RICHARD MADELEY AGONY UNCLE

Our columnist answers your questions. Write to him at DearRichard@telegraph.co.uk

weren’t you? Since then you haven’t looked back (although perhaps you’ve looked over your shoulder; we haven’t seen the portraits…).

As for your kids: tell them everything! Be unabashed! Remind them you’re a child of the Sixties – cool, laid-back, a free spirit. If they protest puritanically, ignore them – it doesn’t matter what they think; you’re doing this for you, not them. But I reckon they’ll come around in the end. Just don’t expect them to hang one of those pictures of Mum on the wall.

Dear Richard

a language class – and I find the people I meet more focused on the activity than its social aspect. Online resources for the gay community seem tailored to dating and sex; clubs have never been my scene, pubs do not appeal to me. How do I turn acquaintances into friendships? I invited the dog group to lunch but that seems to have fizzled out.

Dear RS

RS, LONDON I think I can see where it’s all going a bit awry here. On the face of it, you’re doing the right thing by joining clubs, but it’s not having the desired effect. It seems none of the other members particularly want to make special friends with you. Why?

It’s almost certainly nothing to do with your personality; you’re obviously the outgoing, sociable type. But, as so often with people who write to me on this page, the clue to solving the problem is hidden in their letter – and it’s right there in yours, towards the end.

“I find the people I meet more focused on the activity itself than its social aspect.”

Do you see? You’re joining these groups principally because you want to make new friends; their central purpose is incidental to you. But to the other members, that’s their primary reason for going. They want to learn another language; exercise their dog in a “pack”; discover new walks. They can tell you’re not really interested and that makes you an outsider (and perhaps seem a little desperate). That’s why they keep a polite distance.

So let’s get the horse before the cart, shall we? What are your interests, RS? What did you and your late partner enjoy doing and talking about? Reading? Theatre? Musicals? History? Politics? Cooking? Find something you’re genuinely interested in or even passionate about, and then look for a club or group that caters for it.

Genuine enthusiasm for something is one of the most attractive human qualities and if you’re with likeminded people they’ll soon become your friends. Then you can host all the dinner parties you like. SCREE-EE-EE-EECH!!! Sorry – that’s me making an emergency stop. I just hope I’m in time. Please don’t go any further down this road, either of you.

Let me explain. Your friend “Maisie” may be a pain in the proverbial but if you try to drum her out of the luncheon club because of her occasionally sharp tongue, you’ll have pressed the button on a Third World War. From what