Want to know how to make friends in your 20s and 30s? Ask your elders.
In honor of Older Americans Month, The Post asked readers: What's one lesson about friendship or community you wish you had known when you were in your 20s and 30s? Here are some of the best responses.
— Allison Weis, deputy letters and community editor
If I had to give one lesson on friendship or community to people in their 20s and 30s, it would be to put others first.
The quicker one appreciates the significance of that three-word guidepost, the sooner all of their relationships will benefit: friendships, teamwork, leadership, marriage and community.
If you're unable to cite the examples in your own life that prove this to be true, then you just haven't learned that ever-important lesson yet.
Richard Szafranski, Charlotte
I had an image of who I was going to be when I got to the age I am now: strong, vibrant, full of life, making art. But aging had something else in store for me: My health crumbled, rendering me limited and even disabled in some ways. I'm unable to stand at my easel to paint. I'm not as trim and muscled as I always expected to be. I used to look young for my age, but now I look older than I am.
In my 20s and 30s, I watched my weight ferociously, exercised religiously and cared deeply about my looks. I have two great friends who have been with me through the decline of my health. I live in my jammies most days and look rumpled and messy. And they love me. Really and truly love me. They let me complain and don't tell me some platitude about it all being okay. One of them told me the other day that I looked elegant because I was wearing a new pair of slippers.
And they've guided me into something even more remarkable through their excellent examples: self-love. It's the most enduring and important love there is if we can find it. So here I am, plump, messy, not at all how I thought I would look and finally in a pretty darn good relationship with myself, thanks in large part to the unconditional love of two friends who showed me the way.
I wish I'd understood back then that we are not our looks. We are worthy of love no matter our exteriors, and, in fact, true love just doesn't care. I have two friends who love me unconditionally and have stood by me not because of how I look but because of who I am. And they've helped me see a self I can love — trim and muscled or not.
Jeane Weigel, Truchas, New Mexico
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The basis of a close friendship begins with trust, but the most difficult part of that is not judging your closest friends. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I had only two close friends. When one of them told me that he was leaving his wife for another woman, I told him that I disagreed with his decision, that this it was not fair and that we were finished as friends. I am now 80, and the one thing I have learned about friendship is, as Pope Francis once said: 'Who am I to judge?'
I don't judge my friends today, I just ask: 'What can I do to help you?' If I had had that same attitude in my 20s and 30s, I would still probably be close with my friend who remarried.
Jerome Koncel, Schaumburg, Illinois
Maintaining a meaningful friendship takes effort. As life evolves, many things cause people to drift away. If you care about someone, you need to do things to show you value them. Invite them to do something, listen, show up, offer an unexpected gift or useful information. Recurrent, small acts help build connection. Life will lead relationships to drift as people marry, move and switch jobs. But if you did invest in those relationships along the way, you might find, as I have found, that the rewards show up at unexpected times.
Meredith Fox, Bethesda
Some people seek one-size-fits-all friends who can be there no matter what. As a professor, I taught my students that everyone needs a coach, a mentor and a venting buddy (or two). A coach guides you through what you need to do to improve at that moment. By contrast, a mentor is somebody who 'gets you' for life, whom you could call or email and be offered wisdom, no matter how many years have gone by. Peers in your 20s and 30s do not have the life experience to give you much of this sort of friendship.
I wish I had known that when I was in my 20s and 30s, as I tried to sort out who was the one friend I could rely on in various situations.
But finding just one person who can fill all those roles in your life is very difficult, if not impossible. It would've helped me to have known that in my 20s and 30s. Sometimes you need to look within.
When I had a stroke at age 30 and tested positive for leukemia, even though I had two young children, a husband and teaching colleagues, I felt like I was on my own. No one was there with unconditional love and kindness, to have my back no matter what. Few could offer advice.
Yes, I had my parents, who were very close to me as the oldest of six children, but they were going through their own angst about whether I was going to be okay.
My friends and my spouse's friends seemed to want a relationship with me only when I was healthy and could go out and do things. So I realized that we have to learn how to be our own best friend, too.
Barbara Veltri, Lecce, Italy
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I've never been very good at friendship. Certain events in my life, my neurodiverse brain and fear have all contributed to my inability to sustain friendships that I formed in my younger years. Most of the people I now call friends I know through my family. Well, actually, most of my friends are my family. Between school, military service and work, I was away from home for almost 20 years, and it wasn't until my 40s that I spent any significant time with my own brothers and sisters. Learning to be friends with them has helped me become a better friend to others.
If, in your 20s and 30s, you made those true, lifelong friends who will come to your rescue or allow you to cry on their shoulder — hold on to them! It only becomes harder as you get older to find those people. I am fortunate to have a few friends stubborn enough not to let me go (and to them I say thank you).
Growing old is hard enough — I don't know how anyone can do it alone.
Patricia Miller, Edgerton, Wisconsin
Listening to friends and showing up for them has an impact I never imagined. Little gestures, such as reaching out, sending a card or taking an extra minute to listen are all important.
Margaret Washa, Middleton, Wisconsin
Don't hesitate to take advantage of every opportunity to ask questions of people in your community and listen carefully to their answers. If they seem to be happy folks, learn from them and value them. Find time to get together and do public service or just have fun. But if people you meet complain or list their life challenges, listen even more carefully and be kind. Overcome the instinct to feel annoyed, and try to help them see the glass as closer to half full. There are few satisfactions in life finer than the joy of helping another person gain a brighter outlook.
These lessons, which I mostly learned after 50, have made me a leader who has had amazing success in achieving unity in my community, even though it is just a modest condominium association of slightly fewer than 100 souls. It is heartwarming to admit that I love every one of them!
Lynn Ochberg, Key Largo, Florida
Growing up, I didn't learn the importance, or the satisfaction, of participating in community organizations or activities. I lived in a big Midwestern city, and my family did not participate much in the community. I wish I'd learned about and understood the benefits that come from volunteering with local organizations. Had I not been so set in my ways by my earlier experiences, I could have given so much more to the greater good.
Paul Fior, Newcastle, Washington
In my 20s and 30s, I was so focused on learning my job and building my family that I failed to spend time at social and civic events where I could have connected with people outside the office. It's one thing to still be in touch with the people I knew in school growing up, but in my career I moved to several states, and those friendships with co-workers didn't extend outside of work. As such, now that I'm 70, there's really nobody I can talk with about those good times and activities from the cities where I once lived. So although I had many good people around me while I worked for and with them, those relationships didn't stick. Had I known others beyond work who weren't connecting with me just because of my title, I'm sure I'd have more friends to visit and enjoy memories with.
Marshall Collins, Point, Texas
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