‘IN THE PAST 20 YEARS I’VE FELT MUCH MORE ABLE TO BE MYSELF, MORE CONFIDENT, LESS SELF-CONSCIOUS’

Linda Kelsey on making friends in your 70s.

As I enter my 70s I realise I have fewer friends than I used to, and that I could do with some new ones. This is a hard thing to say because it feels like owning up to being somehow lacking, maybe not being the kind of person who other people want to cosy up with. But it’s way more complicated than that.

In the past couple of years two dear friends have died. A couple have become chronically unwell, and while we can – and do – still see one another, they can’t come out to play like they used to. And then there’s what happens when you have a new partner. My relationship is 15 years long, but because when it comes to couples things have to mesh with other couples, some friendships have drifted to the background, others have come to the fore and new friendships have been forged.

One thing I’m not is a social butterfly.

I like my own company. And while finding people to see is easy I don’t want to see people just for the sake of seeing them. Just recently I’ve made a new friend – a lovely, warm, outgoing woman, a former teacher. I knew her before, as an acquaintance really, but as we bonded over our experience of trying to bring Ukrainian refugee guests into the country, we opened up in other ways and she’s my newest pal.

I’ve spent much of my life feeling shy, propping up walls at parties. But in the past 20 years I’ve felt much more able to be myself, more confident, less self-conscious. In the past

I would have held back from suggesting a coffee or a walk or a gallery visit with someone I didn’t know well. Now I see it as like a man asking for a date – his whole world is unlikely to fall apart if he gets a couple of rejections. That’s the way I’m approaching things as I hit my 70s.

Friends in the bank

It makes sense to have friends in the bank as partners die and you are left alone. Your kids, if you have them, other family if they are near, are there to prop you up, but you can’t rely on them for all your emotional needs.

What I discover as I age is that I’m more open to people. I don’t only want to meet people from a familiar social milieu, people whose opinions conjoin with mine, who cook the same recipes and holiday in the same places. I like the idea of newness in my old life.

Surprise yourself and try talking to people you might feel you’re going to have little in common with. Remember that we live in a multicultural society and that we can be multicultural in our choice of friends, not always stick with the safety of what we know.

‘I don’t want to see people for the sake of it’