Making Friends After a Certain Age

Back in October 2020 I wrote about the importance of friends, especially during that dark time of lockdowns and Covid fear. Interacting with friends is as vital as ever to our wellbeing and now that we are (pretty much) free to move about the country – at least for now – we need to take every opportunity to be with people we care about and who care about us. Yeah, that means family too. The freedom to go out and to travel also presents us the chance to interact with new people and perhaps even make some new friends.

That last part gets harder as we age, but by being open to others we give ourselves the chance to build our network of friends as we age, instead of watching it shrink. The easiest way to do that is to engage with others while doing something you enjoy. As you regular readers know, our local brewery - https://www.ashtonbrewing.com/home - is my home away from home. I always get into a conversation with someone at the bar (we all like beer so we start with that basic thing in common) and my wife and I have made some new friends there. We’ve connected with 4 couples from our town and frequently meet there for good company, good conversation, and of course, good beer. Some of us have very different political / social views but our core values are aligned and as I’ve written before, that’s what makes for good friends – and those differences keep life interesting. Think about how boring it would be if you and your friends were exactly alike. Sounds like a bad teen movie to me.

For those new friends, things developed slowly over many meetings at the brewery saying hello and talking a bit here and there. As kids we often clicked with someone right away. That happens much more rarely as adults due to our self-imposed guardedness brought on by life experiences. An exception to that is another couple we met at the brewery in its previous incarnation. The husband was wearing a t-shirt with a design I had custom-made. Our conversation started by me asking him how he got one of those shirts. We connected right away, and even though they have since moved from the immediate area, we keep in touch and get together when we are able.

This isn’t a call to get out there on a quest to make new friends, it’s a reminder to interact with others while you are doing things you enjoy. You will have a lot of interesting conversations, maybe learn something, or find a surprising connection, and maybe even start a new friendship. Talking to a fellow bar patron while grabbing a drink and snack in Lake George with my wife and nephew, as our nieces shopped, we found a very surprising connection. No matter where we go in the country – or the world for that matter – we ALWAYS meet someone from New Jersey, so just meeting someone from our home state is no big deal. In fact, it's a letdown if we’ve made it to the last day of our trip and figure we are clear of NJ then run into someone who says “I’m from New Jersey, where are you from”. That usually happens right after one of us comments that it’s our last day and we haven’t met anyone from NJ on this trip – jinx! In this case the gentleman mentioned he was on vacation and when I asked where he was from he told us he lived in the town next to ours. We all got a good laugh out of being almost neighbors and bumping into each other a couple of hundred miles from home. Not a budding friendship, but we had a good time comparing notes on home and more importantly, about places in the Lake George area.

In this crazy time it’s more important than ever to have a support network, and friends are a huge part of that. Take the time to cultivate the friendships you have and know that it’s OK to let go of old friends whose lives no longer mesh with yours. By having the courage to interact with new people, you’ll open yourself to making new friends. Sure it can be scary to interact with “strangers” but doing so while engaged in an activity you love, or in a place where you are comfortable will make it easier. You won’t always click, but you’ll have a lot of interesting conversations along the way and maybe you’ll make a new friend too.