Loneliness and Making Friends
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We're here because your heightened awareness deserves heightened entertainment. The Last Show with David Cooper. Making friends as a kid was easy. You shared a swing, a snack, maybe an imaginary game, and suddenly you've got a best friend. So why does making friends as an adult sometimes feel, I don't know, impossible? Let's talk about loneliness. But from the angle of making new friends, I am here with Gary Dierenfeld. It is Wednesday, so it's Therapy Thursdays on a Wednesday. I was about to say Thursday and get the day wrong. You almost blew it back. Gary's a social worker and a therapist and he's retired and I love him to death.
Why is making friends as an adult often perceived as difficult?
And welcome to the show, Gary.
Great to be with you again, David.
You are such a naturally friendly person that I almost feel like you're not going to be able to give good advice for people who aren't as friendly as you. Because you just naturally make friends wherever you go. But I'm comforted by the fact that as a social worker, when you see patients or clients or what do you call people that do see you?
Yeah, people. I call them people.
My colleagues tend to call them clients. All right. I guess that tracks. When people see you who are lonely and interested in friend making, maybe they've moved to a new city. Maybe they've gone through a divorce and their friend group is fractured. Or maybe they're just, for whatever reason, adults with not that many friends. Right. Like, what advice do you give? What is the standard advice, especially things that that people have heard and they're not going to do, you know, because I sometimes hear advice. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to do that, you know, even though it's good advice.
Yeah, we've all had that great advice that there's no way we're going to follow. No way we're going to follow through with. Anyways.
People tell me pickleball. I'm like, I'm not doing that. I am not doing that.
Listen, I've got the racket. I've got the wiffle ball. And I think I've been twice.
Yes. And it is a great way to make friends. And if pickleball is something that seems like it's for you, I have a friend who was feeling kind of lonely living in New York. He came from another country. He moved from California, blah, blah, blah. And he joined pickleball and now he's friends with like all the people he plays with. I'm kind of jealous to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. So what are the tips? What is the default? I'm sitting in the chair as a person who's in a session with you, not a client. Right, right. And yeah, what would you tell me? I have a go-to.
I frequently tell people to pick a role model. Who is someone in your life Who you think is good at making friends. Or whatever it is you want to do and you don't quite have the capacity yet to do it. Think about someone in your life who is good at what you want to do. And emulate them. It's the easiest guidance. Emulate them. So when I think of making friends and giving some guidance around that... My go-to is my mother. God bless her. She passed away a year and a half ago almost now. I remember. At 100. Oh, my. 100 years young.
What advice does Gary Direnfeld give to lonely adults seeking friendships?
She was a delight. She was 100 years young. She was solid up until two months before her demise. Anyways, everywhere she went, she made friends.
And I literally mean her podiatrist for her 100th birthday said- Go to a foot doctor? Is that your advice for making friends? Go to a foot doctor.
He so loved her that for her 100th birthday, he said, every visit from now on for you is free. I don't care how long you live. It speaks to the nature of their relationship. Her dentist loved her. When my stepdad was infirmed and in care at Sunnybrook, got excellent care there, by the way, in the veterans wing, my mom made friends with his nurses who, till the day she passed, they still visited her. And my mother's probably 50 years older than these persons. Everywhere she went.
Okay, you get the picture. No, but I'm hearing that. But I think to a person that feels like they struggle making friends, they just hear that story and they're like, well, this woman had a lot of charisma, which not everyone feels like they have.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:03–0:40
2
Why is making friends as an adult often perceived as difficult?
0:40–3:23
3
What advice does Gary Direnfeld give to lonely adults seeking friendships?
3:23–8:51
4
How can one emulate role models to improve their social skills?
8:51–18:07
5
What behaviors can help someone make friends more easily?
18:07–18:57
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Last Show with David Cooper
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