Considering the narrowing number of friends you have now that you’re over 50, and likewise your live-in lover or spouse or companion, the issue of how to make new friends arises again and again, and this, despite the others you encounter in the officially middle-aged demographic, and to whom you nod or wave or murmur in passing.
You ask yourself if they are as frightened, if they are as concerned, and if they are as perplexed as you are at withdrawing into a sort of cocoon of necessity and circumstance. Perhaps they view their dwindling crews as a closing of the ranks, or a tactic for managing unwanted expectations. Perhaps their tightening of circles is a matter of expedience; who isn’t caught in the flurry of family obligations like caring for elderly parents or stumbling through midlife dating, or shuttling back and forth to physicians — the dermatologist, the cardiologist, the oncologist.
Whether tired or preoccupied or wildly busy and then tired or preoccupied, you discount the embarrassment of your aging face, your spare tire, and your surprisingly stubborn pride all the while admitting that you can hardly imagine undertaking a new friendship (much less rekindling the old) in your currently melancholic psychological state. This is not to say that you are entirely friendless nor woeful and dispirited as a result, or dispirited and woeful and therefore entirely friendless; all chicken and the egg circumlocution aside, you can count true confidantes with your thumb and your index, and adding those you can rely on, even casually, may leave one or more digits dangling.
In an effort to identify friends, you may be tempted to resort to including acquaintances. But you stop short: None would qualify in a list of hug-it-out, stop-by-for-coffee, call-me-when-you’re-sick compadres, much less when your kid has dropped into an adolescent funk, or your dog is vomiting and you don’t know what to do, or you’re the one who’s nauseous over your withering assets, your lost job, your man friend’s disinterest, your woman friend’s disinterest, or outright depression over your notable absence of human interactions, which cycles you right back to an indisputably shrinking coterie of intimates.
And you wonder what you’ll do when you’re “really old” and pals are routinely dying off.
Among the dying as you imagine them are casual friends from junkets long past, and wannabe-admirers who didn’t dare to ask you out; that was in an era of “like” before the virtual appropriation of this fundamental term.
Among the dying are neighbors from the days when your children rode their bikes together; that was before Driver’s Ed and SAT prep and sneaking out for God-knows-what, and before you find yourself (suddenly) middle-aged and moving them into their college dorms.
Among the dying are others whose time has come because their birth certificates tell them so, and they begin to drop like proverbial flies; it is as if some Bell Curve requires that their — your — numbers begin to diminish in accordance with varied bodily breakdowns.
All of the above is at least in part responsible for the impression that middle-age as a label is ominous, and equally so, accusatory, dismissive and downright deadly. No wonder it seems as foreign to you now as no doubt it will be when you look back, stunned that you are still around at 70, and trying to process the notion of “elderly.” Then you will reflect on your energetic outlook and available opportunities some two decades earlier.
After age 50, widening your circles to include a larger group is well advised. And no, do not presume to include those on Facebook with whom you chat, or the retail staff with whom you engage in pleasantries at the local coffee shop or bookstore or dry cleaners, and no, not the friendly faces with whom you worked once and exchange emails or holiday cards or LinkedIn introductions; rather, target some broader selection with equal parts concern for where they are, and plans for where they’re going. You may consider the following candidates: friends of friends whose names you actually recall, or possibly the old pals you knew in your twenties and thirties before you moved or they moved and you had babies or they had babies, and be grateful that social media enables you to find them. Then, take to the phone or the interactive screen, where you can laugh and chat and gossip as you expressly make a point of not complaining about the nagging pain in your back, and the failure of the latest hand cream to fade those damnable brown spots, not to mention the thousand and one ways in which the world was so much better 30 years ago when you were satin-skinned and hopeful and not going to become your parents who, incidentally, may qualify as friends now that you are 50, as they, at 80, seem younger than ever.
None of this resolves the issue of the pinky with no designated name of a friend for that coffee or that cry or even a dash to the supermarket, and this is precisely why you need to understand, to resolve, to determine, to pinpoint, to practice, to put into practice a platform and process for making new friends at, on, or over the age of 50. And if you do not, then you will be required to do the same over 60, so set your mind to pursuing all viable routes to finding new friends, moving beyond your Google circles and your real world inner circle that consists of you, the man you see from time to time, and the old friend from before divorce whose husband is about to retire and who, in empty nest like you, paces in a series of zeroes or loopy figure eights, or zigzags from room to room as she bites her lip and contemplates what this stage really means. Happily (for her), she is a grandmother, with children 10 years older than yours and therefore the next generation well established, a fact that plainly gives her some peace and perspective as exemplified by the way she softens when she speaks of taking trips: There’s 85 South then 95 South, or 85 North then 95 North, or possibly I-20 West or just catching a flight to visit a son and a daughter-in-law and a grandchild, or a daughter and a son-in-law and a grandchild, or a single daughter in the North or a single daughter in the South.
Unhappily (for you), she is often away.
Though you rarely have a moment for that coffee or hello, you nonetheless bear periodic witness to her discomfort as she gazes in the mirror, and her restlessness as she tidies her house. You note your own worry as you watch the man sleeping next to you, and you listen to his breathing and you see his fingers twitch in dream and you wonder if he will disappear as men have a way of doing. You tell yourself you cannot blame them; fearing their own mortality, they seek the company of younger women whose ovaries continue to function, whose spines remain supple, whose skin has yet to lose its satiny surface and whose complaints now seem myopic. Thus you make a mental note that you really must generate yourself new friends or at least one – for the cup of java or the touch-base by telephone or strolling the mall quarterly and trying the latest miracle foundation and the latest non-feathering lipstick and the latest collagen-based skincare product and listening patiently as she remarks on the pros and cons of white gold or yellow gold or rose gold though you can’t say you care much all things considered, as your life has never been about jewelry options but it would be richer for the addition of a few friends.
Since friends can discuss frivolous issues and more serious issues, and it is the frivolous and the serious that you crave not to mention expansion rather than contraction so you feel more fully alive, you apply yourself to the surprisingly numerous alternatives you identify: Consider a meetup over French or fashion or other common interest; consider a book group devoted to Jane Austen or symbolist poets or avant-garde heavyweights; consider checking your Facebook friends to see who lives in the metropolitan area; consider your alumni associations and your professional associations and your community associations and insist (to yourself) on not excluding those individuals who are in their twenties through their forties. If you are in reasonable health, consider a swimming class for the (dare I say it) middle-aged, if not at the Y then the local church; this last doesn’t require membership to its pews to purchase membership to its lanes where women can swim a little or steam a little or chat a little and then head home to whatever work remains or the work of a husband remaining or the work of deciding if being alone and uncoupled is worth the work of changing that status. After all, you can always go online as long as you’re open to the octogenarian who may come calling though you are 55.
The challenge of making new friends over 50 is that you scrambled through the 30s and 40s for your career and your kids and possibly to pursue an interest; you may be caught between still-young-enough-to-need-you children in college or not-dead-yet elders who require care and attention of the sort that you hope someone will provide to you when the time comes. What is left is scratching for a living since you aged out of your career or you were blind-sided by death or divorce; what is left is a few hours of sleep courtesy of Ambien or Klonopin or Johnny Walker; what is left is easing the isolation on your favorite blogs and Facebook, or sharing images on Tumblr and on Instagram while caught in a quandary over the tendency to fictionalize when what you really desire is commiseration or acceptance or purpose; what is left are not the friendships of your childhood or your teens or your twenties, not the commonalities of dishing over the boss and kids and spouse and soccer in your thirties, not the excitement of a new move to a new city for a big promotion in your early forties, not the thrill when you find yourself dating after a stale marriage and the rediscovery of your sexuality. Instead, there is this: Staking a claim where you are, appreciating whatever love exists that you take for granted, estimating the remaining years and days and hours, and carefully considering the quality of a peer relationship you could truly enjoy, the likelihood of the friendship lasting and thus in its endurance your willingness to invest, and if you do resurrect a friendship from childhood or college or grad school or three employers ago, perhaps a Skype call is enough to eke out the mutual benefits of an affectionate and meaningful connection.
Now and then you could exchange images like girlfriends with a new coiffure or a five-pound weight loss, or swap tales like buddies do of sexual exploits and sports life and business ventures and even the joy of being a father the second time around, though in that too, while older and wiser as a father over 50, there is little time to devote to friendship.
Gender is irrelevant of course, as what you seek ought to be simple: To share a confidence and know it will be honored; to find common ground and trust it won’t be shaken; to shrug off the weekend’s latest aches and pains; to hug it out after a disagreement; to stop for coffee without calling; to call when you’re having a meltdown over your kid’s silence or your dog’s illness or your dwindling assets or your lost job or your man friend or your woman friend or your notable absence of friends, and given that last, maybe you will make it to that meetup after all, and schedule yourself into a class at the community college, and respond to the invitation to join your third cousin’s book group at the local Starbucks. Most important: Tell yourself this isn’t really about dying so much as it is about living while you still can. And remind yourself to smile no matter which avenue you select for making new friends over the age of 50, to smile because no matter the outcome of your quest it brightens you to do so, to smile because it is excellent exercise for the sagging neck, the softening jowls, and the once-upon-a-time crisp and youthful forty-something jawline.
If you would like to share details of your 50+ story — concerns, special challenges, questions, suggestions and successes — and connect with others, please email startingover50plus @ gmail.com. You may also find use in the Midlife Makeover Series.
You May Also Enjoy
Weren’t we just talking about finding more alone time?!
But, yes, making new friends is hard. I am always willing and eager to do a bit of the heavy lifting at first, but then, when the calls to check in or invitations go unreciprocated, as seems to happen more often when its someone I haven’t known for very long, I let it go.
My mother had one very close friend who often stopped by for coffee — and I think my mom drank many cups in her kitchen as well. One friend like that would be nice….
You made me smile, Judith. Yes, there is the need for alone time, without question. But I find that the loss of close girlfriends, something that has occurred over the past 8 to 10 years, leaves a gap that a partner cannot and should not fill. Your mention of your mom in the kitchen with friends makes me wistful. I have nice memories of my mom in the kitchen with coffee as well – even with kids and job – women were nonetheless able to find the time to stop in and visit.
Most of my friends come from the many band projects I’m involved in. So the ages range from 17 to 75 or so. I don’t think about making friends, it just happens. And it is wonderful, btw.
Oh, Gandalfe. What a wonderful way to make friends of all ages, yes! Pursuing a passion is a great way to have fun and to bond.
One of the reasons blogging has been so much fun for me is the new friends who have come my way. I have made many friends who work for businesses who advertise with me and one is a regional director…we now get together for lunch every time she is in town. I have also made new friends with other bloggers and readers of my blog. One calls me at least once a month to go to tea. I have gone shopping with women and become friends as we re-do their wardrobe. It has been so nice. My really close confidants are few and I keep them near my heart, but I am so honored to call many my friends at this stage of life. I have a group of ladies who work out together twice a week faithfully…and they are the reason I have stuck with it. This time of my life is so much fun!
I’m not yet 50, but feel sad at the lack of close friendships that I have in my life. There are several bosom friends that remain from college connections and we get together annually. However, the true – I’ll call you when the bottom falls out – sort and lacking and I can think of only one. Distance, life changes of divorce and relocation (even just the 15 miles), and loss of shared history have made it so difficult to identify and foster closeness. I’m very saddened by this and hope to find close, current relationships as life moves forward.
At least your thoughts remind me that I’m not alone in this loss and difficulty.
Loss of shared history. I’m so glad you mentioned that, Missy. It’s huge, isn’t it.
When I moved to Utah from Oklahoma, where I’d lived the first 35 years of my life, I came face to face with the task of making new friends. Starting over meant finding a bank, a hair dresser, a car mechanic, a decent aerobics class – and making new friends. And then four years later I moved to England and started again. Finding common interests and showing up routinely seems to be the way it’s worked for me. Chatting whilst sewing, knitting, crafting has identified which of the ladies present has the same humour as I do, who reads my blog, who wants to meet up for coffee or a walk. Making close friends requires an investment of time – there is no other way. As to dying, I’m aware that at 58 1/2 I’ve now outlived my maternal grandfather who died at 56 – before I was born – and his son, who passed at 57, the year I was 21. I am pretty certain my future is shorter than my past, but I still believe myself capable of learning new skills of changing my habits and attitudes; I can still run 10K and touch my toes. I’m not dead or dying yet, at least no more than any of us. I’m looking forward to 2015 and the adventures it will bring!
I really enjoyed reading this blog and can sooo relate. I hope it is still active. I need the support!
Corporate America, big city, working spouse three kids in a uber competitive suburbs. One day you look up, your kids are gone, the people you did things with have moved on, all you had in common was your kids. Seeing other people with kids your age is awkward, either your kid is behind theirs or vice versa. All of our activities revolved around our kids’ sports. Our corporations value mobility, we have chosen not to move at the detriment of our careers, our peers have moved on, new people move every three years. Now we are getting put out to pasture at 55, special projects, not in the main stream.
I’m not sure what to do. We have some good friends, miles away, but they are not a part of our every day lives, they seem to not be in the same boat as us. I’m terrified to retire. I dread long weekends. What to do?
You bring up many of the elements of our contemporary society that lead to alienation, Clark. And this can occur younger than 50 of course, though it seems that at this stage, as our children move on (and corporations toss us aside), the disorientation can be considerable.
To my surprise I have found that online communities have eventually lead to real world friendships. Is this something you have tried?
I do understand and empathize. Friendships are precious. Their loss, difficult.
Alienation by due process-life happens and somehow the exiting gets real intense at this stage of life. My “elimination” process hit a bit earlier than most, and now I do suffer from connection. It was thrust on me, so not really what I would have chosen, but somehow age gives you the wisdom to cope. It isn’t easy, but you just DO what ya gotta DO…and hope for the best. I have tried to initiate contact and establish friendships constantly, but alas my life is merely “acquaintances” now, and somehow I have accepted that it probably will be that way from here on. It is hard to find die hard long term friends like I once knew. The economy has many people on the move, people don’t stay put like they did in earlier generations. I bought my house almost a decade ago, in this “new” area…I am the only original owner on the block now, which I find testifies that my area has NO longevity anymore. It started out with most in my peer group, what is buying in now is WAY younger so they visualize me as the “old” widow lady…somehow that makes me feel ancient…I am not ancient yet…I just hit middle age, sigh….I don’t have cats, I do have dogs, ha. I feel like life passed me by, the putting out to pasture deal is REAL. So you lower your expectations, live in the moment more and try to make the best of what life is now. My mom always told me that growing older took lots and lots of courage, and now I get what she meant.
I feel the same way. I feel life has passed me by also. Two divorces, no children, small distant family. Recently had health issues and realized how alone I really am. Not sure where or how to meet friends. Have a lot of acquaintances but not real close friends. I feel like this is it for my remaining time. As good as it gets!
wow..so glad i saw this today.
I would love to make new friends. One would be lovely.
making friends at the age of 23 – 46
I’ve been 50 for less than 30 days… Now I’m REALLY depressed…what an uphill battle
Challenges are not insurmountable, Stephanie. They’re simply challenges… They require that we approach and do things differently at times. And the results will vary, as at any other age. If you have your health, you’ve got the most important element to pursue new friendships and a great deal more. Stop back again and let us know how life is treating you (and vice versa).
Happy birthday, by the way.
Join a gym or sign up for a class. I’m going to turn 50 this year and I’m not dreading it. My kids have all left the nest and it was sad. I now believe that I MUST do things for ME now. Even though I talk to my 3 kids at least every other day, I have to remember that this time is for ME!
Have been thinking about this so much lately and so happy to have found this site! In my mid 40s and considering a move to a new state in a couple years. my priorities and fears have change over the years and I’m surprised that the things that worry me now weren’t even on my radar 5 years ago! I’m learning from what you share. Thank you?
Why do media always portray people around 50 looking 10 years older than they look in real life even if well groomed?
They always look wistful, sad or goofy if happy. Please let’s not enforce outdated stereotypes.
Please
I know some age better than others but in the world we now live with better health & activity 50 is not that old.
We are not all Nannas at 50 ( lots of us still have kids at school!) & if we r we r we r alot younger & more with it than some 20 somethings perception.
A smile is mostly greeted with a smile. If someone likes themselves it shows and that is attractive to whomever they meet.
Young, old or middle aged!
Personally, I think these images of women over the age of 50 are pretty nice! And FYI, one of the challenges for media is the availability of stock art to be purchased. Indeed, limited options (unless you have a big budget) for midlife / middle age women in particular, and even more so, women of color.
I have figured out that a new social network is what I need the most. Reading this only confirmed my belief. About a year ago I left my job out of mental exhaustion and never looked back, but along the way I faced a lot of fear, second guessing and self doubt. Had I a better social network, that would not have been so hard. Last night I saw a movie on Amazon called “Ove” (Swedish film with subtitles) that encapsulated my perspectives on new friendships. Well worth watching. The moral was that friendships are essential and they can come from unexpected directions.
You know it’s coming – the big “50”, you can’t slow it down or turn around or do anything except go on…. It’s okay of your life is more or less sorted and you have resources and friends and family to support and enjoy new challenges. But if you find yourself stuck in a very scary situation, with no or very little support, financially stuffed, left by your spouse of 24 years, (and can’t ever get the divorce over and done with), angry teenagers because no matter the fact that you love them and tried to do the best under impossible circumstances, it’s very, very hard to find a new starting point and move forward.
Yes it is, Liza. You are so right.
Hi everyone! I found this blog today & read it with interest. I have been working on my
“Reinvention” role for over 10 yrs now.
Widowed suddenly at 50, I’ve sold my family home, moved to a new location, struggled (still) to establish new friendships, dated & kissed lots of frogs, bought a car & new Florida home by myself (scary), am active physically, and even traveled alone.
I am still “figuring it out” and spend a lot of time alone. It doesn’t really bother me anymore, but it took a long time to get here.
Hang in there, you are not alone, lots of us are feeling our way along & secretly unsure of ourselves!
Hi Maggie,
Hope things are all working out for you now x
Have found myself at these crossroads and it feels pretty dismal at the moment but hoping all will work out ok . No one wants to employ a mum that has been at home for quite a few years regardless of what she did before.
Hi there everyone!
I came across this blog for the first time and want to pitch-in that I’m turning 50 at the end of the year. This year I bought a house on the coast here in CA. and I’m about to leave my job to work from home with my own business. It’s a step of faith to do it, but I think life will be better. Being divorced has been a blessing to move on with my life and experience life in a way that would not have happened otherwise. I find myself attracted to elderly men and I just had a date with a real gentleman. I plan on connecting with my community through the local church and volunteer groups. It’s a major life change moving from a city of almost 1 million to a little unincorporated town of less that 2,000, but I’m quite excited about have a better quality of life with nature and close community. I have a daughter who is in high school and living mostly with my ex due to living quarters in the city. What I offer her is a stable place away from the uncertainty of urban apartment living.
I am a 57-year-old professional woman and I have given up on ever meeting another man to couple up with…men my age want women my daughter’s age, or younger.
Thought about switching teams but also feel a bit awkward and unwelcome to that particular group at this late stage.
Believe me, Lou, I get it. Living the same phenomenon. But you know what they say… never say never! I’m curious — if you care to share — are you out and about trying to meet people, men and women both? And if so, at what sort of venues or activities?