By Royane Real

Author of  “Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends”

When I was twenty-two, I was befriended by a woman named Doris who was thirty years older than I was. Although Doris was then a fifty-two year old woman, and I was a somewhat goofy but interesting young person, she did not feel it was inappropriate to befriend me.

Doris did not operate with the social belief that she should choose her friends only from people her own age.  She and I became very close friends and remained so until her death at the age of eight-two.

When Doris turned seventy-five, she was already widowed. The week she turned seventy-five, Doris threw two birthday parties for herself, one on a Wednesday night, and one on Saturday. Over thirty different people attended each party. I was the only person who was invited to both.

In all, about seventy of Doris’ friends came that week to celebrate her birthday. On both nights many people stayed until past one in the morning.

As I looked around the room at both parties that week in amazement, I noticed that the people attending her birthday parties were of all ages. They included toddlers, teens, middle-aged people, and the elderly.  I knew that many people her age had only one or two friends left, and I wondered how she had made so many lifelong friends.

One thing I realized was that Doris had never restricted herself to making friends only within her own age group. She had always made it a point to befriend people of all ages. That’s why she did not suffer the same social fate so many elderly people face when their circle of same-age friends starts to dwindle from sickness and death.

Doris had never been wealthy, but over the years she and her husband had made a practice of opening their hearts and their home to many people.

Doris and her husband not only befriended a lot of people and maintained those friendships over the years, but they also befriended the children of their friends, and they stayed friends with the younger generation.  Even after her husband died, Doris kept inviting people over to her house for dinner, for parties, or for tea.  She welcomed everyone and treated everyone as if they were special.

I noticed that whenever I brought some of my own friends with me to visit Doris, she never treated my friends as expendable people that she would never see again. She was gracious and kind and interested in all of them. Her caring about each human being was always apparent.

When we finished our visit, Doris would often extend an invitation to the friends I had brought to come and visit her again, and many of them did so.

When she issued invitations Doris never seemed as if she were inviting people because she was lonely or desperate for company. Her invitations were always genuinely joyful. She loved meeting people and wanted to see them again.

As Doris neared the end of her life, she became very ill. Yet, she never lacked for love and support from the many friends she had kept making throughout her whole life.

I learned something important that week at Doris’ two birthday parties. I realized that we make a big mistake if we tell young and middle-aged people to invest their money for their old age, while neglecting to tell them that it is at least as important to invest in their relationships with other people.

We make a mistake if we don’t tell people that it is just as important to invest kindness in the people we meet, and invest our interest in them. There are other kinds of investment accounts besides those that are held by banks. A big bank account won’t make up for a lot of loneliness in your old age.

I realized that if I wanted to have as many friends as Doris did, I would have to keep making friends and keep maintaining friendships my whole life. I would have to make friends with people of all ages, including those much younger and much older than me.

And I would have to start now to invest in making friends for my later years.

This article is written by Royane Real. It is an excerpt from my book on friendship, “Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends”

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Learn to Be Popular - even if You're Shy and Lonely!

By Royane Real

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