By Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

My husband and I went to a fabulous wedding a few weeks ago. Gorgeous ceremony, lively cocktail party, mouth-watering dinner, heartwarming toasts. Then a weird thing started to happen. One by one, guests in our age group (late-30s to mid-40s) started to slip out. Babysitters needed to be relieved, teenagers needed to be checked on, babies needed to be fed, sleep-deprived adults needed to drive home while they could still keep their eyes open.

But not us. We danced till after midnight, alongside all the “young people.” It was awesome.

As one of the few childfree couples in our circle of acquaintances, I’m noticing that our circle of friends is starting to change. While we still make efforts to maintain ties with the friends we’ve grown up with, as their priorities shift to parenting duties and time schedules, the friends more in line with our way of life are the other childfree friends. With our late-20 and early-30-something friends, we linger over dinners at trendy new restaurants, sip cocktails at lunch, go on adventures with no time limit. It’s fun, active. And we feel fun and active.

We also laugh at ourselves when things like “’Sup?” slip out.

Granted, sometimes I worry about getting too attached because some day they might have babies and switch teams, leaving me to find new, younger, friends to hang with. You know what, that sounds pretty cool too.

 

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.