“The Golden Bachelorette” has become a pop culture sensation. In the series finale, Joan Vassos became engaged to Chock Chapple, an insurance executive from Wichita, Kansas. Will it last? Who knows.
But the real story that has preoccupied the audience’s attention is the friendship that developed among the male contestants. Despite family and other friends, these men developed a genuine affection for each other.
Do older men really just want to hang out together? Surprisingly, the answer is yes.
But according to the Survey Center on American Life, over the past three decades, the percentage of men with at least six close friends fell by half since 1990: from 55% to 27%. The study also found the percentage of men without any close friends ballooned from 3% to 15%, a fivefold increase.
The survey called this “a friendship recession” in American life.
What’s to be done?
Finding new friends can be difficult at any age. Developing these new friendships has three primary ingredients: circumstances, interest and capabilities. Right time, right place, right people. Knowing when and how to utilize these factors is fundamental in finding new friends.
Circumstances
Sometimes friendships develop over time, but typically they begin with a bang. Something happens, seemingly by chance, to throw disparate people together. A traffic accident, a social event or a casual conversation can turn into something more. Here’s how.
Marriner Rigby, 92, was dodging potholes in a St George parking lot when a truck backed out of a parking stall, crushing his leg. Responding to a request for a blessing, retired television weatherman Mark Eubank rushed to the nearby hospital. A couple of days later, sensing that he should follow up, he called Rigby to see how he was doing. It brightened Rigby’s day so much that Eubank decided to follow up the next day as well. He kept calling. He called every day that Rigby was in the hospital and the rehab center. When Rigby was released to go home, Eubank went by his house. He had never been there before but enjoyed the visit so much that he went back the next day and the day after that and the day after that. They didn’t have a lot in common — Rigby joined the Navy following World War II and then became an elementary school principal. Eubank liked meteorology so much that he continued studying it even after he retired. Despite their differences, an unlikely friendship developed. They had a “standing appointment” every day at 4 p.m. for years until Rigby recently died from cancer.
“Unexpected circumstances put us together,: Eubank says, “and we just kept at it. We didn’t have a lot in common but we each enjoyed our daily visits.”
Interest
In the book “A Man Called Ove” (and movie adaptation, “A Man Called Otto”), a quintessential angry old man spends his days enforcing block association rules that only he cares about. After a young family moves in next door and accidentally flattens Ove’s mailbox, an unlikely friendship forms. Unexpectedly needed, Ove bonds with the new family.
While initially Ove has no interest in becoming friends with anyone — in fact, he tries several times to take his own life — a young Iranian mother living next door persists in getting acquainted because she desperately needs help. Seeing her dilemma up close and personal, his motivation for living shifts. There is now something which seemingly only he can do. He matters.
Motivation to do something new can be hard to come by. There is an old saying that you can lead a horse to water but can’t make him drink. Not true. I spent much of my early life around horses. Put a salt lick next to a watering trough and they will soon be drinking plenty.
Change the circumstances to change motivation. It happened to Eubank. It happened to Ove. It happened to “Golden Bachelorette” contestants who likely would never have become friends had they met on the street or at an office party. They all decided it mattered. They all tried. It paid off.
Worrying about being judged or turned down can discourage older people from trying to connect with others. Content in their own comfort zone, social circles diminish when friends move away or pass away.
But simply deciding to reach out to others can spark new friendships. Following her husband’s death, Stephanie Fackrell decided to attend a widow and widowers conference. At lunch, she sat next to Marleen Chappell. They started talking. Ten years later, they are still talking.
“We both wanted to make new friends, share our grief, share our story with someone who understood,”” Fackrell said. It didn’t take much. Even though they didn’t even live in the same city, they made plans to do things together: shopping, traveling, sewing. Their circumstances have changed, but their friendship hasn’t. They were motivated to connect before; they are still motivated to stay connected despite changes over the years.
Capabilities
It’s easy to be around people who are personable. They attract others. Such people know how to “read a room” and how to start a conversation, how to pick up on social cues and how to be persistent without nagging. Even so, recent research suggests that personableness is a learned skill, not an ingrained trait. It is equally dispersed among both introverts and extroverts who have learned how to start a conversation — and how to keep it going.
Starting a conversation begins by noticing and commenting on something out of the ordinary. Maybe it’s an article of clothing, a weather pattern, or a sidewalk scene. It doesn’t have to be much, and it shouldn’t be weird or outlandish. It’s simply being interested.
I met Larry Grosman on a cruise. We hit it off. We talked about growing old, about grandkids, and about college football. He lives on the East Coast in the winter and Mexico during the summer. In many ways, we couldn’t be more different. He’s a social drinker, I’m a teetotaler. He isn’t married, I’m happily married. He’s not religious, I go to church every Sunday. He’s a talker, I’m a listener.
Is it pheromones or something else that keeps us jabbering away on email, texting occasionally, and even talking on the phone whenever BYU, Utah or Utah State has football success? Who knows, but whatever it is, it’s good.