I need to get some f***in friends

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

These days I’ve been feeling a bit like Paul Rudd’s character from the movie “I Love You Man” where on the eve of his wedding he realizing he doesn’t have any close male friends. Now it’s a bit of a different situation as his character was in his early 30s and never had male friends where as I am 50 and for the most part have always had at least a few dudes to pal around with.

Most of our actual long-term friends (many with similar age children) have moved out of the area. So I tend to only see them infrequently for special occasions or via social media. Which is fine, except it would be nice to have some people to just go out to dinner with or organize a last minute play date with the kids from time to time, not organize a major reunion.

One challenge I see about making friends as you get older is you can’t just jump into 10 or 20 years of shared experiences. Plus everyone kind of seems to operate on their own schedule doing their own thing.

2

I would recommend you try using something like Meetup.com.

I know it sounds like a dating site but it is not. It is a place where you can find or form groups who have similar interests. That can be anything whatsoever. Travel, books, movies, gaming, kayaking, motorcycles…anything.

I started one a few years ago to watch the last season of Game of Thrones. The group watched all previous episodes (2-3 episodes per week) and timed it to finish in time for the final season and they came over to watch all those. Food, drink was part of it. I made a few friends I still talk to today.

You can search for existing groups or form your own.

Of course, this works a lot better in big cities than rural areas.

Alternatively, if you drink alcohol, find a local watering hole and be a regular (ideally a small bar). Some such places can be sketchy but some can be great neighborhood hangouts. You get to know the regulars and chit-chat and relationships form. Especially easy if you have a local sports team (e.g. football) that you can show-up on a Sunday to watch with others.

If you are religious then church (or whatever) might be a good place to meet and socialize.

3

Yep. My best friend since high school started moving around in the early-'90s. New Orleans, Winston-Salem, NC, Bellingham, WA, Birch Bay, WA (I bought his house), Mississippi, South America, now Florida. In the last decade or so he seems to have become a Libertarian-type, believing conspiracy theories and he’s a Trump supporter. (I remember when he hated fascists!) I see him on social media, but don’t interact because I still like him and don’t want to antagonise him.

I see friends from L.A. on Facebook, still doing things we did 20-odd years ago. Science fiction conventions, movie trade shows, Things That Happen In L.A. …

I made some friends when I moved up here. One moved got recalled into the Army, and then settled in Spokane when he was out. Another friend moved to San Diego. Another moved to British Columbia.

My wife is a homebody, so we only go out to dinner every week or so. She’s self-employed, so she doesn’t have any coworkers.

I’d be out of place at a party with a bunch of 20- and 30-somethings, but mentally I’m still in my 30s. Nobody invites me to parties anymore.

I joined a moviegoing Meetup, and an aviation one over a decade ago. They turned out to be kind of boring.

Well, anyway. I have the house to work on, movies to watch, meals to cook, a kayak to paddle, books to read… If I had an aircraft, I’d be set!

4

Yeah…can be hit or miss. Not all the people who came to my meetup were fun but a few were. Take the bad with the good (and the bad weren’t really bad in my case…just a bit dull to be with).

Same here.

5

It’s so hard in our separated world.

But go where people are, alone.
Outdoor fests.
The beach.
Bars.
Church.

Good luck.

6

Adding to Beckdawrek’s list:

Libraries. Join some discussion groups. Don’t like them? Drop back out, try another.

Volunteer work.

Farmers’ markets. People talk to each other at farmers’ markets.

7

People aren’t really looking for friends at that age. You’ll have to do something like join groups where the same people meet regularly and you can slowly form friendships over time. Some examples:

If you exercise regularly, consider joining a training group, class or team sport. It’s natural to make small talk in those environments and friendships can grow naturally.

Join the boards for various community groups in your area, such as being on the board for a local botanical garden. Not only will you get to know the board members, but they may also have social events where you’ll meet more people.

If you’re in an HOA neighborhood, join the HOA. The board meets regularly and you’ll get to know your neighbors.

Those kinds of things are where people can form natural friendships. Even if someone isn’t looking for a friendship, being with the same person on a regular basis can cause the friendship feelings to grow on their own. It also helps if you socialize more than is normal for your comfort zone. For instance, if the group wants to go out to happy hour, go with them even if staying at home is more your thing. Those kinds of social events are often when relationships go from acquaintance to friend.

8

Everybody shits on Facebook, but this is really where it comes into its own.

I’m 47, and I’ve built a pretty great group of friends in the last 10 years mostly by adding everyone I meet and everyone local who looks remotely interesting on FB and then trying to make better connections to the ones I have something in common with. We have regular low-key back porch gatherings that are good to invite new people to.

So it’s not easy, but it is possible.

9

I am so accustomed to not having more than one friend at a time (if that), I think I would be uncomfortable if there were more. My issues with friends are twofold: making friends is difficult for me, it is an effort because I am socially sort of frozen, and I am soft-spoken, while at the same time what I do say can be too pointed and acerbic. Secondly, there are so few people in the world that I would want to be friends with. The world seems full of fools and hypocrites (and I sometimes speculate what kind of jackass those folks think I am). I envy easy affability and surface friendliness, but I have never been able to carry them off, and am not likely to learn now, at my age. I am not unhappy, my husband and I are very well-suited, we are close but we give each other enough space too. If he dies before I do, I think I may have to do something to prevent isolation, but I feel no urgency to do so now.

10

I’m lonely a lot, but I have friends. The issue I think is that very few of them are people I can relate to. Most of them are older than me by 10-30 years. The friends that are our age are either single with no kids or have grown kids. And of course now we are not just parents but parents of a twice exceptional kid, which just entrenches the sense of isolation. I used to have a writers group we started on Meetup. We were thick as thieves for eight years, and it was the happiest I’ve ever been. But parenting, long COVID and other issues took us away from each other. I really miss just getting together, having a drink and talking irreverently about books and writing.

The people I’m closest to live far away from me. There is only one person (my Aunt) I’d call in a crisis. I don’t like bothering people.

What I need is not a friend here or a friend there, but a community I belong to. I had that once with my writers group, and I want it back.

11

I’m 51, female, single, no kids, decent income. I am blessed to have four very good friends, but they’re two married couples (who don’t know each other) and all 10-13 years older than me. And one of the couples has a kid. A 22-year-old who I would take a bullet for and who has called me “Aunt [Misnomer]” for as long as he could talk, but still — they’re parents and I’m not. I have a handful of other friends of varying closeness, but there isn’t another single, childless woman under 65 in the bunch. And you’d think that wouldn’t matter so much, but it kind of does. Sorta the opposite of Spice_Weasel’s situation. :slight_smile:

In my 20s, everyone I knew was single and childless and broke. And so very young. Friendships were easier. But I’m only still in touch with one of my friends from those days; we live 55 miles apart, and have little in common now.

Although I work from home, the issue is not needing to be around more people. I do a lot of volunteer work, I go to the gym twice a week, and I go out to hear live music pretty regularly. I’m around plenty of other people, and I’m an outgoing type who actually enjoys small talk, but meeting them isn’t the same as befriending them. It’s just really, really hard to make genuine connections with people. In some ways, I think trying to make new friends at this age is worse/harder than trying to date at this age. Part of it is definitely what the OP said: “everyone kind of seems to operate on their own schedule doing their own thing.”

12

I’ve been getting good ideas from a book named Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

13

I don’t have a lot of real-life friends anymore, but I’m not lonely.

14

I may be misremembering but I have a recollection that the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” said if you could count five friends on your death bed you have done well.

I was 17 when I read that and thought it was madness. I had loads of friends. Who ever can only count five? Now, at 56, I get it. Counting five close friends is difficult. I have many acquaintances I am friendly with but five close “friends”? Not so much (sadly).

15

I have had no problems making friends since I retired. I joined a Tai-Chi class, started going to needlework seminars and volunteering at the library. I was spending time doing things I enjoyed with people my age who enjoyed the same things.

My husband has no RL friends because he stopped keeping up with them when he retired and most of them just up and died anyhow.

Hubs enjoys going out with my friends and they all seem to like him but that really isn’t the same. I worry about what will happen to him if I die first because he really will be alone then. I mean, I’m pretty sure that my friends will try to include him at the start of his widower status, but if he doesn’t put any effort into it, yeah, he will die with no friends.

I’ve been to funerals for other retired men because I was friends with their wives and it has always struck me how few people identify themselves as “his” friend rather than “hers”.

16

I feel ya. When COVID broke out, I coincidentally had two fallings out. One friend was consistently treating me like shit, fueled by the poison his wife was feeding him about me, so I said our friendship was over if he didn’t change. He didn’t. I later found out he had cancer and talked about it here, but our dude-vorce pretty much closed off my social outlet and I wasn’t even told about his funeral. The other falling out was with the brother of a friend, and now I’m closed out of that social group as well.

I got used to living like a hermit during COVID, and it just seems like too much effort to make new friends. Fuck people.

17

Same here. I work from home. Two best friends that don’t live close. A neighbor that is nice, my dogs and of course my Wife.

And well, you guys.

And oddly I have gotten to know my co-workers better than working at the office.

18

These were the two places where I found new friends in my 30s. Definitely would stress if you go this route to find a smallish, local bar (too big and you generally won’t run into the same people twice). And especially if they have the local sports team on the TVs (which results in people looking up as opposed to down at their phones) - and being more open to discussion/conversation.

I’d also stress a small-medium sized church if you go that route. Like 100 or so may be good. You don’t want to walk into a real small one because there is the chance they are about to go under and the vibe gets kinda weird.

19

Boy oh boy does this resonate with me. I have read about, and experienced first hand, that it is especially difficult for men to make new friends, and older folks lose their work social circle, so it’s a double whammy.

Add into that the fact that society has become more isolating in general. There was a book a few years ago Bowling Alone that tackled this phenomenon.

For me, there is the added factor that we moved away from where I wanted to live out my days and had friends.

Sure, we’ve met a few of our neighbors, and shared some dinners. I’ve signed up for some classes, so hopefully that will help. I’ve volunteered with the a local theatre troop, but that has not really panned out (it’s basically a family run vanity project, not a real group). I also tried two different Tai Chi classes, but it was just me and one other old lady there for both.

What is missing for me is someone, or multiple someones, who “get” me, and can have discursive BS sessions with about whatever is on my mind. Without that, it gets really REALLY isolating.

But, I’m still working on it!

20

I’ve just always tended toward loneliness. I’m an introvert too so I see less of people on purpose, but I tend to feel lonely whether I have friends or not. I think I just have a view of human nature that precludes me ever wanting to be emotionally dependent on any one person. So I can hang out with people and even talk about my life but I’m never going to go to someone in my darkest hour for support, again with the exception of my Aunt, and that’s a two-way street. I don’t like that level of vulnerability with other people. Maybe because I was burned when I was young. I don’t know. But every time I thought I had a sure thing it was taken away from me, so I’m more cautious now.