One of the last things I expected to achieve in middle age was to make new friends.
Most people form close friendships in their earlier years, as teenagers or young adults. Yet, in the past year or so, I’ve come to meet and know two guys around my age fairly well.
The new friendships were completely unexpected – and unlikely. I met one person through an informal one-off work event, and the other through a casual introduction. These were brief exchanges that would usually not have produced any long-lasting or meaningful interaction. Yet, through subsequent conversation, we discovered commonalities that drew us closer, such as a shared faith in God and similar worldviews.
These new ties were unlike those I formed in the past: close friendships that emerged from the formative and tumultuous years in school and national service, and at significant junctures such as at work. Those were unplanned, involved minimal effort, and just seemed to happen; all it took were shared experiences of common joys and pains.
Establishing these two new friendships, however, took more deliberate, intentional effort. We had very different life stories, backgrounds and lifestyles. It took effort to initiate and exchange online messages and make appointments to meet face to face, amid family and work commitments and set routines.
That’s why, as sociologists and psychologists have discovered, most close friendships tend to be established earlier in life, such as at school. That’s when we are most likely to have regular, repeated interactions that don’t need planning. It’s also when our identities and characters are still in the process of forming, which keeps us more open, trusting and vulnerable – vital ingredients to any close bond.
As we mature, however, opportunities for such interactions drop drastically, especially amid career, family and other commitments. We also become more guarded in sharing our lives and less ready to open ourselves up to others. The idea that “strangers are just friends you haven’t met” sounds nice, but in reality, it’s not that practical.
The crucial 200 hours of contact
According to a concept called Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, we’re also more likely to prioritise what we see as more meaningful goals, relationships and activities as we get older – time with family and close friends. This also means that a person is unlikely to spend the minimum 200 hours of contact that studies suggest is necessary to form a close friendship.
As a result, while the average person may have 10 or more friends in childhood, the number of close friends drops as he ages. By the age of 50, he is likely to keep in contact with fewer than five.
A recent study by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) found that Singaporeans now have an average of 6.49 friends, down from 10.67 six years ago. In some countries, as many as 20 per cent of adults say they don’t have a single close friend; local surveys indicate that Singapore’s statistics aren’t likely to differ a lot.
The “friendship recession”, as some observers have put it, is a serious cause of concern for both individual and nation. Studies have shown that the fewer close friends we have, the more likely we are to feel lonely.
The World Health Organization has declared loneliness a global health threat, with US Surgeon-General Vivek Murthy describing it as an epidemic akin to other public health crises. Comparing loneliness to Sars and swine flu may seem an overstatement, but when you think about what loneliness can lead to – depression, anxiety, dementia and other mental health issues – it begins to sound justified.
Local studies suggest that loneliness is growing in Singapore. A 2015 Duke-NUS Medical School study found that 39 per cent of Singaporeans aged 62 years and older have reported feeling lonely, while the 2024 IPS study showed that those between the ages of 21 and 34 face the highest levels of loneliness and social isolation.
Yet, as friendship expert Sheridan Voysey – another contact-turned-personal friend – notes, not enough focus has been given to an obvious solution. “Everyone’s talking about loneliness, but no one’s talking about friendship,” he recently told me.
“When we intentionally learn how to find like-minded people, make confident invitations, take conversations deeper, and develop mutuality, we not only decrease our loneliness and increase our well-being, we help others do the same.”
It was this dismay over the friendship recession that prompted the England-based Australian writer and radio host to set up Friendship Lab, a non-profit organisation, to teach people how to make friends. The starting point, he says, is understanding what a friend is: “We define a friend as someone I can talk to, depend on, grow with, and enjoy. With that in place, we can learn how to become a good friend.”
At a recent TEDx Talk on starting what he called a “friendship revolution”, he explained why we may need to learn more about the philosophies and practical approaches of making friends. “Friendship is a vocation,” he said. “Just as we read books to become better parents, treating friendship as a vocation means getting skilled.”
Some might find the idea of having to learn how to make friends amusing, but in this age of growing social isolation arising from factors like shift work, globalisation, social media and Covid-19, it’s no longer a given. Local workshops on making conversation and friends, and courses on acquiring social skills have been gaining traction in Singapore, especially with younger adults – but I think many older ones may need a refresher course, too.
I’ve heard laments from empty-nester friends struggling to rekindle old friendships that had fallen by the wayside. I have my own share of regrets over letting the years – and some old friendships – pass, realising that I’ve missed important milestones in the lives of people I used to care about, and wondering how to reconnect.
Perhaps we need to rethink friendship – not just as something that happens to us involuntarily or accidentally, but as something we need to invest in, just as people might in their careers, romances, marriages and parenting. And these investments, like their financial counterparts, need to be started early, monitored carefully, and maintained regularly. Or, if we haven’t started, it’s never too late to do so.
It might not even take a lot. “The average person spends five hours a day on streaming video alone,” Mr Voysey remarks, “but a check-in text to a friend will take you 10 seconds, a catch-up call to a friend will take you just 10 minutes, and a meet-up will take just one hour.”
I have to admit, finding those 10 seconds or 10 minutes can be tough. It takes effort to drag myself out of my usual routine and take the trouble to fire off a WhatsApp message to say, “Hey, how’ve you been doing?”, to suggest a meet-up, and leave the house to meet a friend.
Making new friends, of course, is even harder. Breaking out of your cocoon after years of isolation can be challenging when your social circle has shrunk, and you don’t know where to start. Typical suggestions include joining a community of like-minded individuals, volunteering with a charity, signing up for adult classes in language, exercise, writing, wine-tasting, or flower arrangement. A number of creative friend-making channels have emerged in recent years, such as book clubs, repair workshops and conversation sessions.
But it’s still going to be tough going for some, especially introverts. Line dancing classes are not going to work for everyone. It may take a readiness to try something different to find something that fits your personality.
What will work for everyone, however, is intentionality. Because, making – and keeping – friends is ultimately a deliberate, purposeful exercise. Conscious effort and time is needed to turn a casual contact into a deeper connection. And it may take the same sense of commitment with which we approach vocations and investments.
It took some awkward “Hi there, remember me?” follow-up WhatsApp messages and equally awkward meetings, before the two guys and I “hit it off”, so to speak. There were times when I wondered if the interactions were going nowhere.
Several years later (yes, it took that long), however, I realised the two men had become my friends. Like most of my older friends, they aren’t necessarily a match in personality. But we’ve found enough connection points to bond over, and that’s good enough.
Strangers may not be friends we haven’t met, but sometimes, with enough time and energy thrown in, the odd stranger may actually become a friend.
Leslie Koh is a former journalist with The Straits Times.