Green Flags

I think it's hard when you're older, especially when you live far from where you were raised. Not sure I could put this on a list but here are my thoughts.

First of all, you have to find people who are actually looking for new friends.

Then you also have to click with them enough to want to keep putting in the effort for more than a short time. So, they have to have a certain level of smarts, interesting-ness, at least a bit of a common philosophy of life (politics, religion etc), same age group/stage of life - and they have to be nice.

If you make it that far, the problem I run into is differing ideas about personal space. I don't want to go out with them constantly and leave my husband at home (and no, I don't care if they think "I really need to.") Nor are they invited to become a third party with us.

I thought other women who are married too would get that so I've focused on them but nope, that doesn't seem to be the determining factor. I do want friends, but not at the soul mate level lol.

I've really been working at it for a couple years now and made a lot of acquaintances but turning them into real friends has been tricky.

Another thing is that when it was people I grew up with, I was more likely to just accept them because of the shared history and because I was used to them. I think there's a higher bar for people you don't know. Oh yeah, plus now they tend to retire and move away.

Even my husband and I have our own respective houses. It's a common thing here, actually. Zoning is not a thing here, so neighborhoods can be patchy as regards property values. A nice house on a stretch of road with other nice houses isn't easy to find, so when you do, you keep that house at all costs, and even past marriage. If you don't live in it yourself, you rent to someone in your family. The last thing you do is sell it.

Regardless, my hubby and I spend long periods of time each in our respective abodes. We like it that way. We're both people who need a lot of space and we're happy to give it to the other.

Of the list you make mention, the one quality that trumps the rest is someone who knows how to listen. Too often people are just waiting for their turn to speak. That's not listening.

IMHO true friendship is a rare and wondrous thing.


I understand and appreciate the lists above, but I think what's most basic in true friendship is the sort of "click" of understanding that Carly mentioned. It may not be obvious at first (sometimes it seems absolutely impossible that anything could click), but I think it has to happen to move from casual acquaintance to friendship. I don't know if it comes from archetype liking archetype, or from earlier individual experience, but I think it does happen. And of course something is gained even if it doesn't happen --good acquaintances are also of great value.


And I agree about the personal space thing. A true friend will respect individual space -- and the hard thing is sometimes for me to respect his or her space. I think there's nothing better, or again much rarer, than a person with whom I can share silence -- or who, as PBW noted, knows when it's time to leave.


Personal boundaries are another factor -- I have had to learn that sometimes a close friend is not willing, perhaps not able, to fill the role of agony aunt or emotional whipping post, and I need to respect that -- and sometimes I find that someone I thought was a friend was more of a needy or exploitative person.


As for finding friends, obviously some sort of shared interest is a factor, but also familiarity. I don't recall the numbers, but I do recall a study talking about how many times people need to interact before they move from casual acquaintance to the edge of friendship. I know in my experience I like to banter and kid, and I find that until people know me better there's a chance that I will come across as snarky or even hostile, because all people know at first is what they see, through their own filter. I think PBW and I have experienced that.

And there's the value of old friends, with whom a few words can conjure up hosts of shared experiences, and fill the room with the warmth of past pleasures or emotions shared.

But please no smilies, PBW.

In one sense, internet friends are based solely on clicks.

More seriously, my circle of friends currently includes two gentlemen I never met in person, and two that I knew only briefly years ago and reconnected with via internet. Almost solely relationships based on words and ideas and mutual beliefs.