(f40) I've struggled my whole life with friendships. I didn't have an easy childhood. My family was very dysfunctional and I was bullied in school. That combination made me very introverted and I developed a strong inner world where I always felt very comfortable. But the social pressure to have more friends (I only had one at that time) was always there so I kept trying to connect with people and I kept failing; I always ended up blaming myself for it. Fast forward to recent years, I'm less of an introvert (thanks to therapy and life going a bit better), but I still struggle with friends and I'm not sure if it's me, the world, or female friendships, which I find extremely complicated. 8 years ago I met somebody (f43) that had kids of the same age as mine and we seemed to connect quite well; I was very happy to have found her because I never had a friendship like that, with whom I could be myself and talk about some personal things I never talked to anybody else about. I really thought that was a true friendship and that not many things could break it, but I was so wrong.
At the end of 2025 this friend started to behave very strangely; sometimes she didn't answer my texts or her answers were very cold. At some point I raised this with her and a whole Pandora's box opened. I won't go into details because it is a very long story, but to summarize: she said that I did something she didn't like and then I said sorry (I ended up giving 5 apologies about that, which didn't seem to be enough). She said some hurtful things and she judged me on a personal level, something I never thought she could do, because it felt so natural to talk to each other. Now we are distanced, even though sometimes we see each other because of the kids' playdates, birthdays, etc. But nothing is the same. We used to talk every few days and all that is gone now. I recently found out that she is burnt-out and that could have played a role in all this, but I don't think that's an excuse to behave like that with a friend.
I'm currently so lost again about friendships. I realised that with this friend, even though we connected very well, we had nothing in common, and that might also be important. I'm a person that enjoys being alone, but now that I've experienced what it is to have a really good close friend, I miss it.
Is it possible to make good friends after 40? How? I always think I don't fit in with most groups of people. I'm not outgoing enough for the extroverts, but I'm also not that introverted anymore and I like to socialize. I seem to struggle especially with female friendships since I don't enjoy talking about other people's lives, kids, and houses (sorry for the generalization; I know that's not always the case but this has been my experience so far). I enjoy a lot of topics though, mainly books, movies, tech, politics, sci-fi, science, arts, music, instruments.... I also find that around this age, many people go through important internal realizations, and they might have less energy or patience with what doesn't match exactly what they want in life....
Thanks for reading everything. Any general advice or just a comforting comment, to not feel lonely, is much appreciated.