There's an aspect of aging that doesn't get discussed much: The older you get, the fishing pond for new friends gets shallower.
Pretty much everyone accepts that your prime friend-accumulation period occurs when you're still in school -- where you are surrounded by people your age and with similar interests. While our eyes rolled when Princeton alumna Susan Patton said we better find our husbands while we were still in college, we did have to agree with her that that was where the concentration of potential mates was strongest. Once you leave school and enter the mixed-age, mixed-life-stages of the work force, not everyone you encounter is a mirror reflection of yourself.
After you leave the college campus, finding friends becomes a bit harder. And once you become a parent, making new friends becomes harder still. Kids are the ultimate friendship-busters; new moms no longer have hours to devote to listening to their single friends' dating woes. As your kids age, your friendship circle morphs to school families or the other sports team or drama club parents. And when that period ends and your kids leave the nest, you are left with... well, frequently not much.
The friendship crisis that afflicts mid-lifers isn't even just a shortage of friends; we don't actually feel we can count on our old ones, according to a study by Lifeboat, a group that says it is "dedicated to rediscovering great friendship." It found that almost two-thirds of us lack confidence that even our closest friends will be there when we need them. Maybe it's because we haven't actually had the time to nurture them for the past two decades?
In middle age, we tend to categorize our relationships. We have church friends, golfing friends, synagogue sisterhood friends, bridge-playing friends and friends from the Sierra Club's hiking group. We keep these single-purpose friends in their own boxes and they don't transcend into other parts of our lives. There's a woman who I hike with a few times a year. When I saw her last month, she again asked me how old my kids were and got one of their names wrong. No, I don't think she's someone I'd call in an emergency. So where are those friends, the ones who you would call?
Increasingly, they are in our own backyards -- they are our neighbors.
When an unexpected fall recently bought my husband a day in the emergency room waiting to be checked out, it was neighbors who fetched my kids at school and walked my dogs. A third neighbor offered to check on my husband the next day so I could return to work. It was also a neighbor who removed a tarantula from my front doorstep and, since every street has one guy who is handy, a neighbor who fixed my alarm system that kept going off at 2 a.m. He might have had a self-interest in that act of kindness.
For many new retirees, neighborhoods have become the place to turn when they no longer have a job to go to every day or have a PTA to join. Anecdotally speaking, we are seeing more potluck neighborhood parties than ever before. In my own neighborhood, we celebrated Memorial Day with a round robin dinner -- appetizers and cocktails at 5 p.m. in one backyard; potluck main course in another at 7 p.m.; and dessert and dancing to a live band (from the neighborhood, of course) around 8:30 p.m. Best of all, everyone got to walk home. It was a family affair with the home-from-college kids joining, and dogs running through the yards.
It made me think that Dorothy was right: Indeed, there is no place like home -- even when what we're talking about is where to look for friends in midlife.
Earlier on Huff/Post50:
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What you want is someone to hang with near where you live. Approach this scientifically. Having a friend who lives an hour's drive away will mean you won't see them as much as the person who lives closer. So think global, but stay local. That means your local coffee shop, the local branch of the public library, they local chapter of the Sierra Club, or the local college that offers evening courses.
If you play tennis, join a club or take a few lessons at the community center. If you like to throw parties, volunteer to run the annual fund-raiser at your synagogue or church; when the board thanks you publicly at the dinner, everyone will learn your name. If you hike, join the Sierra Club. If you bicycle, join a biking group or enter a race in your age category. Here's the one caveat about following your interests: Nobody ever met anyone while watching "American Idol" from the couch.
Be open to the idea that it's OK to have friends who are older or younger. The fact that they are in different stages in life just means they bring a different perspective to the table. While a 14-year-old won't be interested in socializing with a toddler, that 10-year age gap dissipates when they get older. Why not say yes to the 30-somethings who invite you to join them for drinks after work? Invite them over for dinner with their families and get to know their kids. Their views on the world may not match yours precisely, but variety is the spice of life.
If you are post 50 and uncoupled, you might find that traveling isn't as much fun. Call it the Noah's Ark theory, but in general, we like to go places paired up. There are services that will help you find a travel room-mate. Not only does this give you someone to talk to over dinner, it cuts down those single supplements that some tours and cruises charge. Friendly Planet runs one such pairing-up service. Road Scholar offers many active adult adventure vacations here -- offers to find you a roommate if you want. Their programs and generally educationally based and draw a well-heeled and educated crowd. Cruise ships do a pretty good job of making sure solo travelers find people to hang out with; group dining arrangements go a long way toward conversational icebreaking.
Even if you've never been a joiner, now may be the time to get yourself out there. Got a new puppy or an old dog who needs some new tricks? Find a community dog-training class. If you like to cook, take a cooking class. Participate in the 5K run for charity, even if you walk the final three.
Keep your smart phone with you and ask for numbers. Sure it may feel a little awkward to say to someone you just met "Hey, I really enjoyed talking to you on this Sierra Club hike but the next one isn't for two months. Would you like to get together for a hike before that?" Worst they can say is no.
With Skype and apps like FaceTime, it's easier than ever to have face-to-face visits. Don't assume your old friends are too busy to talk to you on the phone. Most cellphone plans include free long-distance calls and for those that don't, there's Skype. Invite friends who live a great distance to come and stay with you. Show them your city. Friendships are like gardens; it's often easier to tend to an existing one than grow a new one from seeds.
Follow Ann Brenoff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AnnBrenoff
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