Friendships.....do you just let them fade away?

I guess some come to their natural end.It's harder as you get older to make friends but I don't think they can be like th ones we had when we were younger.People seem to have a lot less time for each other now, sadly.

I am friends with women I met 58 years, 56 years and 50 years respectively.

We were silly teenagers together, young wives and mothers, then saw each other through many changes including divorce, loss and the the birth of grandchildren.

For me friendship like most things in life, requires a bit of work. I have discarded other friends along the way because these three set the bar very high, although I am open to meeting new people but just not friendship necessarily, mainly a social thing.

Other relationships have come and gone, but we have stayed close and value each other more as we get older.

You can soon tell the people who want to stay in touch because they bother about you and care about you. Feed back into those and let the rest fall away. If someone wants you in their life, they will show it.

I’m feeling this since retiring I knew some work friends would fade but I do feel more lonely since I retired. I have friends I used to work with and they keep in touch more.

I think something has changed. Maybe it's post Covid and the influence of Social Media. People seem to come and go at a faster rate. I have joined a couple of groups, set up by well intentioned people ,to encourage socialising. There are a lot of posts from women saying they are lonely.

I have two longstanding friends, one I met at 3, the other at 11, I am still in touch with them both regularly, one I see often, the other lives in Canada and has done for over 40 years. She’s returned to the UK several times and each time we met up and twice she and her husband have stayed with us. Last year, on our first ever Canadian trip they travelled for 5 hours to meet us in the Rockies, staying overnight and spending the next day with us.

I’ve also met up again with another friend from school, we’ve been back in touch for about 10 years I guess and our husbands also get on very well.

I have some friends I met at work in London in the early 80’s with whom I’m still in touch, one from college, one “school” mum and two work people from the 2000’s.

We mainly keep in touch via WhatsApp, meet up for meals and catchups, some much more regularly than others.

I had lunch with my best friend yesterday. We met at school when we were 12 and 13 respectively.

The problem now is that I am losing my friends to death. Two very dear and close friends have died, in 2008 and 2022, and severl are now in poor health.

On the other hand I made two good friends through GN in the area I used to live in and we still keep in touch. i will be ringing one this evening.

After all the throes of a complicated housemove I am now beginning to join groups to meet people in my new location. I went to my regular Tai Chi class this morning and I am volunteering at the town museum. I intend to join not the local U3A, but the one in the next town.

I had a lot of friends in the 2000s. We would hit the town & party, but I think the 24hr drinking culture ruined the pub scene. People stopped going out early, pubs didn’t have the same atmosphere, so we all slowly, stopped going out, especially as we had met our partners by then.
Box sets became fashionable, & so we would stop in with a bottle of plonk, preferring to watch the tv.
People over time have just stopped socialising, preferring to ‘batten down the hatches’ & stay in, especially since Covid.
I really wouldn’t know where to start making new friendships.
I don’t even know how youngsters socialise these days, is it all done on SM?

I believe Covid has been responsible for my friendships not being as strong as they were.
However GC arriving and being minded, my H’s Dementia, 2 other H’s dying has totally changed the dynamic of the group, plus we are all now in our 80’s , things are bound to change.
For only the second time in my life I wish I had had siblings.
The other was when I was sole support for my mother in her last years.

I believe there is some prose by John A Passarro. It comments on life being like a train journey and how passengers get on and off at different stations and for different lengths of times and reasons.
I have certainly found friendships to be like this. Some people have come into my life for a short time, some for quite a while and then faded away. I also have friends of over 50 years standing.

Friends for a reason and friends for a season, but some do last the distance.

sixandahalf

I had 4 close friends from the school gate years ( 30 years ago)

Now they are rarely in touch, one totally ghosted me.

I have tried to join things and forge new relationships.
It got me thinking about the whole subject of friends.How they change, how we change as we age.

I remember an older lady, in her late 70s, I met at an Art Group years ago saying to me that she had a lot of friendly acquaintances but no close friends any more.

Since I lost two dear friends and another friend lives far away, close friends have dwindled. We do try to catch up with our good friends occasionally but the distances seem more daunting as we get older.

I do have what could be termed 'friendly acquaintances' through groups I go to.
We do have good neighbours too, which is a blessing but sometimes days can go by without seeing them.

Usedtobeblonde I can relate to what you sat about being an only child. Both my husband and I were only children and it became quite hard as both our sets of parents became older and needed help. The only close relative we had was my husband's cousin, who lived the other side of London and had MS. I first realised what not having siblings meant when our daughter was in hospital when she was a year old. The only close support we had was our parents at the end of a phone line. I decided then that I would have another baby so that hopefully she would grow up with support from someone in her generation. 50 years later they have always supported each other.

When it comes to friends I still have two I have known for nearly 70 years - a third one sadly died 6 years ago. I also have a couple of close friends in Cornwall. I have known them for over 30 years and, although I very rarely travel back down there, we keep in touch on line. Over the last couple of years I've made 3 good friends in the Tai Chi group I go to, and another couple in the U3A art group I go to. I had wondered if I would make new friends at my age, but they are out there.

ginny

I believe there is some prose by John A Passarro. It comments on life being like a train journey and how passengers get on and off at different stations and for different lengths of times and reasons.
I have certainly found friendships to be like this. Some people have come into my life for a short time, some for quite a while and then faded away. I also have friends of over 50 years standing.

That is a very good description, ginny!

My longest friendship goes back to junior school days. We lost touch for many years but have met up once or twice a year for the last ten years. But we are not especially close.
My “ best” friends are from university days. A group of us meet up maybe every five years but we correspond by email. We just pick up where we left off.
I have lots of friendly acquaintances, but hardly anyone I could call a close friend.
There are others I still send cards to at Christmas, former colleagues, neighbours etc, but although we go back a long way, and value each other, it is not the same as having someone close by and close enough that we could count on to help each other out at a moment’s notice.
Others were once friends, but we have all moved on in our lives and our paths no longer cross. C’est la vie.

At 50 there were no friends I was still in touch with from secondary school. I was shocked to hear one had sadly died at 49. This prompted me to find other old school friends and I am still in touch, 35 years later, with all 5 of them, we met up a few times a year for lunch and hope to continue to do so.

"The secret isn't to grieve every passenger who leaves, but to love the ones who are still sitting beside you."

Memo to self here.

Some have faded over the years but if they had all kept going it would have been impossible to have fitted them in my week! I have been very lucky with the friendships that have remained constant.

ginny
I believe there is some prose by John A Passarro. It comments on life being like a train journey and how passengers get on and off at different stations and for different lengths of times and reasons.
I have certainly found friendships to be like this. Some people have come into my life for a short time, some for quite a while and then faded away. I also have friends of over 50 years standing.

I couldn’t agree with this more. I have had so many friends over the years who just gradually faded away, goodness knows where or why. I still have three longstanding friends who I am in constant touch with but they all live a long way away, one abroad, and I haven’t seen any of them in person for years. They were all friends that I could meet up with for theatre, cinema trips or just a meal and a chat but local friends all seem too busy with their families and other friends these days. DH is wonderful but it’s not the same as having a girlfriend (if I can call us that at 80!) to have a good batter with.

I agree that friendship does take a lot of work to keep it interesting and my sister is brilliant at it. I am not so brilliant, in fact I am quite rubbish. One thing in her favour is that she has lived and worked in the same town for over 60 years whereas I have moved a lot. The friends I made before moving tend to die off as there’s not the common thread anymore. Or that’s what I tell myself. I am lazy in corresponding. But I am getting better.

I have 2 friends one from Secondary School and Teaching Cert Time, and one from that last place I lived. I rarely see them, but when I do it's that "picking up where familiar". One especially I really do want to see this spring.

I dont have local friends the sort you would "pick up the phone to for a natter" except one I think is on the way to being this,

But because I have been a member of my gym for 25 years I have a large number of "friendly acquaintances". some of whom as time goes on, if I wished, I think I could easily ask for a coffee to take it further: I'm a Quaker and slowly working on turning people whom I worship with into a little more.

It's been mentioned being an only child and the issue of having to cope on your own with elderly parents.

I am hyper aware I have put my DS in that position and determined to plan in such a way that my getting very elderly will be as minimum a burden as possible.

Is difficult keeping friendships going when caring for my DH, but luckily some have survived and right now a couple of good friends is all I can manage. Things change. I don’t feel bad about this, it is simply another fact of life.

I had some great friends of 40 and 50 years but as time passed and we got older they became very set in their ways and that lovely 'togetherness' became a 'you'll have to make an appointment with me as I am soo busy'. I let them fade and now belong to a group whom I met about 10 years ago and they are really fun. All a bit ditsy like me but never a nasty word said. Also, it is worth trying new skills and hobbies and just setting yourself menus of things to do. It gives your life structure and at the end of the day you feel as if you have done something valid - could be anything from getting a dog, to taking a bus ride to the next town, to trying out an art class. Make it your own.

I had a good friend from college.I did a lot for her afterwards, collecting her children from school, etc. Then she moved away, with no advanced warning or explanation.
Fifty years on and she was in my orbit again so I wrote to her. A very long, enthusiast letter arrived back. I have written once more and phoned, speaking to her husband. Since then nothing,. Sad really.