Excellent commentary on friendship. The people that move along with you through the ebbs and flows of your life do truly become family. Cherishing them and letting them know the impact they have on your life is what makes life happy and whole.
Lovely and thoughtful, Diana (as in, “full of great thoughts.”) I’d love to see your wisdom around the topic of making new friends as we age…there is too much loneliness in the world and it seems especially so among older people. Why is it so hard to make new friends? How are people so intimidated by it, and why and how can they change?
I’d like to talk to you about the difficulty of making new, good friends as we age.
1. A woman I know talks about the friends she’s known for 20 or 40 years.(She and I have an ethnic, and, NYC bond, although we both live in L.A.) She and I don’t have 20 or 30 years in which to develop a slow-growing deep friendship.She’s fine about only seeing me at public, community events.I’m not fine about this. It’s all she offers. 2.Most of my long-time close friends, my finger friends, have died. A wonderful, loving friend retired to Turkey. The distance is not conducive to our going to each other’s home to socialize. The other, remaining, major friend lives in upstate New York. He’s not well enough to travel. I don’t think he wants me to see him as is. The husband of my close finger friend, who died in 2012, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, might be in the early stages of Dementia.
My only best friend in Los Angeles died recently.
Next fall, I may sign up for classes at the Santa Monica Emeritus College. Recommended by a doctor. Classes taken by adults are usually friendly places. I would hope to get to know some new people. I would hope to make a few new friends.
“A true friend is someone with whom time and distance don’t matter. No matter how many years have passed, when you see each other again, you simply pick up where you left off.” Thank you Chat GPT, you nailed it.
Excellent commentary on friendship. The people that move along with you through the ebbs and flows of your life do truly become family. Cherishing them and letting them know the impact they have on your life is what makes life happy and whole.
Lovely and thoughtful, Diana (as in, “full of great thoughts.”) I’d love to see your wisdom around the topic of making new friends as we age…there is too much loneliness in the world and it seems especially so among older people. Why is it so hard to make new friends? How are people so intimidated by it, and why and how can they change?
Karen Jacobs
I’d like to talk to you about the difficulty of making new, good friends as we age.
1. A woman I know talks about the friends she’s known for 20 or 40 years.(She and I have an ethnic, and, NYC bond, although we both live in L.A.) She and I don’t have 20 or 30 years in which to develop a slow-growing deep friendship.She’s fine about only seeing me at public, community events.I’m not fine about this. It’s all she offers. 2.Most of my long-time close friends, my finger friends, have died. A wonderful, loving friend retired to Turkey. The distance is not conducive to our going to each other’s home to socialize. The other, remaining, major friend lives in upstate New York. He’s not well enough to travel. I don’t think he wants me to see him as is. The husband of my close finger friend, who died in 2012, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, might be in the early stages of Dementia.
My only best friend in Los Angeles died recently.
Next fall, I may sign up for classes at the Santa Monica Emeritus College. Recommended by a doctor. Classes taken by adults are usually friendly places. I would hope to get to know some new people. I would hope to make a few new friends.
Is anyone else in this situation?
Losing your “finger friends.”
“A true friend is someone with whom time and distance don’t matter. No matter how many years have passed, when you see each other again, you simply pick up where you left off.” Thank you Chat GPT, you nailed it.