Difficulty in making new friends as we age (conversation, gift, years)
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Frankly, my dear ... I don't want any new friends.
I grew up the oldest of four kids in a small house with one bathroom, moved from that house to a college dorm, got married before graduation. I've had two unhappy marriages and one great one (although my husband died last year) and I've raised three kids. For my whole life I've been surrounded by other people, but the great irony is that I've always been happiest when I am alone.
I had a few friends growing up, but my favorite things to do as a kid were to take long bike rides by myself, or walk to the library and sit for hours reading by myself.
As an adult I've had "couple friends" but rarely a friend of my own. The one or two times I did get close to another woman it eventually became clear to me that they were extremely needy people who were pretty much sucking the life out of me, and I had to end the friendships.
I live near one of my three kids, and I happily babysit my infant granddaughter a couple of times a week. But the rest of the time, I'm very content to be on my own. I have never experienced loneliness, although I have experienced boredom -- and that just requires finding something interesting to do.
So basically for the first time in my life, I'm enjoying the ability to be on my own most of the time. Maybe at some time down the road I'll feel the need to have more people in my life, but for now, no thank you.
I've written here before about losing two close friends after they married and their spouses froze out the people they socialized with when they were single. I've found out from posts here that it happens to a lot of people. You can be IN a friend's wedding and if you don't have a partner their new spouse wants to social with, that's usually the end of the friendship.
When my now-husband and I started dating, I soon learned how important his single friends were to him. I couldn't see any point in trying to isolate him from them. For his part, he wanted me to participate in all the "guy" activities they'd always enjoyed. That just wasn't possible but I did agree to attend the once a week dinner get-togethers. It turns out I should have declined that as well.
One of his friends took a dislike to me and started acting out in childish ways that would have been funny except it was hurting my guy. I tried to reach out to the friend to gently convince him I had no intention of ruining his relationship with my sweetie. Result? He told my husband I was coming on to him.
Ultimately the dinner group split apart because of this and people were forced to choose sides. In the years since we have become quite close with the ones who remained. My husband maintains separate contact with the ones who left but it's never been the same. I think this makes him sad. There's an annual weekend event this month that traditionally they have all gone to. The "left" ones have announced they won't be attending this year. More sadness -- and he has never been an upbeat person.
We have talked a lot in recent years about this very subject: difficulty in making new friends as we age. My best friend departed for the Pacific Northwest years ago. There has been no replacing her, though I've tried. We wonder if we're asking too much of people. The last woman I was friends with started cheating on her husband and wanted to make me complicit. Then she was working to facilitate an another woman's affair with a minor male. Here at least I'm certain ending the friendship was the right thing to do. Other times it is less clear.
We plan to move out of California in two to three years, probably to Arizona because the people are friendlier and I need a change of scenery. I'm trying to be realistic about making new friends there. And because I work at home and don't see many people on a day-to-day basis, I'm practicing my conversational skills on the people I do come into contact with.
Now that I'm working full time and moved regions twice in the last three years, I've found it difficult to form and maintain long-lasting friendships. My childhood friends are dispersed across the country. I made some friends when I lived in Iowa, but obviously only keep in touch with them via Facebook. I have a couple of people I know and have a casual beer with here in Indiana, but certainly wouldn't consider them close friends.
Younger, not necessarily young. My oldest friend is 25 years older than me and I'm 62. I have younger friends from my job but I agree, it's hard to make friends as time goes on. My personal observation is that people in marriages/families simply see friendships differently than, be necessity, a solo person like myself does.
I have usually had a younger buddy from work to go hear music, go out to dinner, etc. I haven't had one for a couple of years and I miss the company for those activities, but have begun a friendship with a married co-worker over our mutual enjoyment of horses. She even asked if she could come with me on my next Utah horse trek, and says her husband won't object. (Husbands objecting to wives taking trips with friends has come up before, not to mention that wives don't always want to take such trips).
I suppose if I were well married I might see friendships the same way, with a primary best friend at home. That's WELL married, not just coupled off.
I'm not outgoing at all and therefore have a hard time making friends. But I go to a big church big enough to have enough people to support a Tuesday morning senors group. I have a few close friends from that and a bunch of other friends from there.
I just turned 72 and most are around my age with a few younger and quite a few who are really up there. Its encouraging to see people who are really old and doing well.
One trouble is associating with old people make me feel old somewhat. I don't think I would want to live in a 55 up community because of that.
One thing that has come up only tangentially in this thread so far is how we define "friends". Really good friends are people we know well and feel totally comfortable with, people who would be happy to help us in time of need just as we would be happy to help them.
That is so different than acquaintances with whom we are on friendly terms, that is, people that we may have lunch with at times and so forth, but with whom we just don't feel that special closeness.
Naturally it's all on a continuum so it may be hard to divide people into one group or the other. But it seems to me, at least for us males, that we don't have all that many real friends (the first group). The one that I still have goes way back to graduate school.
Usually an affinity group such as clubs will bring us friendships, particularly of the second kind. For about ten years I rode bicycles in a serious way and had many casual friends in the bicycle club. But only two of them survived the putting aside of the actual cycling activity itself.
I believe that yes, as the tread title implies, it is difficult to make friends, especially real friends, as we age. Some folks are more outgoing and gregarious than others, so our mileage is going to vary.
I tend to think there is a male/female aspect to this whole deal, and several posters have spoken about that. In one of the schools where I read to the four fifth grade classes one day a week, the four teachers are all female. I get along well with all of them, but not long ago I was a substitute teacher for one of them, as opposed to a volunteer. The three remaining ones went off campus for lunch together, but I was not invited to join them. All four are married, but seem to enjoy each others' female company. Would I have been invited if I had been female? I really don't know. In any case it's a trivial matter, but I thought it was an example of what we are talking about.
As a single woman, I've found as I've gotten older that when I have been friendly with males, many assume that I am "coming on" to them. Or their wives assume that.
Jeez! I just want to be friendly with whoever is my neighbor/co-worker/co-volunteer no matter what their gender. I have no interest in jumping anyone's bones! Not interested and never would anyway.
Well actually, these would be people I would have classified as "friendly acquaintances" rather than true friends.
But isn't it "friendly acquaintance" that evolves into "friend"?
As we age are we trapped into only having friends of our own gender? I would have thought that when sex is off the table we could be friends with anyone with whom we have a connection.
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