We are the company we keep. Or are we?

Marnie There was a thread started here a while ago, and there are lots of us friendless people! (me included)
There were also others who realised they had just acquaintances rather than good friends.
I have only one or two friends myself. I don't know why, I'm not particularly shy, or horrible, I don't think.

Marnie How sad. Have you had friends you have lost or just never made any? I confess I am not good at making friends, a peripatetic childhood and going to lots of schools meant I rarely had a chance to reach the point where friendships 'jell', so never quite learned the knack.

The friends I have, have mainly befriended me, usually through a common interest: both being members of the awkward squad at school, likewise at university and likewise again in one of my jobs, both having children with the same problems as a young mothers, and most recently through Gransnet, a member who lives close by, we met for coffee at a troubled time and found we had a lot of itnerests in common.

Do you have any idea why you find it difficult to make friends? Have you had any counselling to help you? Are you a joiner, or do you just hope something might happen? Perhaps now your lack of expectation is self fulfilling?

Marnie that was a sad read. Perhaps on here we can all be your virtual friends? I know it’s not the same but I’m sure we do care. ?

Well I actually have had my closest friends in one room. They didn't previously know each other. It was for my 50th birthday. I wanted to host a lunch party for my best female friends (although 3 chaps joined us for coffee). I wasn't surprised that they all got on well and chatted away. I think they all have good social skills and could usually find something in common. It was such a happy event that I repeated it for my 60th. Virtually the same people attended and the chat picked up where it left off. I have very nice ladies as friends and I know I'm lucky. I take nothing for granted.

I have reached the age of sixty six and have no friends. I don't know how to make friends. I am lonely and sad and would dearly love a friend to have coffee/tea or to call of I was low or happy. My life is a quiet sad lonely affair that I.hate.

Vive la difference. Great to have friends from all walks of life. I have lots of interesting friends, some are great at in depth chat, others lots of fun, some artistic, some all of these things. My closest friends are the ones I know I can trust with my innermost secrets, there are only a few of those sadly.

My friends are from all different walks of life. Some I see often and others pop in and out. I love and celebrate all our differences. Keeps me on my toes.

I haven't a clue how anyone I know voted in the referendum, including my close friends. I can hazard a guess about a couple, but that is it.

I can discuss current issues with my friends, but without party allegiance or politics coming into it. We talk about matters from a personal point of view and our take on a situation. I have no idea how my frinds vote either, although, again, I could hazard a guess how several vote.

I would hate to have friends I couldn't disagree with. Very boring.

Some people like to think they have loads of friends and they surround themselves with no end of people.... but they are not real friends as far as I can see....

All my friends are very different from both myself and each other!... it's having a friend for each occasion I guess!

Most of my friends are similar to me-Brexiteers and atheists- so we find very little to disagree about but I'm happy to discuss most subjects with anyone I meet.

Interesting, I feel I have lots of acquaintances that I could call on for a chat, but friends to call on if I was in need......a whole new ball game!
Very few and far between ?

What is a friend? It is a term I only use for people very close to me and those are not numerous, nor are most peoples.

I have a lot of acquaintances and similarity really depends on what facet of someone you are looking at. DH is active un amateur operatics. A lot of his friends are from that world, but shared age, socio-economic background, income, no idea. It is the same with me. Most of my acquaintances share my interest in archaeology, but other personal characteristisc, some do, some don't

My personal friends vary. It is all to do with how they came into my life and how they have developed, as I have, since we met.

A large number of my friends are about 10-20 years younger than I, conservative with a small 'c' (although they probably vote that way too) predictable and definitely not the sort to have friends of 'many cultures'.
I am the odd one out being the only divorced female in the group and the outspoken, unpredictable non-conformist, in many ways.
I get on best with my children's friends as they have a fresher outlook on life.
Many people my age have health issues or have staid lives which become routine and that is something that I don't want to consider.
That said, all friends are valuable and I try to morph into whatever group I'm with at the time.

What a good question and one which I have thought about as I’ve got older. Now on the wrong side of 75 I find most of my friends are retired from paid employment and like me are very involved in their grandchildren’s lives and short of time to meet up. They are all sorts, different ethnicities, some very ‘churchy’, some atheistic like me but all much of an age. I live in a very mixed community and have always had friends from very different backgrounds and many of them young enough to be my daughters. I think if I had put them together in the same room they would have got on famously.

Only problem about living where I do is that people move on, young ones start families and often move to where they can afford to buy a home, older ones sell up and move to the coast (what is it about Bournemouth?) and so on and I miss them.

I think your MIL missed the clues, your friends do reflect who you are, an open minded person, with diverse interests, who is happy to explore outside your comfort zone

My friends are mostly of a similar age but, thinking about it, they fall in to two groups. One group I have known since we were at school together and they have all done different things and gone down different paths so that ostensibly we have little in common now. That doesn't stop us having a good old chinwag when we meet up and we have even had brilliant weekends away together. The other group are people I have met more recently through shared interests and they are more like the person I am now.

You can never know too many people, I have friends of all ages. I do miss the ones who have died off terribly and new ones are not 'replacements' but life goes on.

My dad would not make friends with old people, he said they were 'wrinklies' he was 86 and sometimes lonely but resisted opportunities to be more social.

Our friends (mine and DH's) are of very differing social, national, language and religious backgrounds, but all manage to get on if they meet here.

Our unspoken rule has always been that differing points of view have to be aired with respect for the opposite view when two or more viewpoints are being aired.

That said, anyone not prepared to respect others would be asked to leave or at least to shut up. Not easy, but I have had to do so, once or twice.

A cousin of DH's was asked to go, when he tried to force his own views on religion down others' throats and was extremely rude in the process. I showed a neo-Nazi the door, when I discovered his politics and I would have done so, even if my Jewish colleague hadn't been in the house at the time.

No-one with racist or extreme right wing political views is welcome here, but these are the only lines we draw.

Good comment Eskay10 totally agree.

I think it more likely that friends will be similar if you have always lived in the same place you went to school. We have moved around the country quite a lot so our friends are mostly very different to each other would probably not find a lot in common. DH's relatives are also very different from mine.

Our lives have been enriched by the many different levels of education, backgrounds, nationalities, religions we count as friends.

I have friends much older than me, some younger and others around my age. The strange thing ( to me) is that, of those around my age, most do not have children so we don’t have that in common.

I’m with you Day6. When I introduced two of my dear friends of long standing to one another, that was an awkward lunch! I assumed (wrongly) that because I loved them both they would at least like each other! When I told another friend how uncomfortable the lunch had been, she wondered if there was an element of ‘jealousy’ involved as in, ‘she’s more my friend than yours’ which I thought sounded too petty but maybe she had a point?

So, grannyactivist I assume your friend voted leave and read the Daily Mail and you introduced her to the Guardian! ?. But then again ....

This is interesting. I find that some friends (who I rarely see now because of distance) are from working together or being neighbours. Others I have met and we immediately “strike a chord” with each other irrespective of background or experiences and a friendship develops. My family say they are “sympatica”! I guess
It helps if you have some common ground. I am lunching today with a new friend - I suppose our common ground is that she is a single Mum as I was many years ago and have both been through divorce. But do we discuss those painful memories - no!

Non of my friends are like me, the one that was( a long-standing friendship) as gone. We became too different in retirement, no problem for me but for her with granny duties and a miserable husband, envy crept in. New hobbies as brought a new circle and never in a million years would people looking in say we would be friends BUT likeminded people sharing a passion as given me confidence, and a wonderful retirement(forgot to mention the new man too)lol