ability when you're younger I guess, and becomes an active ability when you're older.

Check the site meetup.com. I've been looking around on that site, and there are a lot of groups out there for various things to meet new people and have things to do.

Hey old man! Yeah, I was going to suggest meetup.com. I did a shitty job not burning bridges when I was younger. I have a handful of friends from that site (many other last men standing), and a metric shit ton of acquaintances. It's a good place to build community, but dating has not worked for me there. I've also recently looked into volunteering in the community because that makes me feel connected, too.

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31 and still figuring it out.

Depends where you are, but in a lot of parts of the country early mid 30s is your PRIME with women man.

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You are definitely not alone, I'm in the same situation, I have many friends but all of them are married with at least 1 kid but most have 2 or 3. I still go out but I feel like I'm the old man, even though there are many many others that are older still out. My problem is my friends that do go out, go out early then leave early. I'm also at the age when people set me up with there friends or coworkers. At first I was a bit hesitant to go on blind dates that friends set up but so far I have had some positive results and now I just go on them like I have nothing to lose.

I'm 32, never been married, never got the "baby daddy 'I have your kid' phone call" and I don't seem to have this Last Man Standing problem too much. I stopped going to bars/clubs a couple years ago though due to my problems with alcoholism. I do not have that many college friends that stuck around town too much though, so that makes it a bit easier. Plus, I feel out of place hanging around a bunch of young 20-somethings, unless there are a bunch of hot/cute girls there.

I choose to hang out at the local strip club or ballroom dance club myself. This works out nice for me, I get to hang out with girls that know how to dance and they don't serve alcohol at those venues near me. Problem is, the strip club is like gambling to me, I spend more money than I like... even getting in the door is expensive to me. I have not been ballroom/swing dancing in a while either. I really need to get back into that...

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I’ve been there too… through a divorce

Bar recon/Finding a wingman- Different bars have different age groups. If you start going to multiple bars you’ll find the happy hour bar. This is the bar the working people go to from age 25-55 for a couple of drinks and then go home by 7-8pm. Within this bar will be other like minded individuals looking to go out later.

Late Night- In metropolitan areas for some reason the older crowd ie over 25 tend to go to Country Music Bars. I not a country fan, but you fish where the fish are. Also if you go to the same bar 6-8 times you start seeing who the locals are and who are the rest. (Always go to the same bar.) You’ll hook up with the party bar crowd from that bar. Every bar has one. There’ll be several guys, single or coming off divorces to hang out with.

Salsa Dancing at bars. I’m not a salsa dancer but people who do are a few guys who like to salsa dance they dance with multiple girls, a lot of girls who like to salsa dancing with a few guys. The guy girl ratio is about 2 to 1 girls to guys. So a straight guy who can pick up will do good.

Workout classes. It’ll be you a couple dudes and 50 women. Take your pick, zumba, yoga, aerobics, cycling, kick boxing. Any big work out class will do.