Given the well-known difficulties for men to maintain friendships as they age, has anyone managed to make new friends after their 40s?
dear mods
A lack in friendships is a well-known issue that affects adult males in particular. Please don't move this post to ~life. Thanks.
As I age, my ambivalence towards social interactions becomes clearer. I can't really sustain the doom and gloom facade, as it is entirely obvious that, if I ever achieve "solitary utopia", the first thing I would do would be to find someone to talk about how great it is to be alone.
I used to have an awesome way to do things where I saw my friends 5 or 6 times a year. It was enough for me. Unfortunately, that group is imploding since mid-pandemic, and I don't think there's a way back.
This is made worse by the fact that most men I know are either completely ignorant, downright hostile, or intentionally removed from anything relating kids or fatherhood. Sometimes it feels like I am carrying some kind of virus, and spending time with me will make them become fathers by association.
It's hard to not feel jealous of the kind of support my wife gets from her female friends.
Given the current situation, I feel inclined to ask. Has anyone managed to make meaningful friendships in their 40s or early 30s? And by that I don't mean just someone to play videogames with, but someone with whom you can share stuff?
I am not really opposed to friendships with women, but that is kinda covered already.
I look at friendship via the allegory of a road that both people carve out of the wilds, pave and maintain.
It takes a lot of work to build the road itself and I feel many people, but men in particular take advantage of the road being mostly built by external circumstances and factors subsidizing the cost of doing the building and maintenance. School buddies, work buddies, your kids friends parents, etc. Those eventually fade if not maintained after their time is over with, and that extra maintenance is a lot more than people expect or are used to once the external factors are removed.
So one way to look at it, is to find some alternative/new ways to make it easy again. Find new hobbies. Go out for a coffee regularly, go for walks. Edit* - Maybe learn an instrument, or take some part time classes.
Give yourself the opportunity to have more opportunities to meet folks.
I'll say as someone in his forties, that my newer friendships are starting to skew younger, which brings some interesting dynamics of being able to share experience and advice. Don't necessarily look for friends in your age, interests, or life bracket!
People look at me strange when I say that I love going for coffee but it's such an excellent way to get out in the world, have interactions with strangers and have maybe have those experiences turn into friendships.
This is probably that something that improves with age in many cases, but I believe that reliance on external circumstances at least once entering the workforce is lack of time and energy. I’m still ~5 years off from my 40s, but I’ve only been able to “come up for air” in the past few years after spending most of my 20s and early 30s in head-down, nose-to-the-grindstone career mode, which didn’t leave room for much else.
I never worked hard on a career, I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up! But I agree that there is only a certain amount of time and effort to go around and if it's not a high priority it certainly falls to the wayside.
I have made a few friends that are core to me, however, I rarely see them. I can message and call whenever I want, but we all have busy lives, however, we are there for each other if needs be.
Two of the friends I met through mutual associations, and I've taken over those friendships and the mutual fell off grid.
One of them is the partner of my wife's friend. That came around due to having kids at the same school, then a birthday party, BBQ and spiraled up from that.
Every other friendship I have seem to be more old friends or work acquaintance based. When they leave, well, that's that. I'm not on social media so I don't keep up with anyone. I occasionally reach out and sometimes the conversation has a few back and forth, but usually they die.
I think that's life though. You have a few friends and you have to make time for them and them for you, else, it just becomes someone that you used to know.
Im in my 50s and finding similar pattern. Most if not all my small core of friends are work based friends who become friends outside work over long period of time. Most are younger than me (with two exceptions) by at least 10 years.
A couple of friends. Its definitely not as easy as it used to be. But in my 50's we met a couple and developed a really good friendship. My wife had known the wife from way back but I got to know the husband well enough that I would say he was a good friend if not my best friend.
And then covid hit and they started doing 'research' and went head first into conspiracy theories. At one point she started explaining to me how the US election was stolen (we're Canadian, so not our monkeys and not our circus) and that caused a LONG delay before another conversation. The next time it was about 'chem trails' from the planes and I just walked away. They are good people, kind and generous... but I just cant be friends with people who believe everything they read online and think they're well researched because their algorithm keeps feeding them the same baloney all day long.
Fortunately I gained a new brother in law at 45 and he's been great to get to know. But its not like the old days. My friends at 25 were DEEP friendships and I still talk to those guys but I dont get to see them more than every couple of years.
Yeah, mostly through other friends, but also through sports at the gym. My main thing is BJJ but I’m sure other sporting communities work the same.
Somebody asked how well I know my BJJ friends and I said “sometimes I know their names!”
lol I try to make an extra effort to remember so I don't have to ask when I'm taking attendance.
Deep friendships? Not really. I think it would be possible within my cohort of gym friends; people are open about their struggles and stuff going on in their life. I've talked to some of them while they were struggling with depression.
The challenge as I see it is me. I didn't have a supportive family and so I generally feel like I've "done it all on my own" which isn't true because I was supported by others. But they were others I had to find and build.
Now in my 30's I have a supportive partner and some friends (out of state now) I can always count on. The guy friends I could get a beer with are fathers so while we plan to catch up it usually falls through because of family responsibilities. But in this status quo my needs are met and I'm busy. Consequently the idea of building a friendship is intimidating (rejection), and the idea of opening up to someone new is uncomfortable: "I have my people, and if they can't help I'll take care of it on my own like I always have."
Which of which is obviously riddled with my own insecurities and not a generalizable experience. But I think there are facets of this that impact a lot of men around this life stage.
Let you know in a year. About to cross that threshold and finally meeting some new people.
Turns out having kids puts an onus on you to be remotely social that otherwise wouldn't be.
Weighing in from a mid thirties perspective.
Friends for me have come in waves, and like all waves some stay and some go. Of my closest friends now, I'd say made them all at pretty diverse ages: 7, 15, 24, 30, 35. So I believe that you can make and maintain friendships but that some will die off and some with sprout a new. It seem like I had 2 distinct kinds of friends in my life now: The ones who don't live in my area who I can connect with at anytime, but I often don't, and the ones who live in my immediate area who I see one a day to once a month.
I want to call out that I do think kids changes quite a bit. I don't have kids and my friends, both in my neighborhood and abroad, have tended to drift a little bit since having them. I'm sure you have way better insight on this than I do, but just for folks who might not I think the main reasons are 1) they have less time as kids take a lot of time, 2) we're spending our time doing different activities (they aren't as excited about me getting into backcountry skiing and avalanche rescue and I'm not as excited about Daniel's first steps), and 3) we're both making new friends that fulfill our current interests. So all that to say, we are drifting a bit but I don't feel a loss of friendship, but maybe a little loss in support. It's normal though.
To u/Delgalar 's point, friendships take maintenance on the part of both people. For my friends with kids, I want to be in the their lives still and I want their kids to know who I am even if we've never met. I do this by buying books for the kids (in particular my favorite kids book is Richard Scary's Cars and Trucks and things That Go) with a signed note. In turn they will send me videos of their kids reading the books I send or the bike stuff I mail them for birthdays. It's been really nice getting to meet the kids when they are a little older and their parents will say "This is Ross, he gave you your favorite book!" which usually endears them to me. That plus birthday cars usually keeps our friends well tended, even if we don't talk that much. For my friends without kids it can be harder. I think often it's because of a change in interests or beliefs, so it's not just a lack of time. I recently had a friend reach back out to me after his dad was diagnosed with cancer. We hadn't spoken in a few years despite being close from age 7 and reconnecting again after college as he stopped doing the activities I still enjoy and I stopped doing the ones he does. We've talked about making our friendship a priority again and we've agreed to both reach out so we don't have such a lopsided relationship. Sometimes a reset is necessary. Now we send little updates on the actives we used to enjoy together or music that reminds of of each other. It's been really nice. Other, like those who had belief changes (reeeeeaally exacerbated by Covid and Trump) have never really reengaged.
That was kind of a long side tangent, but back to your main question. Have I made new friends? For me it kind of comes and goes and depends on where I live. I've had life stages where I had long stints of no new friends or no local friends, and then stints where I met a ton of people and have made life long friends from it. It's hard to say what the variable is that makes it successful or not. When I moved to San Francisco at 24 I had almost no friends for a full year, followed by 2 very good friends until I moved to Madrid. In Madrid I had co-worker kind of friends but no real "true" friends. After that we moved to Amsterdam and I ended up making a ton of friends again. After that we moved to San Jose and again had almost no friends for 2 years. I've been where I live now for 3 years and again we have a ton of friends. Actually writing that out, it seems like the magic is when a lot of people without friends are looking to make friends at once and there is some catalyzing event that creates a group. We had that in Amsterdam with my partners co-workers and we had it here with our neighbors. No one had many friends and then we all were friends together. Odd. I think some of my best friends have come from this most recent group. I recently waxed poetic about my newest friend Samuel, but there have been a number that I really identify with. People who I can share issues in my relationships, burnout at work, or just kind of sit in silence without it being awkward.
I do find it hard to make friends but I find that the old tried and true method of just seeing people a lot, like how we made friends in elementary school, works well. With Samuel we weren't that tight until we started swimming together every morning for an hour. Now I can call him for whatever. Other friends I used to hike with a few time a week or others I'd see nearly every day when I was setting routes at the rock climbing gym.
Sorry for all the rambling, I think this may be a little incoherent but I want to validate that making friends is hard, maintaining friendships is a lot of work, and the magic that makes for a good one can be hard to conjure.
Often times the difference between a friend and an acquaintance is inviting them to do something or making an initial effort.
When I moved across country for a career advancement, I was quickly on friendly terms with coworkers, neighbors, and some local small business owners. So I made the effort to attend some work social events, joined the neighbors on a few of their regular neighborhood walks, and became a regular at a cafe and had long talks with the owner about his family in his home country.
Now I've gone skiing with some of them, invited them over for dinner, trade ski trip stories and pictures, and am slowly building solid friendships. Deep friendships take years to form, and the only way it starts is by creating space to get to know someone.
Critically, I cast a fairly wide net when making friends. I'm willing to get to know a person and their background even if it appears that I superficially disagree with their politics or other views. Those who might view things differently, but are otherwise compassionate and swayed through dialogue, can become good friends just like those who agree with me on most issues.
So it is very possible to make new friendships in your mid to later life. But it requires making an initial and sustained effort, and not superficially ruling people out before you really get to know them.
I'm in a similar situation, especially with the Pandemic.
When COVID-19 hit I did a fast and hard pivot away from any work that was customer-interactive. I took telecom infrastructure work and corporate low-voltage contracting work which kept me largely away from physically being in proximity to other people, except in small numbers, short duration and infrequently. I rarely if ever interacted with other work personnel except by phone or text. I dropped playing in-person Magic: The Gathering (which I was very in to and played events 4 to 5 night a week). No more martial arts, even infrequently. I've now transitioned to an eBay store that I've setup for income and pretty much only go out to do auction pickups and grocery runs.
I have no friends for the most part. My best friend (a previous girlfriend) and I stay in infrequent contact. We wish each other happy birthday and talk on the phone once in a long while. I'll also visit my father. That's it for social interaction.
To be fair, my circumstances are a bit influenced by the ongoing precautions I take to not get COVID, since I live with my partner who is immunocompromised. Can't risk bringing it home to her.
I often find myself feeling listless and experiencing executive dysfunction to varying degrees of severity. I miss the world before COVID.
While I'm still in my 30's, my father managed to make a lot of friends over the last few decades. But apart from a few really close family friends, it's rarely deep or meaningful associations. He has a lot of hobbies and is tight knit with his extended family so there's always a fishing/hunting buddy or old acquaintances or some supplier/customer he's chummy with. Hell, my wedding was 85% people I did not know but associates of my parents (its an Indian thing).
Like I said, a lot of those relationships feel superficial. I'm in some of the family groups and its just people waiting for their turn to talk, share memes or show off. They're happy to lend a hand but not emergency-contact quality. On the other hand he has 2 friends from before I was born that are closer than siblings. They make life decisions together like major surgery or getting re-married and it's sweet to see him going for coffee dates and boys trips. But I don't think they'll ever let anyone else in.
Don't know if its just people becoming less charitable over time or not wanting to buck the status-quo.
As for me, I'm probably in the same boat as you. While I enjoy connecting with individuals or small groups, life simply doesn't allow for it. Online friends have drifted off. I've not been able to arrange a tabletop game in 6 years. Public socializing has been hell since the kid and worse post pandemic. I'm not particularly comfortable with family. And my close friends have all moved around the world, but I've also noticed that extra distance since having a kid. Don't know what it says that I'm the only one of the group in a stable relationship and I can't help but feel like I'm rubbing it in their face when we rarely chat.
It just feels near impossible to just make a meaningful relationship with someone, especially after you have a clear idea of the type of personalities you want to surround yourself with. The other dads at my kids school are just not interested in any contact. I got invited to Gamer Dads discord and it's flooded with red pill videos and crypto scams. My wife's friends have interesting partners but our dynamic comes down to "kids in a mall day-care". The closest I've got to new friends is a group of randos I met online last year and we all game on a similar schedule.
I know that feeling of being the only Dad in a group of friends. Out of my few different groups I'm either the only one with a stable relationship over the years or the only Dad. Most of my friends are understanding and supportive but I know it's hard for them to relate when I share about things like finding a good school for my kids or they 90% of what I have to talk about is my family because that's what I spend my time on.
I've also distanced myself from one friend groups due to a mutual acquaintance from high school who is around more now that I don't have time who went down the "woke rabbithole" (for lack of a better term) and is weirdly confrontational when I hop on the discord server to chat when she's online. I can ignore her but it's gets tiring hearing someone say things like "you forced your poor wife to have so many kids. I feel so bad for her poor.bodu" (we have 2 so far and both of us would like to have more eventually if we can make it) when I bring up my kids or "I'm a racist colonizer" when I talk about having moved to southeast Asia to allow my wife to spend time with her family after being gone for nearly a decade and wanting my son's to learn about their mom's culture. I talked to a couple of those friends about it and they said she's gotten a lot worse over the past couple of years and they only tolerate her because she's the cousin of two of the guys. Sad to feel alienated from a group I've known most of my life because of one person being genuinely racist/spiteful when I've done nothing to her and no one even batting an eye about it (feels extra odd because I had classes with her for years growing up and was always on somewhat friendly terms with her). There's only one other white guy in that group and apparently gets those types of comments regularly but he doesn't want to rock the boat because that's his only group of friends.
Over 50 here. The struggle
Is real.
My kids are school age and the majority of my interactions with other parents, even, or perhaps especially, the tespectable ones, make me want to vomit. The interaction is mindblowingly banal. That said, the few times it has been awesome are the times I allowed myself some vulnerability. And those times are super infrequent and very hard.
The answer for me is self help groups. Of course, that means i have to have the life experience to warrant such a group. For me that means childhood trauma and aca.
Good luck. I have found that, as hard as it is for me to become a part of, my connections are the most important pRt of my life.
I still hangout with a few friends from highschool. One in particular has this ability to draw people in wherever he goes, and not in small quantities. He moved to the same city I live in a couple years ago and he's already gathered over a dozen people from his orbit that have been introduced to the group. It absolutely baffles me on how natural it is for him.
Myself? I'd rather not. A true, deep friendship is a spiritual connection that develops over time and I don't have the bandwidth for that. I also carry some pretty wild thoughts and opinions, and I'm not sure I want to expose anyone to that.
I am lucky that my friends are still my childhood friends since I was 6. I live in another city now, but go back every 2 or 3 weeks and we go to the pub or to each other houses do drink and talk.
In this new city I don't have any friends. My job is mostly alone in the streets so don't have any work friends.
My wife made some work friends and we go out sometimes, so they are kind of my friends too now. But not really friends like the childhood ones I mentioned earlier.
I found a board game group, but I'm not going much.
While I'm not in the age bracket requested (about to turn 30). I do feel like I've struggled to make new friends. I'm a natural home body and enjoy my time alone. As I've grown more introspective due to working through some childhood trauma I question how much of that is my version of an escape mechanism where my brother went the opposite way and was always/ likes to be out away from home.
I've found that I can make friends/acquaintances easily enough but I don't tend to put myself in situations where I can. Since graduating college I've only made 2 friends. I worked at a midsized business for 5 years and only had 2 lasting relationships, one a mentorship with my boss, and the other a friend who I keep up with intermittently. The other friend being the boyfriend (now husband) of my wife's work friend but we're not really close.
I agree with u/Delgalar that a lot of men's friendships are formed from circumstances like school/work and fade without being maintained. I managed to make a lot of friends in my fraternity in college in part because I lived in for 3 years and being inside a chapterhouse it works as the epicenter of the chapter's social scene. Post graduation I'm finding myself trying to reach out to guys more regularly to keep up our friendships because it is so easy to just not talk to the guys you aren't as close with after everyone disperses and before you know it's been 5 years and you haven't seen or talked to one of the guys and you both go "holy crap how has it been 5 years" when you do connect. I've noticed most of the guys I do reach out to tend to appreciate and mention how they only really talk to these few guys form the chapter at this point, their close friends or guys who ended up living next to them. I do have ideas on how our post graduate experience could be improved to help brothers stay in touch and keep our fraternal bonds strong. I pass those on to our chapter alumni board president and don't take action myself on the ideas (I burned myself out really hard by getting heavily involved and found it hurt my relationship with my girlfriend at the time, now wife, because I was prioritizing my chapter so heavily for so long and she felt that she didn't get that level of support after I was finally graduated and into our marriage. Totally valid and I've had to work hard on growing to be a better husband and unlearn a lot of things from my past and the broken marriages/relationships I had as mental models).
I deleted my social media years ago (unless Tildes and Reddit count) and the only way I keep up with my friends is by talking to them which has made me enjoy checking in with guys a lot more. When they say "oh I posted pictures of my trip on Instagram" and I can tell them I didn't see and can engage with them on that or any other life updates.
I've mainly struggled the last two year and a half with getting out and meeting new guys after becoming a Dad with two small boys and moving 8,000 miles away to be close to my wife's family. Over here my work schedule (before my contract ended) and taking care of my sons/housework eats most of my time. Throw in job applications, professional development, government paperwork that needs done, and spending time with my wife and her family and I barley get time to myself for my own hobbies. Makes coordinating the care of my kids and taking the time try and go meet new people plus spending the money to do it not appealing in the least. That being said I'm very slowly getting to know people at church each week and maybe one of those acquaintances will turn into a friendship over time.
I do know about it being hard for men to make friends and I didn't understand that really until I graduated and moved with my wife. There are days when I miss being in college where I had such a large social circle within walking distance or even just in the same house as me. I wouldn't trade anything for the time I get to spend with my sons and how fulfilling being a Dad is.
I think I meandered there but I find that I related to his even as a younger guy. Social media really added to that feeling and gave a sense of loneliness seeing my friends doing stuff after I moved away or when I wasn't invited and things were relatively close to me. Getting rid of it has helped me be a better friend and be more engaged with people as a whole.
When my partner and I moved to a new town where we didn't know anybody, we made a lot of friends by becoming regulars at our local brewery. I know it doesn't work for everybody as not everyone drinks (a lot of places have NA options now), but this brewery and the all-ages crowd of regulars was a huge boon for us as outsiders. We're in our 40s and we have friends in their 20s all the way up to friends in their 70s. It's a crew of people who would always help each other out. And now, 5 years into living in this small tourist town, it's hard to go anywhere without seeing someone I know.
As far as close male friends that I can really share with, I haven't quite gotten there but a handful of guys I know could fill that role. My close long-term friends live all over the country now, and that's pretty hard. Further, two of my closest male friends are tech nerds like me, and I don't have any close tech nerd friends where I'm at. I've got coworkers (developers) who I can talk tech to, but none of them will be close friends.
It's definitely harder as you age to find new close friends, but it's not impossible. One local friend I know in particular would be absolutely thrilled if I opened up more to him and we became closer. We get along well and I can tell he's enamored with me. He's pretty rough around the edges, a little shady, and the working class conservative type (though on social issues, he's quite live-and-let-live). I just kind of feel like becoming closer with him would invite a responsibility for him that I'm not prepared for. I do like him a lot, but like I said... he's a little shady, though he would hate that as a summary for him.
Ultimately, what works in our favor, I believe, is that we're childfree and down to hang. We're not judgey of people, we don't invite drama, we just like to have a good time. We don't have a lot of responsibilities. I think that helps us remain open to new friendships with anybody who we see frequently in social situations.
My gateway to new friendships is collaborating on something, usually music or home improvement work parties. I am generally more of a listener than a talker, which helps as well.