"I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus, did you?" --Stephen King in his short-story "The Body" (which became _Stand by Me_ the movie.)
Totally relate to that.
Totally relate to that.
Luckily that changed with high school, where more freedom was offered and so I found new friendships easier to make. I was eventually able to make at few friends, one of whom has been lifelong, by random happenstance of lunch tables. Interestingly, my wife had roughly the same experience of losing all her friends at the start of middle school and not really rebuilding until high school.
I've made the concious decision to keep my children in the same school, despite moving several times in the same area since I rent.