Illustration: Emma Erickson

Dear Emily,

I don’t know how the hell to talk to my friends who are new moms. It’s an age-old conundrum, certainly, but it feels like the stakes have ratcheted up significantly this year. I’m 31, so my friends have been settling down, getting married, and buying houses for years at this point. (Where I’m from, women start getting engaged at 25, sometimes earlier.) But this year was the first that I felt being the only single person in every room — family included — and it’s been really isolating.

I hope to head down the path of motherhood someday, but at the moment, it feels like my mom friends and I are living in different universes. On the one hand, I understand why it’s becoming more and more difficult to stay close friends, especially with those who have newborns. Everything happening in their lives feels urgent, so it’s not realistic to expect them to pick up the phone and make time to chat aimlessly about Housewives. But on the other — and this is going to sound selfish and a little out of touch — I’m getting sick of being the last person asked how they’re doing at every dinner table. I am making efforts to understand what their new lives are like, but the only consistent questions I get about my own are “how’s dating, seems fun” or very simplistic questions about work without much follow-up.

Friendships ebb and flow, and I’ve seen that happen throughout my life. Some of my best childhood friends have come back around and are now important fixtures in my life 20 years later. And I’m sure that these friendships will get back to some semblance of normalcy when my friends aren’t so worried about feeding schedules and learning developments. But for now, I’m really sad about my life taking a back seat to everyone else’s, and not sure how to stay involved without getting resentful.

I know ten years from now, I’ll be going to these same friends for advice when I have a child of my own. In the meantime, I just want to make sure we don’t lose or severely damage the friendship. What should I do?

Sincerely,

The Last Single Girl on Earth