You know how hard it is to make friends as you get older…

We were recently at a party. I began talking to a woman. We had interesting conversation. She seemed nice. I met her husband. He seemed nice. Conversation was easy. I was beginning to think I had met a new friend, or perhaps even a couple friendship…

Until she talked about cross country skiing.

To backtrack, the man who was having the party was someone my Husband knew from ski club. It would make sense that there were skiers at this party…

But as you may know, my feeling about winter sports is that if I was supposed to be butt deep in snow I would have been born a polar bear…I don’t do downhill skiing, and frankly, cross country doesn’t really interest me- it’s not how I want to spend my time or disposable income.

So this woman, who I was liking, started telling me how much I would enjoy cross country skiing.

And telling me.

And telling me.

I was trying to be nice about this- I told her I don’t like cold and snow sports. I told her that’s not how I want to spend my money. I told her I have dog sitting concerns. I told her that didn’t really sound fun to me.

And she insisted I needed to give it a try.

In theory, I get that you should try things before you say you don’t like them. I’m always saying how do you know you don’t like opera until you’ve tried it.

I realize that I was doing exactly what I accuse others of doing…

I was making a decision based on really, no actual knowledge of cross country skiing…

But I just don’t want to do it.

Period.

Call me ignorant.

Say I’m an anti cross country skier

You can hurl anything you want at me…

But I just don’t want to try cross country skiing at this juncture…

And I’m OK with this…

But now, this woman had absolutely no interest in being friends, couple or otherwise.

Perhaps she saw me as stubborn, which about winter snow sports, I guess I am…

I had to wonder, did she want a friend, or did she want another couple to ski with? Like, would any warm body do?

I thought we were having wonderful conversation about theater and movies and books- we had similar likes and dislikes…

But I guess she was looking for something that I wasn’t…

I have friends/acquaintances that are purely activity based- and I’m OK with that. I don’t expect any friend to be completely in sync with all my likes and dislikes…

But you can’t force a friendship…

69 thoughts on “Making Friends”

  1. Oh, what a shame. I feel for you LA! For me, it’s not a question of liking or not liking cross country skiing. It’s the interchange of ideas and a back-and-forth of the conversation. For you to say no I’m not interested, I get that she may say “hey, you might like it.” But then to come back again and again, that’s not right. A big warning sign for me. A friendly conversation takes two people. And for her to not even realize is an even bigger no-no! She wasn’t looking for a friend, she was looking for someone to do what she wanted. Ugh! Yup, hard pass!

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  3. I hear you…and for what it’s worth, I say you know yourself…and if cross-country skiing interests seemed like a prerequisite for friendship…I’d say ‘see ya’, too. I love your description of not wanting to be a polar bear or up to your backside in snow. I’d meet her at the “lodge” for cocoa 😉or ask if she wanted to see a show or have lunch…but at this point I’m like you – I’m not gonna do something I know I won’t enjoy….just because. Very relatable post, LA!

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    1. It’s more…renting a car, getting hotel room, buying clothes, renting equipment, getting a dog sitter…this isn’t like asking someone if they want to try Albanian food down the street…

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  4. Don’t overthink yourself on this one. I think we just need to be real about friendships and the way life has sort of changed how/who/why we find a match and then sometimes we don’t. Even the great matches we think we make can go sideways sometimes. I think it just IS and maybe not really important to stress over.

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    1. I’m not overthinking it per se, but it’s an interesting thought in days of search words and everything being online, how we could possibly let one thing get in the way of something

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  5. I love the snow but with my right hip, living in Florida not going soon. However, I will let you know I used to love skiing. At least you were not different parties (politics). I thought I had a great potential friend during Covid times as we had worked together in the past until she became really derogatory towards my political party, not something I would ever have done to her. That was it. We went out for breakfast and I became nauseous.

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  6. It felt like a personal attack as she was trying to convert me. Not something I would ever had attempted to probe with her. I did not care for her at all after that. But to have someone convert me to meditation, I would probably just nod and move on.

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  7. Sometimes you just don’t click with people. At least not all the boxes are checked. Before my son married he would sometimes take me as his plus one to business events since I wrote his Foundation’s poetry curriculum and volunteered at their learning center. So I came in contact often with their staff. But I was mostly involved with anything educational. The bosses wife was very athletic and set up a camp for girls involving gymnastics and other athletics for young women. She was quite dynamic . . I used to get along well with the wife.as she was very gracious and hosted a couple baby showers for my daughter in law. But our conversations were limited. I couldn’t talk books with her she was more about what her children could physically accomplish. We did discuss hair products once in a while and she gave me the name of her hairdresser. (She had fabulous hair). I did use her hair dresser once. Omg I could have put a down payment on a car for what I spent. ( keep in mind I normally spent about 300 dollars every couple months on partial hi lights, coloring,cut etc. Needless to say since her hubby was a pro football player her financial status put in her into the lifestyle of the rich and famous category. She wasn’t stuck up at all. But she came from a wealthy Texas family and married into that of a top hall of fame athlete. And she herself was a retired athlete. All she could discuss was sports or exercise. And that gets old quickly. I personally got annoyed with all that talk and then would make jokes about not liking to sweat. (Jewish girl jokes… we don’t sweat, we glisten . Or my form of exercise was making reservations etc. At the time I was teaching full time, volunteering for my son’s poetry program and the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was go exercise with her. But I was always polite. Plus, she was six feet tall and built like Xena the warrior princess .(I was 5’3” barely). Now I’ve shrunk an inch! the problem was She was always trying to give me tips on how to stay fit. Expecting me to do what she did daily. Keep in mind I was older than her mom. At the time I was in my early 60’s a size 6 and in really good shape. But I clearly had educational priorities over playing volleyball with her. If I’d ask about her kid’s education (she sent them to a parochial school) I found that she felt their religious experience was more important than their educational experience, so I couldn’t discuss or really find any common ground with her other than we both had really good hair. I had to be polite, but seriously, I was bored to tears. She was and still is a beautiful woman. But not someone I wanted to spend lots of my free time with. So sometimes friendships just don’t jell. I didn’t want all her exercise tips.

    LA you have diversified interests. You need diversified friends. And not people who want to change you or take you out of your comfort zone. Good for you for not letting anyone bully you into doing something you have no interest in doing.

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      1. Ugh! I know exactly how that feels! That’s how my sons bosses wife m ade me feel. Plus I don’t eat red meat. I never have. She kept trying g to get me to eat red meat. Yuck. It became a chore to see her. I began avoiding her. We are grown adults. We can decide what we want to do or not want to do. Just because they are passionate about something doesn’t mean everyone else has to be. Honestly , how to they not see they are being overbearing?

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    1. It was the point of annoying. Especially when I said I didn’t want to spend my money that way. Once someone says it isn’t worth their hard earned cash…you drop it

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  9. Now if she had asked me to give my hard earned monies to her political party, sparks would have flown. I am just amazed at what some feel they can do without kickback but then again I was raised with morals and values. I can listen to people with different beliefs, cultures, interests and not pass judgment. Thanks for listening.

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  14. So she wanted a ski buddy. Well, I went skiing twice in my life. Both times I swore I would never go back. Some things are just not for everybody. You handled it the right way, but she is letting you know too that if you don’t want to ski, you don’t want to be her friend. She is probably wrong about that. You know what? It’s her loss. Not yours. If/when my wife and I ever get back to Brooklyn, we will hang out with you. Go to dinner, see some of Brooklyn’s sights, and I get to meet that wonderful husband of yours! 🤭🤭

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  15. I think your post and many of the comments boil down to boundaries. When you don’t know someone well, you dance around a lot in the process of getting to know the other person, but both people send out cues during the conversation. You were certainly telling this woman in many ways that you weren’t interested in cross-country skiing. She couldn’t have missed that; she simply did not understand conversational boundaries–at all.

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  16. I did try cross country skiing the trip I fell downhill skiing and tore my ACL. I almost wish I stuck with cross country — although I found it boring. I’m sorry your new friend turned out to be such a pain. Better to find out now before you invested more time. I met a neighbor at our monthly coffee. I really enjoyed her and she invited me and my husband over to their house. Then long story short, three consecutive weekends she stood us up.

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  18. It really is hard developing friendships at our age. I keep trying, though. I would never push someone to do anything that doesn’t interest them. All we need is one thing in common, really. At least you didn’t waste any more time with that one!

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  19. As I get older myself, making new friends does seem to be harder and harder. But there is a piece of me that is sadly ok with being simply just me. There is certainly no intrigue to pretending to like something that I may not like or do things I don’t want to do, just for the sake of making a ‘friend’. If there is a genuine interest in building a friendship – then differences shouldn’t matter. I applaud you for standing your ground on how you viewed that particular topic at hand. Friendship is hard to build – but will be worth the effort when it fits right… 🙂

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  20. Crazy! Like you said you can’t force friendship and you can’t force someone to like something just because you love it. I LOVE the beach but I have 2 friends who really don’t care for it. I don’t tell them over and over how they should like it! I mean they are crazy not to like it but…Kidding! 😄

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  23. After a few minutes of her going on and on about it, I think I’d lose any interest in a friendship. It sounds annoying. Shoving an interest down someone’s throat is a real turnoff. While we can’t choose our family, thankfully we CAN pick our friends.

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  24. No, she wasn’t looking for a friend as much as she was trying to win a new convert to cross-country skiing. Which is too bad, since you were getting along so well. It is harder to make friends as we age, but I have managed to do it. Some of my best friends are people I’ve met in the past 15 years or so. We “clicked” over mutual interests, but the friendships moved beyond that. That being said, a lot of people who are middle aged and above aren’t in the market for new friendships, which is too bad. They’re missing out, I believe.

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  25. This rings true with me. I was at a sit-down dinner that was lovely until the seemingly nice woman beside me started pushing me to take up, ready for it, scuba diving. We’re in the middle of the country where people never scuba dive. She wouldn’t let up and it was so wacky. She loved, her boyfriend loved it, her friends loved it… yada, yada, yada. I couldn’t get away from her quickly enough.

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  27. This is interesting to me, mainly because she couldn’t focus on the similarities, and instead, I guess (like you said) wanted a skiing partner lol

    You probably weren’t meant to be friends, since she doesn’t seem to be the type to actively listen to others.

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    1. Agreed. But it made me wonder about people and dating profiles…are we throwing good potential partners away because they don’t like cross country skiing? You know what I mean?

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  28. I agree, the more I age, the harder it is to make new friends and invest the time needed to get to know each other. I’m usually attracted to people who are different from me, have different interests, hobbies, talents. Gives us something to talk about. I feel as if this person was more interested in her own thing than learning about you. Hugs, C

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  29. We all are selfish beings, we are always on the lookout of our benefits in most things. And I believe it is usually more when we grow old hence that’s why it is hard to make good friendships when we get old.

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