I wasn't prepared for the reduction in socialising once I hit 30

I thought the good times would last forever. I thought life was a series of adventures where you collected friendships and memories. I really feel like the 30s to like 50s is such a ourgatory zone in life especially if you stay fit and healthy. The script kinda revolves around settling down once you hit your 30s and bring a family man and a "serious" person but if that life didn't happen to you you're left in limbo. It's like you can do hobbies and stuff but the actual friendships that you had don't seem to mean anything anymore. They just seem to exist as catch ups and not actual memory creating events. I don't know when this happened but maybe around Covid which coincided with me and my friends turning 30.

For the record I have hobbies but the hobbies are so individual and disconnected from other parts of my life. They seem hollow or something, while I love them they just exist to keep me sane, they don't contribute to the deep human desire for connection or meaning. I feel you need to excel in a niche to be able to make it part of your identity as you get older. There's nothing like a friendship that's just formed because of circumstance. Making friends with likeminded people is overrated and tbh I've rarely connected with someone through a hobby. But when I think of my mum and dad they didn't really have hobbies at my age, they're hobby was the family. I'm not sure they would have even thought about making friends. Friends are something you make at 14, not 40.