This is a beautiful post. I can learn from you. Thank you.
Not only do I blame MySpace/Facebook for this but also online gaming. I chit chat more with my online friends in game than I do with IRL friends. With IRL friends I talk on the phone or meet-up with them once or twice a month because everyone has families to take care of but in the online games I play I chit chat with my in-game friends a couple of times a week.
Weird - maybe it’s just my age but I have found Facebook to be crucial in my ability to survive as a single person who works from home, and also to connect with old friends and get closer to new ones.
Since my late 20s (I’m in my late 30s now) I have reconnected with dozens of friends from high school and made friends with their spouses. Not casual friends but serious “you could be in my wedding” friends.
I go to parties and weddings when I’m invited. Even though I am historically shy as fuck, I end up having fun. And every year I meet a few new people at parties that end up friending me on Facebook. And they are people I enjoy knowing and keeping up with.
In the past, before everyone had kids, I did use Facebook as a way to organize my own parties. I had a bunch of game nights one winter and met loads of new friends, and reconnected with old ones. Now everyone has kids and can’t /don’t go out. So instead I have a kids party in the summer with all my friends and kids.
Some of my closest friends right now are people I met through my lifelong friends. They are friends of friends of friends. Just an hour ago I got invited to a girl’s New Year’s Day party - she is the sister of a friend of a friend of my friend Jason that I have known since I was 3.
Maybe it’s easier to make friends when you’re single and/or don’t have kids. My life, for all intents and purposes, is boring as fuck. I spend hours upon hours alone at home, or alone at concerts or alone at dinner. But my friends are always telling me that I seem to busy and doing a lot of cool stuff. They see it on Facebook of course. So maybe compared to them I am.
Anyway, not sure how people feel that social media is bad for socializing. It has been nothing short of amazing for me. (Fwiw I do not allow my relatives to friend me and am quick to drop any old friend who turns out to be a nutter. It’s easy.)
I used to have a fairly large number of friends and frequently socialized. After getting married at 23 that number dropped sharply, I also had a job that required a lot of my time, then I had a couple kids. Now I only have 2 or 3 people I consider friends. It’s mainly time constraint, everybody works and has their own romantic relationships, some also have kids. To be honest I do miss going out with the guys and having a few beers, my Wife probably has more friends than I do but doesn’t really see them that often, she has a large family with a lot of cousins and siblings that live in the area, I enjoy that as well because a lot of the people I socialize with are her family, so at least I have people to talk with occasionally. I’m now back in school which I enjoy because I now have some new people to hang out with, but my main priority is putting time in with my own family, its just the way it has to be and my kids and Wife take precedent over anybody else. I think once you get past a certain age if you are working and in a romantic relationship/have kids, lack of free time is the main barrier to having friends.
I agree.
A few weeks ago, it was time to butcher a few of my hogs. I have friends who enjoy the pork so decided to ask if they were ready for another animal for their freezer. One couple I haven’t spoken to in awhile as they’re in the middle of a major home remodel and the husband half of the couple is taking some classes on top of a full time job. Anyway, I called his mobile phone. He answered, whispering.
Me: “Say, Ron, you interested in one of my hogs for your freezer? I"m getting ready to butcher.”
Him: “Yes, but can I call you back? I’m at work, in the middle of a meeting.”
Me: “Sure! Why’d you answer if you’re in the middle of a meeting?”
Him: “When I saw it was you, I was worried you might need help with something!”
Me: “That’s really sweet, but no. Call when you have a minute and we’ll figure out a night for you and Lynn to come to dinner, ok?”
I’m grateful as hell for friends like these. They’re busy, I’m busy, but when the phone rings, they are there for me. As I am for them.
When there is time, we are glad for the chance to get together just to shoot the shit, as you put it. Many of the friendships I’ve made are the same as the above. We don’t live in each others’ pockets, but love the time we’re able to eke out for socializing. I wouldn’t hesitate to call on any of them for help if I needed it.
I have several close female friends with whom I get together regularly, one in particular. We just love hanging out when we can. We meet twice a week for long walks and go to breakfast once a week. We take excursions out and about to do stuff when we can. Go to the farmers’ markets, head to the nursery every spring for seeds and plants, maybe do some casual shopping or just go explore somewhere we haven’t been before. We laugh and laugh – great stuff! She is happily married, has responsibilities to husband, adult kids, home and aging parents, so we do have to plan our time together.
I agree with pool, you have to make time for friendships the older you get because most people have many demands on their time. It’s not like high school when we had hours and hours of free time to kill with our pals. I schedule time with friends now because that’s the only way get-togethers happen. But I don’t think it means the friendships are any less meaningful.
Thelma Lou, thank you. 
I’m always happy if something I post is helpful to someone for any reason!
The topic headline and first link are about social isolation. But the posts seem to be pretty much all about friendships, as in fairness is the second link. Family ties are also social, and part of the issue is probably a decline in those.
Of course if you live very long you tend to simply outlive both family and friends of your generation, perhaps even your kids, regardless of how close the family has been, and making new close friends at a truly advanced age is not in human nature generally AFAIK. An uncle recently died in mid 90’s, who of that age, especially male, has made real new friends in decades? There are exceptions to every rule, but rare I think. But my cousin was very devoted to him, and he wasn’t completely isolated.
Anyway part of it is longer lives, part is decline in family ties. An extension or enrichment of friendships in later years might counteract that, but my point is it’s not just the modern world or internet being tilted against true ‘real life’ friendships, if indeed it is.
When I was in my 40s, my “friends” were the husbands of my wife’s friends, and they were pretty much all assholes.
I find the whole concept of “friend” to be problematic. I don’t really know if I have even one. My two closest contacts are lifelong friends, one I haven’t seen in 5 years, the other in maybe 20. I also he a new friend, a neighbor I met two years ago, but she recently moved several miles away, so we rarely see each other.
I don’t think it’s restricted to old age. Two years ago, I met a college girl in Kyrgyzstan, who was kind enough to help me get around for some errands. A half hour after I met her, she asked me “How many friends do you have?” I had an immediate urge to squeeze her hand and say “One”. She said she doesn’t really like anyone her age, who are just interested in partying and drugs and bad music. We have no fluent language in common, and have to communicate on e-mail through a machine translator, German is our only common language, and it is the third language for each of us. But there isn’t anybody I’d rather have for a friend, despite a 50+ year age difference.
Making friends is a lot like having travel adventures. You cannot travel trying to aim for some preconceived adventure, all you can do is be there when an adventure happens. Same as friends. You can’t go out and look for a friend, all you can do is recognize one when he/she enters your orbit.
I moved around for most of my professional life. I had a very few very good friends and a whole lot of friendly acquaintances. The latter still applies. We’re on friendly terms with neighbors, which is about as far as I care to take things. The few men I’ve felt would be somewhat kindred almost always have wives that I don’t want to be around without my shotgun.
We moved to Portland when we retired, and while a lot of folks here are friendly, they have established relationships or family ties that span many years. We tend to hang out with other ex-pats when we socialize, but I honestly don’t care about it much. Having spent a life traveling, I tend to have little in common with others my age and conversation runs out fairly quickly.
I can count on the fingers of one hand the times a conversation has come around to a topic I am truly interested in, and remained there long enough to be engaging. I went through a phase of being a horribly pushy bore about My Topics in my early 20s, and when it was pointed out to me, I became really gun-shy about pressing a topic that didn’t seem to interest the other person… so conversations are about their interests, and generic shit, and I will try to make an appropriate leading comment from time to time.
As I said, I can count on a couple of fingers the times I’ve had a nice chat about one of my (dozens) of personal interests. So yeah, once I’ve given ten minutes to the other guy’s new quadrunner or golf game or something, conversation runs out.
Review all comments about getting pickier with age, I guess.
Unlike a lot of people, I have no problem with silence. Filling every minute with mindless babble just annoys me. My neighbor is a very nice guy, but he is the most boring fucking person I’ve ever met. He comes preloaded with endless stories of pharmacy school, for god’s sake, and repeats them even if you tell him he’s already told them to you. He also tends to tell you all about a place you are thoroughly familiar with.
“Have you ever been to San Francisco?”
“Yes, my family discovered California and build San Francisco and I spent 105 years there as a guide.”
“Well, there’s this street called Lombard Street. . .”
:smack: (in lieu of a gun to the head emoticon)
as many have already said, at 46 years of age, I just don’t have the time or more importantly the energy to make new friends beyond the situational work-friends that I don’t actually socialize with beyond work. More disturbingly I find myself actually disliking being around people more and more as I age, quite the turn around from my teens and early twenties when I would go hang out at Denny’s or the truck stop just to be around people. The guy Chefguy described? Well, I don’t know how I would have reacted to him exactly, but it would have been less than warmly, these days.
I have a new friend and we were discussing this. (I’m 50)
There are old friends that you have enough history with that you are willing to put up with their antics in order to keep the friendship. If their antics are too much, you might drop them, but as long as they are reasonable, you keep them around. Shared history adds value.
But I really don’t give a fuck to get involved in the self inflicted drama of someone who is supposed to be a grown up who I don’t already have the investment in. Too much self inflicted drama moves from your life into mine (in terms of you bitching about your life) and I just don’t want to deal - I have my own drama to deal with, that I really don’t care to get all over you.
That significantly narrows the pool of friends.
And my new friend is someone who has known friends of mine for years, but she and I knew each other only vaguely. So there is some shared stuff going into the friendship - we know the same people, we’ve done some of the same things at different times.
I’ve always been comfortable with spending time by myself.
As I now have more deceased than living family and friends, and stand a good chance of outliving most of those I currently have, I’ve made some effort to keep up my friendship skills. I like a bunch of friendly acquaintances, and a few closer friends. You don’t need to be doing stuff with friends all the time, but it’s a good idea to have a few folks you can call on for help if you might need it.
The older you get the more you have to make a conscious effort to find and make friends. Keeping active interests helps a lot. Make a point to engage in some socializing.
This seems to be a common sentiment in this thread. Excessive complaining about life and oversharing from the get-go are both red flags, in my experience. Heh, this is reminiscent of getting a new dog at the shelter- when you initially meet the dog, you want one that’s interested in you, but not -too- interested. A creature who’s already got their own thing going.
Absolutely, and another measure of “friend” is someone you can just sit with, enjoying the beer or lemonade or breeze or quiet.
But I think I’ve slowly exhausted my ability/tolerance for chatting politely about someone else’s interest, since I’ve done nothing else for years. I’ll further reduce my chances of making a friend/connection by not really listening to such things without a little quid pro.
I largely agree with the OP. I made friends easily in my late teens and 20s, but then there was a large drop-off starting in my 30s. One of my best friends I did not meet until my 40s, but that was an exception. A lot of it has to do with growing out of what I call the college-age mentality. And I think everyone has the college-age mentality as a young adult even if college was never attended. You know, a dormlike, party attitude toward others.
I’m 71, and a big problem is the inability to continue participating in favorite activities, due to health problems. And when those activities are no longer possible, the social contacts seem to dry up. Sometimes now, it seems that my only social contact is my husband, who is 20 years my junior. Now, it often seems like our few remaining friends, the ones who haven’t died, are more interested in his life, not mine. And who would blame them? My own life has been reduced to complaining about my health problems. I can no longer work. I can no longer travel. I can no longer sing in my chorus. I can no longer go hiking. I can no longer work out. This is turning me into a very uninteresting person to be around. All I have left are opinions about things and old memories, and fewer people want to hear them.
And that paragraph is a perfect example. Just bitching about my problems, nothing anyone wants to hear.
No, please! Tell us more!
Happy Hanukah, Panache!
How about a hug? Sounds like you need one. {{{hug}}} There ya go. And, just to validate you - you have every reason to complain about how your horizon has shrunk. Sorry to hear things are reaching that point for you, I, for one, am willing to listen to you bitch once in awhile about it.