Making Friends When You're Older
It's easier than you think, especially if you live in Asheville
At my West Asheville “debut.” The evening had only just begun, but I apparently was so giddy with excitement that I had to grip the kitchen island in order to stand upright.
The only thing keeping me in Los Angeles the couple years before my move, besides my daughter’s visits during college breaks, and the 70 degree days in December, were my friends. Some of those friends I’d had for 36 years or longer, so it was with some trepidation that I left them behind when I landed in Asheville a little over one month ago.
Part of the reason I decided to relocate to this mountain town in North Carolina was the fact that I already had some people here: relative people, friend people, acquaintance people, and “friend of friend” people. Because I had spent a fair amount of time in and around Asheville, I gambled on the prospect of forming a new community pretty quickly.
Upon reviewing my social calendar during the 32 days that I’ve been here (as of this writing), I hereby announce that I’ve won my bet.
Last weekend, a friend that I met through one of my closest friends in L.A. threw me a “debut” party to meet some of his friends in West Asheville, which is the Silverlake/Austin/Brooklyn neighborhood of this city.
Host Anthony, me, and college pal Gina
Anthony invited some of my already-established friends, including my college friend Gina, in whose dorm room I met Liz, the friend in L.A. who introduced me to Anthony, if you’re following. He also included Susan (top photo, right), my Asheville bff of all of three weeks.
How I met Susan is a bit of a circuitous tale, but one worth telling because it goes against dire predictions about how hard it is to make new friends when you’re older. In case you hadn’t heard, a 2020 U.S. report proclaimed that a “loneliness epidemic” is sweeping the country: 61% of Americans self-identify as “lonely.” This study was sponsored by Cigna, so perhaps they were angling for an uptick in medical and mental health billable hours. However, the insurance giant isn’t the only one ringing the death knell of human connection.
In 2017 former surgeon general Vivek Murthy told Harvard Business Review that loneliness is as detrimental to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That’s because the lack of social bonds increases the stress hormone cortisol, which in turn increases inflammation in the body.
“I found that loneliness was often in the background of clinical illness, contributing to disease and making it harder for patients to cope and heal,” said Murthy.
A 2022 poll reported that 20% of people over the age of 55 were lonely “most of the time” and had only four friends they could count on. Over 75% said their social circle had shrunk as they’d aged. Almost 50% claimed they’d ended three friendships in the past two years.
But here, finally, is the good news: I’ve beaten the odds, so other old people can too!
Which brings me to my completely unscientific and thoroughly anecdotal theory of the “Friendship Kindling Factor.” Kindling is defined as “easily combustible small sticks or twigs used for starting a fire.” Although it may sound reductive, consider one friend a twig that you use to spark other friendships. Age is on your side in this theory, because when you’ve lived to be 60, you’ve had many decades of twig acquisition.
Approximately 30 years ago in Los Angeles, I had a “twig” named Mike. Mike moved to Santa Cruz and now lives in Santa Fe; I don’t think I’ve seen him in person since we were in our 30s, but I keep in touch with him on social media and often “like” his photos on Instagram. To give you some context, Mike is an excellent photographer and has just written a cool book titled The Photograph As Haiku, which “is designed for anyone who wants to take more interesting and poetic images in their everyday lives.”
On January 3rd of this year, I commented on one of Mike’s Instagram photos. A few hours later, I received an Instagram message from a woman I’d never met, but who also followed Mike on Instagram. She noticed my comment because I share the same first name as her mother, and that heartfelt connection made her look at my Instagram profile, where she learned I wrote a Substack newsletter that has “Carolina” in the title.
This woman grew up in North Carolina and her best friend had just moved from Colorado to North Carolina, so she was curious about my newsletter. She read enough of it to find out that I was starting a new life in Asheville in my 60s — just like her friend Susan, whom she urged me to contact because she felt we needed to meet.
Four days later, I did indeed meet Susan. I took Gina and Anthony with me for back-up in case the whole introduction was a ruse and Susan was actually a serial killer. We rendezvoused at White Duck Taco, where we all instantly hit it off. Pre-taco, Susan knew hardly anyone in Asheville; post-taco, she had a posse.
Susan’s friend’s hunch was correct: we did slip into an easy friendship, one that was sparked by a comment on my old friend’s Instagram photo that Susan’s friend happened to see. What transpired is proof that “old age” can be a time for making friends, not losing them.
Shortly after the Taco Summit, Susan joined me, my cousin Sandy, and my friend Leslie, whom I met through another “twig,” aka my old college friend Tom, to listen to a Beatles cover band at The Orange Peel.
Sandy, Leslie, me, Susan
Although he’s not in this photo, a rather loquacious fellow who instantly surmised that we were the venue’s It Girls, and glommed onto us the entire evening, was hovering by Sandy’s shoulder. We’ve since lost touch with our erstwhile companion because not every friendship is meant to last a lifetime.
Y’all vs. You
Over dinner the other night, Perrin told me about a conversation he once had with my dad, a southerner who moved to the north, where I was raised. Dad was expounding on the difference between the southern communal “y’all,” (the contraction of “you all”) and the northern singular “you.” Perrin remembers Dad saying that “y’all” derived from the southern value of community that is not as strong in the north.
That was certainly my experience growing up in the geographically and emotionally chilly climes of Princeton, New Jersey. There wasn’t community there so much as the gilded social circles open only to those whose ancestors wrested Pautuxet away from the Wampanoag people before re-naming it Plymouth, or elbowed their way into The Social Register, a periodical showcasing the Waspy elite that I often glimpsed on coffee tables in my classmates’ homes.
Mom embodied both her Scottish and Southern aristocratic ancestry and she cast an imperious shadow when she ran the lower school music department at Princeton Day School. She didn’t understand, and was understandably annoyed, when Princetonians mocked Southern accents — the implication being that those who had them were stupid. We, the “y’alls,” lived among the “yous,” but I never felt part of their social fabric.
Multi-million dollar homes, buckets of cash spent on transforming oneself into a preternaturally youthful specimen, and proximity to Hollywood talent make up the fiber of social connection in Los Angeles. If you don’t possess any of those things, you can feel like an outsider — even more so if you’re single, older, and female.
The south is known for being more traditional than the north and the west, but Asheville shines iridescent blue rays throughout the red state. Everyone’s welcome here, the LBGTQI-A, the POC, the sex- and body-positives, the New Agers, the storytellers, the arts-and-craftsers, the retirees — and the older single women. We all paddle together through the healing electromagnetic waves of Asheville’s spiritual vortex.
I felt lonely growing up in the northeast, and I felt lonely as a single mother in Los Angeles, but I haven’t felt one droplet of loneliness since I moved to Asheville. Being an empty-nester, I have more time to socialize. Being an empty nester in a region built on not just a spiritual vortex, but also on a bedrock of community, I don’t have to try that hard to connect to others.
All it took — besides uprooting my entire life, getting licensed in another state, and packing up every one of my earthly belongings — was a willingness to ignore the conventional wisdom that my best years were behind me.
And enough zest to kindle new friendships from old ones.
So inspiring, Virginia! I would hazard literally everyone dreams of what you are doing. You go, girl!
I just cannot get enough of your journey! Brava on all fronts!