It seems like it would be a lot easier for you to be friends irl with me. Just text: 'Pints?' and I'll be on my merry way.

Not when you are a wage slave with no time off and live nowhere near your friends due to work

Being told this all through my 20s I was terrified of getting older and being super lonely.

What those people didn't tell is that as you get older, your desires change. Like... it was fun hanging out with my friends playing games and chilling all day during school/university. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything.

But these days I'd much rather spend time with my wife and son. And I suspect it's the same for my old friends, which is why we only hang out once in 6 weeks.

Yeah, thing I learned is, adult responsibility aside, everyone is so immersed in their own life, writing a story that's old as they are. When we were young, there were so many more blank pages, so many new faces, so much less monotony, so much less disturbances. Even if we had the free time, would it really be the same?

Life hack: don't have friends and this becomes irrelevant

Do all your old friends have family then?

The thing I learned is just because you have a history with a person doesn't mean you need to have a future with them. People grow apart. Just happens.

Not sure if I have the energy for that far in advance. I really just want to go home and cuddle my person, read, play games, or watch something.

Most of them. One of them is going on a cross-country road-trip vacation with his dogs, another quit his job and bought a giant plot of land in the middle of nowhere to focus on gardening, another is finishing up her training to become an airline pilot (which reminds me I should give her a call - we haven't hung out since we got our private pilot's licenses together).

But the point being is that as people get older they have other things going on that keep them busy, even if they haven't chosen to start a family.

tl;dr: don't worry kids. I promise the next stage of your life (whatever you chose to do) will be as awesome to you as your current life