I am 86 and have been on my own for many years. However, despite being financially secure, it is a lonely life and I realise I’ve fallen into a materially comfortable rut. Come 6pm I eat a meal, usually microwaved, have a shower, put my PJs on, lock the doors, put the TV on and settle down to another boring evening. My children live far away and have their own lives, although I do encourage them to visit me as much as they can and my grandchildren do, for the occasional weekend. Sometimes, though, I can go days without talking to anyone.
I used to belong to several singles groups but Covid caused them to close and not reopen again. I am in reasonably good health, although walking any distance is a problem now. My question is: there’s a nice lady, a little younger than myself, who lives next door and we have chats over the fence. I would love to know her better and think she feels the same, but I feel if I asked her out for a coffee away from our homes but got a rebuff, it could spoil our current friendship. Any advice?
Eleanor says: I think the best advice I ever got for getting closer to people is to act like you already are. Not in a creepy way, obviously – I don’t mean you ask personal questions or presume you’re invited without being asked. I just mean, you suggest doing something together as though you already do things together. I’m not sure whether your hope for taking the friendship further is romantic or platonic, but this idea could apply to either circumstance.
That awkward stiffness we sometimes feel when we try to progress a relationship one notch closer – I think that’s both people feeling they don’t quite know the rules of the new, closer interaction. It could be asking a colleague out socially, a group friend for a one-on-one outing, or an acquaintance to do something more romantic. There’s always that first moment in new territory – oh, we do this together now? If the primary feeling in that moment is that it’s new, it can kind of judder the existing relationship.
If instead, you extend the invitation with the ease you’d have talking to someone you know well, it feels more like you’ve been close all along. “Fancy a cup of tea?”, easy as you like, a canoe gliding off the bank.
The second-best advice I ever got was to do things that aren’t sitting on opposite sides of a restaurant table looking at each other. It’s easier to get to know someone if we find things to do together that aren’t just being together.
Does anything need potting? Is there a little practical problem you’ve talked about that you could offer to solve, a game or puzzle you’ve mentioned, a shared interest that connects to an exhibition or a book event or concert you’d like to go to, a skill she has that you want to learn (or vice versa) such that one of you could teach the other? Perhaps you simply have too much cake in the house and need someone to share the burden of eating it.
The advantage of that sort of thing is it feels like an extension of your existing relationship rather than a change to a new one. If it doesn’t go well, you can both de-escalate with plausible deniability. That’s what I’d look for at first if I were you – ways to spend more time chatting that don’t feel like big threshold-crossing moments.
I was reading some dating advice from the 1930s recently, expecting to laugh a bit, and was duly humbled by the fact that many suggestions were totally evergreen. In particular, everybody said they wanted someone “of good cheer”. Vim and laughter are such good fuel for any kind of companionship. Cheerful foot forwards. Leave any slightly lonely feet at home.
There are many fun ways to get to know each other that will be absorbing, warm and entertaining, long before proffering a formal invitation that could be rejected. Indeed, these little steps may be the best path to her wanting to accept such an invitation when it comes.
