This sounds like an odd goal, right?  Making friends is easy for some, but not for me.

For a variety of reasons.

Probably the main reason, though, is that I’m a real introvert and once I’m settled, it’s hard to blast me out of my comfort zone.  I do have friends, but several have died (the curse of getting older – your friends begin to die off . . .) in the past few years, and some have just moved or drifted away.  Relationships are always changing anyway, so this isn’t a tragedy necessarily.

Since I’m now retired, I don’t have that convenient place to make new friends – work.  Not that my work as a therapist necessarily netted me friends, anyway, but it’s a common place for many of us past college age.

Lastly, I’m married to a man who provides me with a lot of companionship.  We have grown kids who we get along well with and elderly parents who we see – there are a lot of relationships right there.  My husband tends to be satisfied with having me as his best friend and then his family.  He also has a social grouping with his music, so he’s fine.  I don’t have a big connection like music, so for me, family (although I love them dearly) is not enough.  Friends are our “family of choice.”

So my goal is to develop a new friendship with someone who lives near enough to me to see regularly.  Most of the friends I do have live long enough distances that we don’t see each other enough (which is a whole other issue.)  So I guess I’m going to be looking for a geographically desirable new friend.

I have some ideas on how to go about this, although I’m not too far into them and I do have 365 days to accomplish this.  Hopefully, though, by Fall 2014, I’ll be well on my way towards this.