Kids are indeed a huge time/emotion/frustration sink that eat much of your life, and yet somehow still totally worth it.

But, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I don’t feel like I need friends. Children are very emotionally rewarding in a certain spectrum, but adult companionship is still a general need.

No kids here, never been my thing.

The thing with kids keeping you busy is that oftentimes friendships will tend to decay if you aren't able to keep up with them, and if you put too much time into your kids you may end up as an empty nester 20 or so years down the line having raised your kids to adulthood successfully, only to discover you don't have any friends left.

That kind of happened to my dad, I genuinely can't name anyone that I'd really call his friend. Luckily he's a bit of an introvert and my mom is sociable enough for the both of them, so I don't think he's exactly suffering for it, but it's weird to think of kind of having to start from scratch at 50+ years old going out and trying to make some friends.

For my part I do my damnedest to keep my friends with kids in the loop, but it gets hard sometimes, and to make it work I've had to drag along far more rugrats on hiking and fishing trips than I ever really cared to.

You can have some of mine, how would you like it?