Pal Power

(2 of 3)

Both men and women need friendship but approach it differently. Women tend to engage in "face-to-face" interactions, in which they meet specifically to talk, often about personal concerns. Men tend to favor "side-by-side" relationships, in which conversation, which may be casual, occurs in the course of participating in a common activity. James R. Erlenbaugh, 65, a truck driver in suburban Chicago, is typical in that regard. He chats with his three best buddies as they fish, ride motorcycles and attend sports events together. It's the togetherness that matters. "I don't know what I'd do without my friends," he says. "It'd be a doggone lonely world without them."

It's important to recognize that living in a lonely world is not an inevitable result of growing older. Indeed, old people are less likely to express loneliness than younger people, according to Carstensen. Therefore, if an elderly person is lonely, the cause is likely to be circumstances rather than age. And circumstances can often be modified.

Prevention is the best medicine for loneliness. "Make sure you grow old surrounded by people who know you and care about you--and that you care about," says Carstensen. That means actively maintaining friendships by frequent contact throughout life (see box).

It can also mean staying put. Postretirement moves can sever even the best of friendships, so seniors and their families are wise to weigh the social costs of relocating against the advantages of living near relatives. Thus far, Bill Boergerhoff, 78, a retired meatcutter in Villa Park, Ill., has resisted his daughter's pleas that he move to California to be closer to her. "I don't know anybody out there," he says. "Here, when I walk into the grocery store, at least 10 people say, 'Hi.'" Then there are his friends at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, with whom he gathers every day to drink coffee and joke around. "What's going to replace all that in California?" he asks.

When friends are separated, staying in touch by phone or mail is an important stopgap, but to keep a friendship vibrant, there's no substitute for being there, at least from time to time. Says Friendshifts author Yager: "If you watch children and teenagers, you see that we knew what to do when we were younger. You hung out with friends and did stuff together. It's important to share experiences, to create memories, to bond the relationship. You're not going to say in 10 years, 'Remember that great phone conversation we had?' or 'Remember those wonderful e-mails we exchanged?'"

When loneliness sets in, for whatever reason, it's wise to take the initiative in restocking the reservoir of friends. "The best source of new friends is old friends," says Sandy Sheehy, author of Connecting, an examination of female intimacy. High school and college reunions draw people who share a common past--and who may be eager to share a common future. Similarly, looking up old roommates and colleagues can reignite a friendship.

Joining groups that pursue hobbies and interests similar to your own takes some of the self-consciousness out of friend seeking and provides a pool of like-minded people to befriend. When Frances Wong Chan, 78, a divorced retiree, moved from Washington to San Francisco 13 years ago to help care for her daughter's children, she didn't know a soul there outside her family. With no old friends in the city to reconnect with, she took the next best route. She joined the Unitarian Church, a book club, a co-counseling group, an investor's club, a senior center, even a Japanese singles club--though she herself is ethnic Chinese. "I guess I'm a groupie," she says with a laugh. "I look for activities I enjoy and hope I'll meet some kindred spirits."

Our culture ill prepares us for retirement--and the abrupt end of daily interaction with people who share a collective enterprise with us--but there are ways to continue meaningful communal activity. "The media's appeal to the self-interest of older people by saying 'Now's the time to play golf, have good sex, go on a cruise' is demeaning," says Msgr. Charles Fahey, professor of aging studies at Fordham University in New York City. "Friendships occur within the context of doing significant things, pursuing visions and dreams."

Geriatrician Linda Fried, director of the Center on Aging and Health at Johns Hopkins, noticed over the years that some of her retired patients suffered not only from loneliness but also from loss of self-worth. To address those problems, she and her colleagues developed a novel program called Experience Corps, which trains teams of seven to 10 retired adults and places them in elementary schools to provide classroom support to teachers in everything from reading and math to violence prevention. The team approach gives schools a critical mass of input from the volunteers. It also gives the volunteers something priceless: a chance to make friends with other older people engaged in the same worthwhile task. The Baltimore, Md., chapter, now in its second year in six schools, is monitoring the educational benefits for students and the mental, physical and social effects on the volunteers. Reading scores have gone up at participating schools, and retention among the 150 volunteers is 97%, better than the rate for paid school staff in many districts.