Some days we feel alone in the world. Our friends are busy. Our texts haven’t even been seen yet.The cat wants to be left alone because the sun has met them for a nap at their favorite spot. So we look around for things to do. Most of us are not looking for work to do at this point. We try various things but they don’t fulfill the assignment because what we really want is interaction with other people. We could go stand in front of the local pharmacy and say hello to everyone that walks by but that isn’t quite right either. So we look around for things to do.

I spent most of my formative years alone. I was an only child. For as long as I can remember my mother worked during the day and my father worked at night. My father being at home, although asleep, was considered adequate parental supervision. Since the house didn’t burn down and all involved survived that era, it appears it was adequate after all. Having no guidelines beyond the knowledge that my father’s early waking might resemble the rise of some Lovecraftian elder god, I spent my time being quiet.That’s not the same as being a good kid mind you. As is the way for most, many of my lifelong joys were formed during those years. Friendship and knowing how to make friends was not a large part of my childhood.

The result of my upbringing is that I am almost too comfortable in isolation. I lost many of my friends to Covid complications, the life altering results of cross-country moves, and aging. I think the last time I met with a friend over food and drink may have been somewhere around 2019. For me, that’s not uncomfortable. I don’t know that it’s healthy but who’s to say? But it has got me thinking about exactly what constitutes a friend. I have my pets: Biscuit, Bubbles, Poppy and Sunshine. I live with my family. I confess to being one of those dotty old women that talks to the plants and the birds. They don’t seem to mind and we share a love of fresh air and sunshine.

I viewed friendship as needing shared experiences, backgrounds, or hobbies. Those are definitely paths towards friendship but they depend on chance. As I’ve aged, the likelihood of meeting another person with my shared experience or background has become nigh impossible. Since I’m near the average, I would guess that is the norm for most people as they age. Most women of my generation did not have the time to gather hobbies. Our husbands may have been out playing golf or talking sports but we were at home caring for the rest of the family. At best, our spouse’s hobbies became our own. The hobbies that women claimed were not hobbies as much as choices in creative labor. Women crafted: they knitted, quilted, sewed, crocheted, embroidered, cross stitched, stenciled, cooked, baked and gardened. With many of these choices being solitary pursuits that left little space for making friends, especially once the children had grown. Friends were met by chance at school functions, or anywhere where we could veer from the daily looping path of our life.

Friendships require more than chance. Finding a friend is not the same as finding a flower along a path. It might be a bit more like finding a new pet. We really have to know what we’re looking for before we even step out the door. We can’t base everything on one part of our lives either. For example, a long time ago I was in the military. But I have changed drastically since then and most veterans now have completely opposite political and social viewpoints from mine. That leads to arguments and I’m not the arguing kind. Common experiences and similar backgrounds mean less and less the farther you get from them. What matters more is who we are as of today. Chance might be a more reliable assistant if we run across the same person in multiple facets of our lives. Friendship is more likely if we don’t just know someone from church but when we also know them from the food bank, the book store, the garden shop and the dog park. If we’re doing all these things in common there’s more of a chance that we’re going to be able to schedule time to share our lives.

When we feel alone in the world and we see that our old friends are gone and the cat is sleeping. If we look around for things to do we need to make sure it’s something that we want to do. It’s important to not only hang around good people, it’s also important to be a good person. Like attracts like when we’re lucky. If we would like to have new friends then we will only find them by creating the opportunities for chance to bring them around. We could go stand in front of the local pharmacy, but unless we’re looking for people who like to stand in front of pharmacies that may not help us find a friend. But we do have to get out there to meet someone because we already know everyone in our current environment.