making friends

o0o

Friends – thats todays subject!
Is it just me, or do others find it incredibly hard to make super-close friends?

I have a lot of people that I know that I can go have a cuppa, a meal, a wine etc with, or that I chat to with some regularity, but usually on a fairly superficial level – but I have no-one that I honestly feel I could share anything+everything with.

I know a part of it is my reticence to be truely vulnerable with people, particularly after two incidents when i thought i had made a close friend – only to find that the friendship wasn’t what i believed it to be – and i got very hurt in the process…

Throughout school (and we’re still friends to this day actually!) I had a wonderful friend Helen that knew every secret I held.
Knew me probably almost better than I knew myself at that age! lol
We can still pick up where we last left off with none of that awful awkwardness, and I would trust telling her anything – but the sad reality is – that we only catch up every few years – so there isn’t that daily / weekly opportunity…

In my 20’s I had another wonderful friend Caroline – who I spoke to every.single.day – and spent a lot of precious time with, and we aways had each others back.
That woman kept my sanity intact for a lotta years(!!) – but then I moved away, and we just seemed to slip away from each other…

Fast forward and here I am in my 50’s.

I had one brief friendship that meant a lot to me, that was ‘blossoming’, when I was in my mid-forties, but then she moved away – and it just sort of moved on without the necessary contact that close friendships take…

And these day I just don’t quite know how one gets to that place of going from a casual acquaintance / friend, to being someone who is really close!!

I know it takes an investment of time – and of course a certain amount of trust, vulnerability and faith – but how does one know just when the time is, that its safe to roll out those parts of you?

What if you think you like someone enough to be a friend, and then you have a few coffee ‘dates’, a few chats, maybe a lunch or two, and you get to thinking “naaaaaa – this just isn’t my kind of person” – how do you then dial it back without appearing rude, when up until then you’d been willing to invest the time, just in case this was going to be a friendship that worked out?
(and YES – I’m very aware that it might be me, who isn’t someone else idea of ‘the right person‘!)

How do you even know that you’re capable of being a decent friend?

Maybe I don’t have close friends ‘cos i’m not only not good at the making-friends part of it, but maybe i’m actually someone that people just aren’t draw to, to make friends with!!
Perhaps not a pleasant thought – but one that certainly needs looking at in the interests of honesty! 😐

I’m not one for groups, teams, hobbies, sports or crafts – so that way of meeting people is out.
I also don’t still have kids at school any more, so thats not an option.
Not only would the parents at the school-gate probably feel a little ‘young’ for me, but it would just be creepy to have some old lady without a kid to pick up, hanging’ out at the school-gates, trying to talk to random people!! 😀

Work is work and whilst I have met a few people through my work whom I feel like I have ‘clicked’ with – there is still the whole ‘work’ thing about it (and often a ‘hierarchy’ thing), that just makes it feel kinda awkward – both for me and them.

Sooooo – what does one do?
How do YOU go about this whole ‘making friends’ business?

Thoughts and opinions welcome and encouraged, so please feel free to share, as I’d love to get a wealth of knowledge and opinions on this topic! 🙂

Cheers,