All told, a mounting body of evidence suggests that "women with friends recover more quickly from illness, use fewer medications and visit doctors and hospitals less frequently than socially isolated women," says Lhotsky. "The notion that friends are good medicine is true in the literal sense." Now that we know scientifically what we knew intuitively, the question of how to make new friends takes on greater significance.
If, like Hildebrandt, you've felt the need for new friendships in your life, you may wonder where and how to connect with like-minded people. You cannot, after all, wind back the clock to your school days, when time was your ally and potential pals abounded in every classroom or at every party.
How to make new friends
Although volumes have been written about finding new love after age 30/40/50, divorce, as a single parent -- you name it -- far less attention has been given to the subject of making new friends in midlife. In fact, the two approaches have much in common, says Bonnie Haave, an Edmonton psychologist and former executive director of the Psychologists' Association of Alberta. Where you go or what you do doesn't matter as much as "just getting out there and exposing yourself to different social environments," she says. As with romance, "The more people there are on your radar screen, the more likely you'll bump into compatible ones."
Hildebrandt found congenial environments in a church, choral society, professional association and local ecology group. Her dog, which she walks along the country road bordering her house, has also helped her sniff out at least one human friend. "When you walk your dog, you tend to meet the same people over and over," she says. "If you click, you can make plans to get together and you've got the built-in advantage of living close by. I've become good friends with a neighbour this way."
Friends with my husband's ex-wife
Once you step out into the world, there's no telling which paths will lead to friendship. I know of one woman who became good friends with a woman she met at a singles club, an irony that wasn't lost on either of them. I myself became friends -- as in going-out-for-a-beer friends and talking-about-sex friends -- with none other than my husband's ex-wife. For the better part of a year we exchanged only the barest of words when she would call to arrange for her son to spend time with his father. When I became pregnant, however, she called to congratulate me and we ended up talking for half an hour. After that, our conversations became warmer and chattier -- with a heavy emphasis on maternity and baby clothes. During the seven years since that time, we've found more common ground in our family histories and love of ethnic cuisine.
If you have Internet access, you need not even step outside to form new friendships. While most women don't look for friends online as they might for romance, many log on to chat rooms or discussion groups with health, relationship or career questions in mind. In some cases, a shared struggle to quit smoking or raise a child with disabilities develops into a friendship that may even leave the confines of cyberspace.
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