Will you be my friend? - Finding a BFF isn’t so easy in the modern world
EVEN adults need new friends. But often when we connect with someone shyness prevents us suggesting another meeting. Busy lives cause us to neglect friends, and then we feel guilt and isolation, says Sligo psychologist, Shane Martin: “There was a time when Irish people left their back doors open and were happy to see uninvited visitors, but those days have gone.
“Now, we’re so stressed that we’re raging when friends call unexpectedly, and when we see them coming we’re tempted to turn off the kitchen lights and pretend we’re not at home. The greatest friend of depression is solitude. We have to fight that, because inner contentment and mental health are hugely influenced by social connectedness.”
For some people, making new friends is tough. “For them, it involves bravery.” American journalist and author, Rachel Bertsche, below, was hugely brave when she moved from New York to Chicago.
“My husband is wonderful, but he’s not a girlfriend, “she says. “I wanted someone to confide in, someone with whom I could gossip face-to-face.”
Rachel resolved to go on one new ‘friend date’ a week for a year. The search became the subject of her bestselling book, MWF Seeking BFF.
She met people through set-ups, book clubs and cooking groups. But she also tried less traditional methods, such as speed-friending (like speed-dating) and meeting with a ‘friend matchmaker’.
She also used the site, www.rentafriend.com. “Through that, I went to lunch with a potential friend. We got along great and everything was fabulous, until I had to pay her $60 for her company.” Did she find a friend? “Payment is not the best means to a true friendship.”
Rachel once left a note for a waitress who served her table: “She seemed especially cool,” she says. They met for drinks a few times, until the waitress moved away. Did the year-long search yield a new best friend forever?
“I found lots of great new friends, but my definition of BFF changed. I don’t know that it’s possible to have one best friend you talk to every day for two hours a day, at 30, the way you could at 15.”
For shy city dwellers, there’s a readymade group of friends, Highly Sensitive Introverts Thriving in Dublin.
It’s part of Meetup, a worldwide network with 92,134 Irish members who have an average age of 32. Simply search their website.
Walk your loyal friend by your side and chat to other animal lovers. You don’t need a canine that’s cute, designer or a crazy mutt.
You will make friends if you volunteer, and you’ll stop focusing on your own troubles, while you help others with theirs. Start at www.volunteer.ie.
Befriend your friends’ friends
This is frowned upon in some circles, but provided you don’t leave the friend who introduced you out in the cold, why should it be wrong? And what harm if the new friendship survives the two original ones? Freedom in friendship makes sense.
It’s true that old friends aren’t new friends. But rekindling old friendships can be rewarding. Old friends remember stuff about us that we have long forgotten, aspects of our personalities that we may have repressed. Friendships that can survive years without contact are worth resurrecting. You won’t know whether any of yours are in this category until you reach out.
Founder Cormac Maher describes this as a friendship website. The membership is largely composed of foreign workers who have come to Ireland, and people whose friends have married, settled down, emigrated, or had babies. Most are females aged between 25 and 40, but there are also older members, after a separation or a divorce.
Go speed-dating with the intention of finding a lover and, chances are, you’ll meet lots of great people with whom you share no romantic chemistry whatsoever. Go with the intention of making new friends and chances are you’ll do that.
On dark, rainy winter nights, it’s all too easy to curl up by the fire with a favourite book, the TV and the cat for company. Make a change, this year, by dedicating at least one evening per week to the art of learning something new, bettering your qualifications, or indulging your curiosity. In the process, you’ll find yourself in the midst of a like-minded bunch, among whom you may well find a friend. Check out www.nightcourses.com. It lists more than 6,200 evening courses from which to choose.
This celibate dating site boasts ‘a couple of hundred’ Irish members. It’s free to join and receive messages, but to send them you need to buy membership at a cost of £24.99 for 12 weeks. Founder, Suzie King, estimates that 70% of those who join do so to form platonic friendships; the rest do so in the hope of finding love and romance. The site was the forum that connected a 96-year-old gentleman from Alaska with a 60-year-old lady in Scotland. It is also used by veterans whose injuries in Afghanistan have forced a life of celibacy on them. According to King, they join in the hope of finding a partner who will not mind.
The surest way to make a friend is to be one.
This involves caring enough about others to help, support, and be there for them. Most of all, it involves trust. You have to be someone in whom people can confide.
If you can take the first step, by reaching out to someone with whom you feel a connection, you may just make a friend for life.
