The Challenges of Making Friends as We Get Older

It's Hard to Start From Scratch

Not too many people can imagine a life without friends, who provide moral support, consolation and comfort and generally enrich one’s life like nothing else, especially as we enter our “golden years.”

Friendship has been shown to be strongly related to happiness and good health. In a published study of 57,825 older women in the US, social isolation and loneliness were associated with an 8.0% and 5.0% higher risk for cardiovascular disease, respectively.

Statistics seem to show a similar impact among men as well.

According to data from the Survey Center on American Life, 15% of US men in 2021, said they did not have close friends, compared with 3% in 1990. In addition, those reporting 10 or more close friends decreased from 33% to 13% during the same period.

Despite the benefits of close connections, meeting and making new friends seems to get harder in our later years than when we were younger. Building our lives through school and careers, socializing and dating, marriage and parenthood, offered ample opportunities to find and keep friends.

But many of the friends we made in these lifelong networks may be no longer with or near us. Longtime friends may have died, health issues affecting mobility and/or independence may have cropped up making it difficult to get around, and retirement and diminished finances often lead to downsizing our lives and moving away to a new city or neighborhood, leaving behind some of the people in our lives. Any or all of these factors can disrupt the social networks relied upon for years, leaving us feeling isolated and unsure of how to build new ones.

In addition, over our lifetimes, we’ve fine-tuned our emotional intelligence regarding relationships. As a result, we often become choosier about establishing new relationships. Amanda Krisher, Associate Director of Behavioral Health at the National Council on Aging’s Center for Healthy Aging confirms this aspect of aging:

“Research tells us that as we age, we become more selective with whom we want to spend our time,” Krisher says. “We’re focused on whether a person is someone we can trust. Younger people who like the same things and are in the same social circles can easily make connections, but as we get older, we focus on people we can rely on. We’re a bit more critical in our selections.”

Older people also come to rely on set patterns or routines. Sometimes, this could lead to rigidity when it comes to connecting with other people. Making friends is all about compromise and we need to be as flexible as possible to accommodate our own and other peoples’ needs.

Perhaps another thing that makes it an ongoing struggle to make new friends is our insecurities and self-perception. The challenges of aging can cause us to lose confidence in ourselves and give way to negativity and self-doubt. Thoughts like “I’m boring” or “What do I have to offer?” can create obstacles to social connection. Most experts say that keeping a positive attitude and remaining open are the key to social success in our later years.

And expanding your pool of possible friends is essential, says the NCOA’s Krisher. One promising approach is forming intergenerational connections.

“We sometimes think we want to make friends in our own age cohort, but there are a lot of benefits to having friends in multiple generations,” says Krisher. “Our friends don’t always have to be our own age.”

Krisher advises starting slow. “Really think about what is the one small thing I can do today to create an interaction. It might be going for a walk and saying hi to someone in your neighborhood or greeting the cashier at the grocery store. The more we do something, the more permanent it becomes in our day. It takes about two weeks for a habit to become permanent. And the great thing is that when we do small interactions, we become more motivated to do bigger interactions.”

If we think about it, there are so many opportunities to meet people and broaden our friendship circle. Join groups whose interests are aligned with yours. If you are athletic or sports-oriented, take exercise classes or join walking, cycling or hiking groups. Perhaps you’re into bird watching and love to explore natural surroundings. You’ll find others with these interests as well.

Joining a gym will give you new opportunities too. Aqua aerobics three times a week should find you connecting with prospective friends. Perhaps you are creative. You can take advantage of opportunities to take cooking classes or engage in crafts like knitting or quilting or painting, ceramics or sculpture. Maybe you like gardening and can find like-minded people with a green thumb. If you have flair for the dramatic, explore community theater. If you are an avid reader, start or join a book club. If you are interested in writing, writers’ groups offer a fun way to help you and other would-be authors with their work.

Volunteering through a faith-based organization or community group or at schools or libraries, is also a great way to meet people of all ages and do some good.

These are just a few ideas. There are dozens of others. But the absolute single most important piece of advice is to be open, be willing to try new things, to listen to others and to share.