Ageless Friendships
“Oh, you’re the best friend that I ever had
I’ve been with you such a long time
You’re my sunshine and I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
Oh, you’re my best friend.”
Photo by Artyom Kabajev on Unsplash
My youngest friend is 51 years old, and my oldest friend is 78. I fall somewhere in the middle, at 63. My longest friendship started in grade three. We had both recently moved to the housing development abutting farmland in the middle of nowhere. Our friendship sparked immediately. My newest friend? I would say a friend who reached out to me two years ago. We re-kindled a friendship that began over twenty years ago and fizzled out; I expect because of distance and busy lives.
I have been thinking about friendship this past week. Why? Well, because my best friend is my husband and, as I shared in a recent blog post, “you don’t need a lot of friends to be happy. In fact, we get more selective as we age. But the number should be more than zero and not include your partner.” I am well aware that if something were to happen to my husband, I would not only lose the love of my life, I would also lose my best friend. I remember this happening to my mother as my father slipped into dementia. He was her best friend. Yes, she spoke regularly to a good friend who lived on the east coast, but it was a surface relationship; she never shared her deepest feelings. I think of the grief my mother felt losing her husband and best friend twice, once when he no longer knew her, and again when he died. No wonder grief resided in her until she died.
For most of my life, I have never had more than a handful of friends, and they were always my age. If I were to tell twenty-year-old me that I now have friendships that span seventeen years, she would be shocked. Translated, that would mean an eight-year-old friend and a thirty-five-year-old friend. Hard to fathom when you are twenty!
On average, women have three to five close, personal relationships. In high school, many had a gang they hung out with. Not me. I always seemed to be on the periphery, and because I moved to a new school in grade nine, I had few close friends.
Friendships tend to dwindle in our mid-twenties as we settle into relationships and careers. We no longer have time for superficial relationships. In our thirties and forties, our friendships may decrease even more. Anthropologist and psychologist Robin Dunbar found that while most people have an extended social circle of 150 casual friends, often leftover acquaintances from formative years, adults typically have only five or so people in their intimate support networks. Frankly, I cannot fathom having an extended social circle of even twenty-five casual friends, maybe because I am an introvert.
An article I read in the National Post states, “social lives start to deteriorate for many people just before retirement. A 2014 Consumer Reports survey found that over 40 per cent of respondents aged 50 to 64 spent less time with friends than they had a decade previously. But when retirement hits, friendships can go two ways: people become more social, since they have spare time, or they become more isolated without the stability of routine.
I may not have a lot of friends, and I may not spend a lot of time with them, but I would say that my friendships now are far richer than friendships of my younger years. We are honest with each other, non-judgmental, and comfortable with our differences. My friends love me despite my faults, and vice-versa. We accept each other for who we are.
So what is a good friend? My husband and I have been sitting here on our island deck chatting about the good friends in our lives. Our conclusion? Good friends are friends who, even if you don’t see them for years, when you do, it feels like you saw them just a few days ago. You don’t even have to have a lot in common. My friend from grade three and I have little in common, yet when we are together, we talk for hours! Even when my good friends have different interests or opposing political opinions, the core essence of our friendship remains. We also don’t judge each other if we don’t reach out regularly; we just pick up where we left off.
I have mentioned several times in previous blog posts, that I spent most of my life isolated on an island, feeling far removed from the mainland. I did not find it easy to make friends because I thought I was different. I no longer feel that way. If there is anything I have learned from blogging and reaching out to you, it is that we have so much in common. I no longer feel as alone; this community of women I am now connected to continues to grow.
I now have a core group of four good friends; women I can count on to have my back. Then, there are another five or so women I know I could reach out to and they would be there for me, as I would be for them. Finally, there are the rest of you amazing women - women who read my blog, who take my life story workshops, and who I connect with on social media. Years ago, I would not have been able to put words to our relationship. Now that I am older and wiser, I see you as my friends. We may be paddling different rivers, exploring tributaries, and stopping on the shore, but we are all headed in the same direction, willing to help each other along the journey.
How many friends do you have? And how would you describe a good friend?