The stewardship of life-long Friendships
- sciart0
- 12 hours ago
- 2 min read
(Related topics below the excerpt)
Excerpt: "In many relationships, the first step is the hardest one to take. Fred Gregory, a retired Army medic who served in Afghanistan, wrote that after his “Army buddies spread to the four winds,” he realized that something—or somebody—had to give. “Men, in general, are terrible at maintaining friendships,” he noted. “Swallow your pride and make the first move, hooha.”
And sometimes, a reminder to reach out can come in the form of a cold shock. “A year ago, a dear college friend died suddenly while walking his dog. It was distressing we hadn’t remained closer,” Scott King, 71, wrote from Bermuda. He committed to calling his friends more, “frequently while walking my small Schnauzer on the golf course. Hopefully, I won’t meet the same fate.”
Consistency is key: Robert Rose, from West Virginia, goes out with his “group of old guy friends” to eat at a different locally owned restaurant each week. “We are MENSA,” he wrote: “Men Eating Nowhere Special Again.” Lori Walker, 58, praised the “pre-book” strategy, so that the next meetup date is set when everybody is already together.
And once a month, Ella T., from Los Angeles, meets her British childhood friends on Zoom: “We begin with the ‘organ recital,’ namely which anatomical parts need repair or have fallen off.” Then comes the “doom exchange” of politics and news updates, followed by a head count of their “mushrooming army of grandkids. Mostly, we giggle.”
Generational differences can be stark when it comes to communication; Denise P., 71, from Ohio, loves to make her own cards and receive handwritten letters from her friends and family, which is “a rarity nowadays.”
Samyukta Reddy, 17, from India, observes that her friends usually rely on texting and sharing memes as a way to keep in touch, but she remains wistful for “the analog past” of a simple phone call.
To bridge the gap, maybe all it takes is finding an activity that people can share: For one reader, it’s playing “Jewdle,” a Jewish-word version of Wordle; for another reader, it’s making custom buttons to hand out at protests. “We are ten strong,” ranging in age from 30s to 80s, Meg C., 81, wrote of her friend group. “Youth gives us rage and age gives us humor.”'