Friends and social isolation later in life

In My Humble Opinion
61

Well, I always wanted friends and a social life all through that time, I just never knew how to achieve those things, nor felt that I really had much in common with anyone, except for that period of a couple of years in my thirties. And what changed when I turned 40 is that the symbolic significance of that age made me feel like I’m running out of time to avoid spending the rest of my life alone.

Is your point that people who read Shakespeare, listen to Mozart, and debate the finer points of Aristotelian metaphysics are more likely to get wasted and smoke weed? I never found such a social milieu anywhere, so I wouldn’t know. And when I was younger, as a choir-boy type, I had really internalized the anti-drug public messages of the 80’s, so I thought that anyone who got wasted or smoked weed didn’t have two brain cells to rub together and was pretty much the complete antithesis of a person who had any intellectual interests or proclivities at all.

62

I was just thinking about all the friends in my life. In 62 years, I’ve spent exactly 12 of them with a close, personal friend.

I’m currently unattached.

63

Hmm. Let’s see…
Childhood friend J, had perhaps three years of adult friendship after ten years of being kids together. Found him recently, send a message, got back a kind of meaningless “let’s catch up sometime.”

High school friend R, probably strongest bond I’ve ever had with another XY, very close for five or six years. His wife didn’t like me; have had brief, non-committal contact a few times over the decades since.

Adult friend S, very strong bond as adults with a little less personal attachment, very much my ideal of “friend,” had four or five years before he suddenly dropped dead.

Adult friend K, a woman in a strange separated marriage, closer to FWB than anything else, finally reconstituted her marriage. Maybe two years. Looked her up a little while ago, puzzled that she had no online footprint, and found she’d immediately had a donor pregnancy that resulted in a severely disabled child, so that had been her life for fifteen years.

So… fifteen years of close friendship, none overlapping, in 56 years. I guess that’s a bit better than average, if comments here are any indication.

It does not make me feel better.

Mrs. B. was very much my other half for many years, but at the 20 mark we’re in that common situation of being a little more distant. So friend-wise, I’m unattached and haven’t had a non-marital friend since…

…1995, when S died, and about 1996, when K went back to her husband.

Oh, look, Witcher III. See ya.

64

For those of you who are partnered, do you find that over the years most of your friends are friends of both of you, and you have fewer friends of your own? At this point I don’t have one person who’s exclusively my friend, and I miss that.

65

Not really. We have very few friends even of the casual sort - mainly because Mrs. B.'s social interaction is almost entirely in the course of her work, which takes her into many local homes and so forth but imposes a certain distance on socializing. I did a lot of community work when we came here (and she was in local politics) but none of it led to anything outside those groups (who, to be fair, are almost entirely older folks, or the small core of super-involved types who have a meeting every night of the week and two on Saturday).

What friends we’ve had over the years have been much more one or the others’, not jointly.

66

Surprisingly, we find exactly the opposite occurring. Among the few friends we each have, none of the partners are a good match. (Either I have no common ground with her friend’s hubby, or similar with mine’s wife). I take an annual vacation* with my close friend without mizPullin. She is free to do the same, but she and her BF seem uninterested in anything other than movie or dinner.

*We try to find unusual and atypical destinations, and often our wives become intrigued and want to take the same trip later. There’s a wasted step here somewhere.

67

My job, and therefore my lifestyle, falls right into this bucket.

I’m either at work, asleep, or fading when most people are up and about.

If I do go out for dinner with friends, say, I’m not the most stimulating company because I’ll probably be forcing myself to stay awake so I won’t faceplant into my food.

Forget about staying out all night. I used to work overnights and still do on holidays. Not the same animal once you hit a certain age, believe me.

Catching up with a friend and/or having an opportunity to meet people, for me, involves juggling a work schedule, a household schedule, who’s going to look after the dogs, how long are we going to be there (because I have to be in bed at a certain time), and other issues as they pop up. It gets frustrating for them and upsets me because frankly, it’s work and I usually don’t have the wherewithal to juggle all of it. Ergo, it’s easier to be by myself.

It’s easier for me to meet up with people in the middle of the afternoon. Unfortunately, unless you work in the same general industry as I do, it’s probably going to be awhile until we can get together without my having to do that juggle.

68

Just that it sounds like the sort of shit people might talk about when they are high.

Those are fairly esoteric interests. Most high school and college kids (and adults) seem mostly into sports, videogames, drinking, sex and pop culture.

I like Gilfoyle from Silicon Valley’s quote “I could make what rises to your low standards of a friend any time I want.” IOW, yeah, it’s easy for me to start a new job or go to some Meetup and find a couple of random people I can grab a beer and make some jokes with.