ON RE-FRIENDING

It’s no big surprise that healthy people in their later years want to and know how to make new friends. 

It took me a long time to figure out that setting boundaries for some friends, including family, and getting busy with a group of other newer friends focused on helping others was the key to happiness. 

It took me a while to figure out that keeping friends who made me feel bad or stupid for even trying anything was not the kind of friends I needed. 

My husband and I have lived together in five different states in the USA, so we know all about moving and living near an entirely different circle of friends. BUT absolutely keeping in touch with others via phone, email, FaceTime, and other online platforms such as Zoom were always in place. 

Meeting up with professional connections that I work with or hope to work with pale in comparison to getting together with old acquaintances. I honestly don’t need their approval. The agenda is clear: I am meeting up with them for professional reasons.  

Receiving a phone message, text, or email out of the blue from someone from the past is different. 

Here’s my list of things to remember: 

1. When you meet up with any acquaintance or old friend, the conversation should be supportive.  If they don’t ask “How’s it going?” and respect and support your passions, a new circle of other friends, professional passions, and/or hobbies–it won’t be worth the effort. Often is the case they don’t have the same as you have and they want to pull you down.

2. Suppose the meet-up conversation is dominated by retreading the past or setting up psychological battlefields based on some grudge match game they play with you, or a way to take you down a notch. In that case, it usually means that they haven’t or don’t want to move forward, or you have moved forward and they don’t like it one bit.

3. A friend who cannot be happy for you or acknowledge that you have moved forward is not a healthy friend. You can’t save people who are spinning in the same space since you last saw them.

4. When people show up after many years of lost contact ask, “Would you mind if we stayed with you for a week so we can catch up and see how you are doing?” is NEVER a good idea.  We were back in New York for five minutes when someone contacted us.  A free vacation rental and a way to discredit us were all they had in mind. 

5. Why do I love friends I have met later in life? Because they keep busy and join groups that get work done–and most of all, they make my life healthier.  

Here are two books worth reading: