Making friends is not easy (it can be frightening too) and takes time & patience.
Also you need to differentiate between true friendship (which is probably rarer than true love) and acquaintance. My best friend and I have been friends since we were 14 (we’re well into our fifties, now). We know and appreciate a few other people, but there is only one of us for the other and that is despite meeting a few very remarkable persons in our respective lives (and living away from one another), friendship is very rare. Don’t try to force it.
It also require a lot of trial and errors. Friendship is rare which means simply means that often it will not be friendship. No matter how nice the person is. And then one day, without them or you being bad persons, your relation will come to an end. They’re aren’t friends, that’s all.
And then there is that… Remember my best friend? Our first encounter back in school where he just landed and where I was considered one of the smart-ass, we almost fight together because we were, and all those years later still are, at the complete political opposite and we both wanted to prove the others who was the smartes-ass and, surprise, we both were punished for that by the school which let us chose between being expelled for a few days (it was a strict school) or spend a couple hours locked in classroom and talk together, calmly and under distant surveillance. We decided we would talk—our teachers back then were smart and I wish for any kid to be taught by the same kind. We talked and we talked more and, despite our differences or maybe because of them, we realized we could learn a lot from the other and that we kinda appreciated the other’s being there. So we kept on talking after the punition was over and… never stopped.
All of that to say, don’t be afraid to try to go towards people whose company you would not think you could enjoy that may be worth a try ;)
Like suggested, hobbies are also great way to meet people. Younger, I was into model making (little planes and tanks). I met a few real nice people, a few assholes too. I was (and still am to this day) into history which was another opportunity to meet like-minded people. Any hobby will do.
Also, if you’re anything like me making friends is difficult because, well, I’m so fucking shy. I will literally blush when someone I don’t already know greets me (and I’m almost 60 dude, tall, bald and build like… someone that never had much to worry about roaming outside late at night). If you’re timid, be fine with it. It’s part of what make you who you are.
Last thing, don’t think you need to be with people your age. I know it has become kind of the norm for younger generations but it was not for me and it is still not. As a kid, I was much more at ease with adults (I could talk with them like I was never able to speak with kids my age). That may be something else you may want to experiment with. The same when I was at uni.
If you read my rambling until here, thanks. I genuinely don’t know any more.
Thx for reading mine, then ;)
I regularly see younger people feeling lost and, more worryingly, ashamed or even afraid to dare admitting they don’t know what to do about this or that. Be it about friendship or anything. Asking is a nice step in the right direction, if you’re asking me.
One of the advantage of living in Paris is that, among (too) many industrial bakeries, we still have quite a few real bakeries (and restaurants) and I would add ours is real talented—it’s rare people don’t queue—willing to bet your kids would love it ;)
Yes, that’s a real issue. I was already impacted as a kid, but not to the level it has reached in those last decades. Our kids are becoming overweight younger and younger. It’s frightening and, imho, if our species doesn’t vanish in a poof of smoke because of its own stupidity/rapacity, I’m afraid overprocessed food will be as detrimental to younger generations health as the cigarette was to my and my parents generations, as well as it was to older generations. Maybe even worse. Maybe not as dramatic as their phone addiction could be for them, that I can’t tell.
It is here too. We had to change our habits and reduce our spending on quite a few things.
Maybe there is still a place that sells them in glass jars or in bulk, alas I think it’s become very difficult to be certain of that because, what not a surprise, small local business are seldom efficiently promoted by search engines instead they will put forward shit on amazon and the likes.
Like you, we’re trying our best but I’m pretty sure things won’t get better any time soon and our options will dwindle down. Even more so now that the EU and America are not BFF any longer (and that the rest of the world hates us) and now that our undoubtedly incredibly extremely smart leaders are competing to decide who has the biggest… tariffs—you’re richer than we are and you have Walt Disney, so you obviously and easily win there but here in the EU we have the good old Parthenon and those unique French cheese so we win here and by a landslide if I dare say so myself because, obviously, our cheese are so yummy (and not plastic wrapped). Could we now be BFF again and stop that craziness? ;)
More seriously, thx for starting the thread. It’s an interesting discussion. I hope others will share their ideas too.