Kale Is Out. Friends Are In

As you get older, it’s easier to do 10 pushups than make new friends

By Marilyn L. Pinsky

In addition to eating your vegetables and exercising, the latest advice for aging well is having friends.

As you get older, let me tell you, it’s easier to do 10 pushups than make new friends. Oh, OK. Maybe two pushups.

Therefore, try to hold on to the old ones as long as possible.

I’ll tell you about a few of mine: a really long-time one from our early 20s, a medium long-time one from our 40s, a friends group and two new friends from practically yesterday.

The long-time friend and I either talk or text about three times a day. What do we talk about so much? Everything from cranky body parts to world affairs to what we’re cooking for dinner. Only the last one do we mostly agree on.

We used to joke that we’d end up together on a porch in rocking chairs telling stories about the good old days. Then she moved away and for 30 years we lived on different ends of the East Coast. But now, though we stayed in touch over the years, through various flips of the coin we are in the same town and close enough to see each other often. It truly is a gift.

And the amazing thing about this friendship? We are political opposites. We are always trying to figure out how in such a polarized world we can continually argue and still remain so important to each other? I think our first major argument was over the Affordable Care Act and it was downhill from there.

Though we both read the same two or three newspapers, I don’t watch TV news and she does. I look more at social media and she doesn’t. The crux of our relationship is that we are both extremely curious people and that overrides our differences. No matter what the issue is we are arguing about, we both want to hear the latest news or research about it. And between Google and now AI, we can find anything we want to back up our individual arguments. And we do argue. The question we ask ourselves is “do we ever change our opinions?” She thinks that I always have to be right and I think that’s only because she’s usually on the wrong side of the issue and I actually am always right.

We think other people are fascinating and both talk to everyone within five feet of us. As I have the attention span of a gnat, I have to find out everything in 10 minutes or I’m out of there. She has more staying power and can stand and talk for an hour. (As can be seen from the picture, she has an adorable dog and every other person feels they have to stop to talk to her. How much can this dog have to say?)

We’re both problem solvers. Not so much our own problems, but other people’s problems — whether they want our help or not. So far no one actually has, but it hasn’t slowed us down. Also, she loves nature and spends hours outdoors. Me? I’m a 24-hour buffet for mosquitos.

Then there is my friend since our 40s and we talk once a week. Years ago a mutual friend was moving out of town and we drove her to the airport together. As the three of us sat on the floor near the boarding gate drinking wine we had smuggled in, our friend said she was “giving us to each other.” And she did.

In our weekly talks, it’s not just what we talk about, but more that we stay in touch and keep up with each other’s lives. With Zoom we are also in touch through a monthly book club she facilitates with other friends and that is also important.

One of many stories with that friend: On my anniversary I told her that I was going to the cemetery to spend time with my husband and bury some things that were important to us under our mutual gravestone. She said she’d come with me and bring a shovel to help. When my son asked what I’d done that day and I told him, he said “you don’t think two women walking in a cemetery carrying shovels looked a little suspicious?”

In the broader friends category is ‘LaGroup,’ as we named ourselves 45 years ago after a popular book at the time. We worked in different areas — government, academia, media and PR, but we all had a commitment to civic life. Now retired and dispersed geographically, we Zoom once a month and still have a burning interest in Central New York.

In the new friend category is a neighbor. When I first met her, she was dancing down the sidewalk to the sounds of a street band. She basically told me that she didn’t want to make any new friends as she had a lot already. I think I talked her into taking on one more and promised I wouldn’t be a pest. I’m trying hard not to be.

In a special category of “sort of work–volunteer friend” is someone who we just seem to know each other from another life. At the end of the work week, I’m sure she is happy not to see me.

And then there is dear Audrey, my recently passed friend of 60 years. I am pissed you left me and I’m still crying.