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These adorable little people are the main reason their parents cannot maintain new friendships. Although, at least they are now big enough to portage a canoe for their parents. |
And of course, there's the reality that most of us have changed a bit in 20 years, and if it were not for workplaces-in-common and kids-in-common, we probably wouldn't be as close as we are. The logical next step is to admit to ourselves, "Each of us needs some new friends." That sure sounds easy. But of course, your new friends probably have kids of their own to manage, and probably old friends of their own to manage. Now that most everyone at our age is either a "director-of-something" or a "manager-of-something," free time is at a bit of a premium. So where is there to go? RETIREMENT. At some level of seriousness, it seems like a common denominator in making new adult friends is whether you have been able to retire with a pension. I don't have a pension and probably won't be able to retire until 75 (2049 or so), so I don't think I can wait for that.
This is where this blog post becomes basically useless - the answer is that I don't know how to do this. The "new grownup friend" gig is not dissimilar from a romantic relationship in that both people have to be willing to sacrifice some quality time to build the relationship. Hopefully, your kids are compatible; that seems to help. The photo above is from a local, Sunday morning kayak trip with a new friend of mine. "New Buddy" and I got very little real adult time together but we shared a fun memory with the kids, which is a cool thing indeed. We've known each other for years but hadn't spent time together until recently. And I've put in less effort than New Buddy. We make plans, I hedge toward bailing out, and he pushes me to keep my commitments. I normally am not a flake. I'm just busy and tired - so is he.
But as I finish writing this, I'm sending him a FB private message,
"Got any flexibility to fish this week?"
Let's see how it goes.