Dear LPG readers, 

I recently read what SO had to say about the importance of friendships based on time spent in the same physical space as the friend that you are trying to talk to, and I agree wholeheartedly.  
  
Loneliness has a way of being a large issue for older people and the young, and SO has a point with her message to the grandparents of the kids who will listen, but we oldies have the added problem of losing too many of the lifelong friends we have made when we get to this end of life.  

Many of us don’t have the texting skills to let our thumbs bridge the gap, and video calling can be beyond us too, while geographical distance, illness and loss become occurrences that we have no choice but to get used to.   

Making new friends can be more difficult than the first time we remembered having to use the skills needed.  I am sure that the first day at school for a 5-year-old seems like a real problem, but we have a habit of managing to cope with that, perhaps because nearly all the children are generally in the same situation of not knowing each other, making that experience more of an even playing field.   

I think that, as we get older and life progresses, we don’t have to work quite so hard at’ friend first-contact’ because there are often go-between friends to help with initial introductions and being the lone person who walks into an entire room of strangers happens less often.  There are those occasions when you start a new job, but perhaps having so much to learn about exactly what your colleagues expect of you gives you something to talk about as you get to know them. 


I can’t imagine what it must be like to move to a new area alone, but for so many, that must be what those first few weeks of being retired must be like, particularly for those who have spent years centred on the people they worked with.    

I have a neighbour who has recently retired and found this to be a problem, and while she is no shrinking violet, the subject came up in conversation and got me taking a look at what the internet has to say about what can be done.  There is quite a bit of advice and information which might help, and having found some of it, I hope that LPG will allow me to share the links. 

NA, Woolwich. 

 

 

NA shares the advice she found online…

 

 

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