Apparently, it is difficult to make friends in midlife. I beg to disagree.
But it does require some skills, mindsets and behaviours that many of us were never encouraged to develop.
This past year has been one of those classic, challenging sandwich years for me. The kind where work, family and other responsibilities compete for time and attention, leaving precious little room for much else. Yet it has also been a year of deepening existing friendships and forging entirely new ones.
My mental health would have been in a very different place without them.
It wasn’t because I suddenly had lots of time to socialise. Sadly, far too little of that. It was because I found the courage to reach out, to put words to what I was experiencing, including those ugly little truths we’d rather avoid, and to make myself a bit vulnerable. And then to listen to what this brought up for others.
Because it would be naive, and a bit narcissistic, to think I was the only one struggling with something at this stage of life.
The skills behind meaningful connection
There is science behind this, of course. Social connection matters to our mental health. Yet busy schedules, remote work and the fact that many of us were never taught, or encouraged, to verbalise emotional complexity or vulnerability can make meaningful connection harder than it needs to be.
We may have plenty of acquaintances, colleagues and people we interact with regularly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have the kinds of relationships where we can talk honestly about how things are going.
This is where emotional literacy and emotional agility come in.
Emotional literacy helps us recognise our emotions and find the words to describe them. Emotional agility, as psychologist Susan David, Ph.D. describes it, helps us navigate our emotions without being ruled by them.
Neither requires us to have everything figured out before we open our mouths. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true.
Sometimes, you just have to go first
We can spend a surprising amount of time wondering whether we should reach out to someone, whether we might be bothering them, or whether sharing something personal will make things awkward.
But sometimes, all it takes is going first and saying something as simple as:
“I’m finding this difficult, and I’m not entirely sure why.”
That sentence can be an invitation to connection.
It doesn’t demand that the other person fixes anything. It doesn’t require a perfectly articulated explanation or a neatly packaged lesson learned. It simply creates space for an honest conversation.
And often, when we are willing to share a little of our own uncertainty, we discover that others have their own versions of it. Different circumstances, perhaps, but familiar feelings.
We don’t have to be in exactly the same situation to understand each other.
A little honesty, a little humour
As we recently marked World Mental Health Day, it is worth remembering that we don’t necessarily need endless hours to socialise or an entirely new social life to feel more connected.
Sometimes, finding the words and the courage to use them is already a good start.
And if you have a sense of humour too, even better. It certainly helps with connecting, and with putting even the painful stuff into perspective.
To all of those I’ve had honest conversations and laughs with this year: thank you. It mattered.
