Eleanor's letter: How to make new friends in midlife...and why we need to

Eleanor explains why friendship is more important than ever in midlife, and how you can make new friends through NOON

This week I’ve been thinking about friendship: It’s the subject for our NOON Circles this month. I’ve been privileged to talk with 25 of you about it at the London Circle (at our new super swanky Old Sessions House venue, thanks to AllBright) and at our Online Circle on Thursday. (Find more about Circles HERE.)

What we all agreed is the centrality of friendship in our lives at this point: Studies show that loneliness is more detrimental to our health than smoking. We all need connection and support – and a web of friendships (new and old) is the best way to ensure that as we age.

And yet I hear from so many of you that many long-term friendships can fall away at this point.

The many reasons we lose friends at this age

Divorce often came up as a reason for losing friends. “Since my divorce I only seem to see other women one-on-one. I don’t seem to get invited to anything with couples or bigger groups,” observed one Queenager.

Others talked about moving away, often to a long-desired retirement type of location like Cornwall, then finding it “much harder than I expected to meet new people like me – the village is death, everyone thinks they know your business. I see loads of people but they are all dog-walkers or carers, not real friends.”

Some of you talked about losing the school-gate tribe as the nest emptied, or missing out on the friendship of former colleagues after redundancy. We heard some heartbreaking tales of dear friends who had died, and the agony of that.

When you discover a friendship has let you down

There’s that old adage about friendship: Forever, for a season, for a reason.

There was a lot of chat about the pain of realising relationships we thought were forever were actually seasonal or transactional after all. Several of you are expats and discussed how easy it was to become mates with others in the same place in the same situation – but also how ephemeral those seemingly close friendships can be when you move on.

There was also some painful chat about ‘transactional’ friendships. “I was the boss for a long time and thought I had a tight crew of work friends, then when I was made redundant I realised that they weren’t my real mates….”

Transactional friendships? Necessary, but tricky

We talked a bit about ‘networking’ and those kind of work-reciprocal transactional friendships. I argued that they’re essential, but we need to know where we are. Definitely finding out that someone only liked you because of what you could do for them is a bitter pill to swallow indeed.

What I found when I went from having a very powerful job to not was that it wasn’t necessarily the people I expected who were really there for me. Yes, some of my old friends have been amazing, supportive, cheered me on through the transition; others, not so much. And some former colleagues, who I thought were mates, didn’t send so much as a text…. Too bad.

The silver lining (actually the golden lining) in all of this has been truly knowing who is there for me for the right reasons – and the wonderful new friends I have made in the last 5 years who often could see and believe in me as a new kind of Eleanor, even before I entirely believed in her myself.

Check out our Reel from our London Circle, all about friendship, at All Sessions House

During the Online NOON Circle (do join us if you are living abroad or if there isn’t a Circle near you yet), I was asked HOW to make new friends in midlife (we also discussed this at AllBright). One of you talked about how you had gone up to a woman you liked and – channelling primary school vibes – said: “I like you, I think we really get on, will you be my friend?” I loved the directness of that.

The magic of a good friendship

I do believe that friendship, a bit like any relationship or love affair, is about alchemy, just that sense of recognition of seeing and being seen by a kindred spirit. We need to act on that, make the effort, make it concrete.

A new friendship can strike in the unlikeliest of places. One of my great new friends I made on a silent retreat; we bonded on the way there, swam together upriver, stayed in touch on our return (we are both big Ladies Pond’ers) and are now thick as thieves. Another new pal – the wonderful Avivah Wittenberg-Cox – has been forged through a shared passion for the 100-year life and embracing all that it means.

I first met Avivah because she reached out to me when I started NOON and came to our first Broughton Hall retreat. We had a strong intellectual rapport and loved talking to each other. When I launched the very first NOON Circles at my mum’s consulting room in Soho, she came to every single one. That support was so powerful. It was pretty scary putting on this newsletter a call-out for anyone who wanted to come and join me for a drink and a chat. I wasn’t sure if anyone would turn up!

Me with Avivah at our Broughton retreat, where many friendships were born

But Avivah’s steady, loving presence, her belief and support during those early gatherings was friendship-in-action.

And then we started having dinner, and going to galleries, and found we had other mates in common, and introduced our husbands to each other (who really get on – always a bonus!). I’m heading down to her house in Somerset over the summer to meet her new puppy, take walks and luxuriate in each other. I love the Elder factor in this relationship too; she’s like a big sister who has walked some of this path before, full of good advice and wisdom.

Friendship is a core element of NOON

That account of a new friendship probably sounds bleedingly obvious (sorry, if you are sitting there going, yes of course!) but I’ve always intended NOON to be like the pebbles that guided Hansel and Gretel out of the dark wood…practical, actionable support and advice to help Queenagers through the pinchpoints of this part of life and into a whole new exciting chapter.

I truly believe that our purpose at this point is to try and make the outside of our lives match who we truly know we are on the inside. (What I talk about in my book Much More to Come as creating a ‘resonant’ life.) Friends, new friends in particular, are such a crucial part of that.

New situations forge new friendships

Often we need a new crew, a new tribe to explore a new part of ourselves – others who are on a similar journey.

I know that is something so many of you say about the NOON Circles and our Retreats. I have made so many true friends out of our NOON trips.

As an example: There is something about sleeping (aka snoring) next to others in a shared-house in the Moroccan Atlas mountains, or slogging up a mountain pass in the heat, or being on an epic descent and keeping each other going with ever more scurrilous stories and jokes, not to mention getting extremely naked and personal in a hammam, which truly removes – forever – all our usual filters.

For me, the essence of true friendship is being able to turn up exactly as I am and feel seen, loved, appreciated – just as I see, love and luxuriate in the wholeness of this other human who is daring to let themselves be truly known.

Midlife can give us better friends than ever

The good news is that by midlife we’re better at letting ourselves be known.

There was a strong sense in the London Circle of us being confident at this point in life to truly be ourselves, warts and all: no more editing, no more people pleasing. It’s ok to be a strong flavour or a big personality. Indeed, that kind of true connection is only to be found when we ditch the sham and show up in our entirety.

As we become a new version of ourselves, as we indulge in what I talk about in my book as shapeshifting in midlife (finding our true shape, breaking out of the one we’ve been forced to take by our family or society or our roles).

Not everybody will love it

There will be some of our mates and our family who don’t like it, who will apply pressure for us to go back to the old shape which suited or was familiar to them.

Some people will be threatened by us moving into a new phase, or becoming a more actualised and truer version of ourselves. Maybe our shift points out ways they are stuck and don’t want to deal with it. Or maybe, as has happened to me, some old friendships which we thought were solid have actually gone rotten underneath – the log looks strong but when it is kicked or stressed, it disintegrates. The friendship was linked to a ‘season’ which has gone. It cannot endure.

NOON Retreats are famous connecting new friends. Here we were in Morocco in 2023

What happens with midlife collides with friendship?

Of course, keeping friendships going, or making new ones, takes time, energy and love. Friendship has to roll with life’s punches. Sometimes in the midst of a midlife clusterf**k or overwhelming life events, there just isn’t time.

Our good friends understand that and are still there for us at the end of it. Sometimes things in our lives are too big to just be handled by friends – we might need a therapist or a coach or a grief counsellor.

And then sometimes when our friends are in real extremis, we must respond and tend to them, even at a cost to ourselves: Sometimes friendship is literally showing up when there is nobody else.

I had to take a friend who is estranged from her family in to hospital. She is a single mum and there just wasn’t anyone else. I love her. She is the sister I chose. I did it happily; she was one of the ones who was ALWAYS there for me, when others weren’t. If we are lucky our true friends are there for us just as we are there for them.

How one Queenager found friends

The most inspiring thing that came out of this week of talking about friendship was one of the Queenagers who had come to the London Circle for the first time.

“I’ve been going through a tough time, a divorce, a disabled child, my world had just really shrunk – I was feeling so alone. I thought: I can call the Samaritans…I was feeling really low. And then I remembered NOON, which I’d read about. I booked to come to a Circle. I also said yes to an old friend who had invited me to a party and booked a ticket to France. I realised that I had choice and agency … how just 2 actions had dramatically shifted my life onto a more positive footing.”

She left the Circle in a gaggle of at least 5 Queenagers, heading off for a drink and some food, fledgling friendships being created in real time! A new friend can change your life and that is something that the NOON network is just brilliant at facilitating.

Come meet your new friends

So come to a Circle – or our Wasing retreat on July 18th (2 places left) or to Oxford on July 10th to see me interview Raynor Winn (author of The Salt Path and a Queenager icon) to ask her a question and watch the movie at a private screening.

If you want to check out our new London Circle venue – I am going to be interviewing  Cally Beaton, author of Namaste MotherF*ckers at Old Sessions House on Tuesday July 15th at 6.30pm – free to NOON members, just click here.

Want to give yourself a real (re)treat and make the kind of friends that last a (100-year) lifetime? Come to our signature NOON Queenager Retreat in Wales or our Wonders of Cairo adventure-of-a-lifetime in Egypt in November, as we go on a private visit to the pyramids, have a NOON Circle on the Nile and carouse around Cairo.

When was the last time YOU were truly unfiltered? Do you long to feel really alive, laugh till your stomach hurts, make some new mates and have some fun? That is what NOON is all about! Come and get a bit of that effervescent joy.

And on the subject of fun – I went to interview Jo Wood last week for The Independent and she gave me a signed copy of her new book The Resurrection of Flo to give away to you lovely ladies.

The book is all about a divorcée in her 60s who feels like her life is over when her husband runs off with a 23-year-old…and then discovers it really isn’t! I love its optimism and hilarious tales.

 

Email me eleanor@noon.org.uk with your best story about a new midlife friendship and I’ll choose the one I like best and send you the book! (Let me know whether it’s ok to share your story – either with your first name or anonymously – on social, as we love to spread good news stories.)

Will you support our friend Joss?

 

Speaking of friends: Our beloved Joss Cripps, in charge of all data, memberships and subscriptions at NOON, has a family member who is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. She has asked me to share with you all this petition to Parliament – please join me and her in a final push to in get to the 100K signatures needed to get the government to do more for people with this difficult condition.

 

Much love

Eleanor

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Eleanor Mills

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by Eleanor Mills

Inspiration, community and joy to get you through the pinchpoints of midlife

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by Eleanor Mills

Inspiration, community and joy to get you through the pinchpoints of midlife

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