The Student Room Group

Girlfriend doesn't like my friends

I have been with my girlfriend for a year now. She's an amazing girl, very beautiful, kind and caring. We have a great relationship and I really love her. She's not an introvert or extrovert but more of an ambivert. Shes very independent and does things her own way. However, she is quite moody and whatever she does is dictated by her mood swings. However, I want her to like my friends and socialise with them but she does the following:

She really doesn't like
Too much socialization
Having large groups of friends over or dinners and lunches with large group of friends.
Having many friends over to cook and socialise and eat. She refused to cook for my friends and did not agree to having 10 of them over.
Will socialise when she wants to with my friends but isn't interested in befriending any of them. She just talks to them for a while , very formal conversations and then leaves us to mingle. I really want her to integrate but she seems to have a very low opinion of them as she thinks they are "rip offs" of each other who have no personality of their own and have their entire lives dedicated to woke left politics.
On the contrary she's quite friendly, funny and affectionate with her own friends and colleagues. She has never pushed me to be friends with her friends or family.
She also doesn't like to stay home much and likes to go out for walks.

She is also very big on hygiene so daily morning showers, spotless bathrooms and rooms and won't allow anyone to use her bathroom. So any overnight guests like family or close friends have to use my bathroom and can't use hers

I really love this girl and she's everything I want in a woman. While she does have the above traits, she's also very kind, donates and helps animals who are suffering or need rescue and is very helpful, going out of the way to help people. But I really want her to stay home and socialise with my friends just like I do.

What do I do? How do I make her open up?
She's 33 and I'm 29.
IMO not much you can do. She's met them and doesn't like them much. You're both adults so I don't really see the issue in having different friend groups so long as you're not controlling who sees who or what time goes where.

NB. Not sure it was a great idea to ask her to cook for them. They're you're friends afterall.
Reply 2
Original post by Admit-One
IMO not much you can do. She's met them and doesn't like them much. You're both adults so I don't really see the issue in having different friend groups so long as you're not controlling who sees who or what time goes where.
NB. Not sure it was a great idea to ask her to cook for them. They're you're friends afterall.

She doesn't control me. She doesn't like them but has never said to stop meeting them. The thing is that some of my guy pals have been my friends since we were in school and a few are since my first year at uni, going back to 2014. And I keep in touch and meet them often. They always invite her too but it becomes hard to go without her as she won't go to the big brunches or luncheon with me. So naturally I end up not going or sometimes I go alone but end up texting her half of the time so I wanted her to be a part of it.

Cooking together was an idea that i had to increase socialization but it never worked.
Original post by Anonymous
She doesn't control me. She doesn't like them but has never said to stop meeting them. The thing is that some of my guy pals have been my friends since we were in school and a few are since my first year at uni, going back to 2014. And I keep in touch and meet them often. They always invite her too but it becomes hard to go without her as she won't go to the big brunches or luncheon with me. So naturally I end up not going or sometimes I go alone but end up texting her half of the time so I wanted her to be a part of it.

Cooking together was an idea that i had to increase socialization but it never worked.

Sounds reasonable, although you probably need to normalise not texting her if you are busy elsewhere.

It'd be nice in an ideal world for everyone to get on smashingly, but friends and partners don't always get on by virtue of the fact that they mutually like you.

Maybe try and find out if she'd prefer smaller groups, activities out and about, or for a shorter duration/with a fixed finish time. Dont force it though, they're you're friends at the end of the day.
Original post by Anonymous
I have been with my girlfriend for a year now. She's an amazing girl, very beautiful, kind and caring. We have a great relationship and I really love her. She's not an introvert or extrovert but more of an ambivert. Shes very independent and does things her own way. However, she is quite moody and whatever she does is dictated by her mood swings. However, I want her to like my friends and socialise with them but she does the following:
She really doesn't like
Too much socialization
Having large groups of friends over or dinners and lunches with large group of friends.
Having many friends over to cook and socialise and eat. She refused to cook for my friends and did not agree to having 10 of them over.
Will socialise when she wants to with my friends but isn't interested in befriending any of them. She just talks to them for a while , very formal conversations and then leaves us to mingle. I really want her to integrate but she seems to have a very low opinion of them as she thinks they are "rip offs" of each other who have no personality of their own and have their entire lives dedicated to woke left politics.
On the contrary she's quite friendly, funny and affectionate with her own friends and colleagues. She has never pushed me to be friends with her friends or family.
She also doesn't like to stay home much and likes to go out for walks.
She is also very big on hygiene so daily morning showers, spotless bathrooms and rooms and won't allow anyone to use her bathroom. So any overnight guests like family or close friends have to use my bathroom and can't use hers
I really love this girl and she's everything I want in a woman. While she does have the above traits, she's also very kind, donates and helps animals who are suffering or need rescue and is very helpful, going out of the way to help people. But I really want her to stay home and socialise with my friends just like I do.
What do I do? How do I make her open up?
She's 33 and I'm 29.

My oure guess is that she really is overwhelmed by a lot of people at once, best only have maybe one other friend over gradually get her used to them one by one. She might actually have social anxiety but control it by being more formal with them etc and might be hiding the anxiety. With her friends she likely has got over that anxiety over time.
Reply 5
Original post by Admit-One
Sounds reasonable, although you probably need to normalise not texting her if you are busy elsewhere.
It'd be nice in an ideal world for everyone to get on smashingly, but friends and partners don't always get on by virtue of the fact that they mutually like you.
Maybe try and find out if she'd prefer smaller groups, activities out and about, or for a shorter duration/with a fixed finish time. Dont force it though, they're you're friends at the end of the day.

Yeah she does prefer smaller groups
Reply 6
Original post by Anonymous
My oure guess is that she really is overwhelmed by a lot of people at once, best only have maybe one other friend over gradually get her used to them one by one. She might actually have social anxiety but control it by being more formal with them etc and might be hiding the anxiety. With her friends she likely has got over that anxiety over time.

She does say her social meter goes down after an journey or so and she wants to be alone so I guess she's just gotten introverted

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