My parents were among the most social people I’ve ever experienced. They had tons of friends, from high school, college, work, and play. They lived their lives from age five on in the same town. They had bridge and poker clubs, the Elks Club, the PTA, the Masons and Eastern Star, the Tennis Club, high school reunions, and dance clubs.

They had so many caring, rich friendships from their first half of life, they didn’t need any more for the Second Half. Or so they thought.

By their last five years, and thanks to their own above average longevity, they had out-lived most all their good friends. At a time when my parents became less and less mobile, their friends had either passed away or moved to warmer climates…and out of their lives.

Friend-making is a skill we learn early. It heightens as adolescents and young adults. Sadly, friend-making is a skill that, for many of us, erodes in our middle adult years, or in “middlescence” as sociologist Gail Sheehy calls it. When I speak of “friend-making” I don’t mean people who we smile and laugh with at work or at the club. Most of those people we don’t invite into the secret spots of our heart.

Rather, I’m talking about real friends, who really know us—on the inside, who don’t have to be asked twice to do a favor, who will offer to lend a hand or broach a subject before you even ask.

Americans, especially contemporary middle-class types, use the phrase “friend” much more readily than Europeans. Other cultures ascribe the concept of acquaintance to many who Americans would think of as friends. My sense of a friend is someone who I can trust with everything in my life including my money and my secrets, and someone who will do anything for me.

We all need real friends. For many of us, having a loving spouse or grown children, or brothers and sisters isn’t enough.

Second half men are very reluctant to expose themselves to the risk of friend-making. In one telling 1997 survey of Americans over age 40, men and women responded to who were their “primary social supports.”

Men reported their spouse 66% of the time, a relative 10%, a friend 9%, a co-worker 2%, and NOBODY 13%. Women ranked their spouse #1 only 24%, a relative 40%, a friend 28%, a co-worker also 2%, and nobody only 4%. Men rely on friends less than one-third as frequently as women, and women turn to relatives before friends.

Sociologist Sheehy points out that when women lose a husband either to death or by divorce and when the children are safely out of the nest, they report almost zero interest in “raising another man again.” On the other hand, when Second Half men lose their spouse, they either remarry quickly or they die quickly.

So what’s the role of “friend-making” in the second half of our lives? I believe that it is the yeast, the “tingle” that makes it a little more fun to get up in the morning. Old friends are wonderful. They are to be nurtured and treasured. But creating new, deep, intimate (I use this word in the non-sexual sense, but that isn’t cast in stone either) friendships, is a little like opening oneself up to a new lover. The risk of making yourself vulnerable, by sharing aspects about you that are personal, you are extending yourself and most of the time, the pay-off is a new depth of relationship that nurtures us and makes us feel more whole.

Self-disclosure is the step we take to let someone know that we’re willing to take a chance with them. When we self-disclose, and when someone lays themselves out for your, life starts to take a richer timbre.

Most of us don’t make friends any or many new friends as adults. We grow into relationships that we call friendships, but they are something else. People move away, and we never hear from them again. You leave your place of work, and there goes the “friendship.”

Second-Halfers need friends. We have more discretionary time to invest in friendship building, and these new friendships are the pathways to fulfillment.

So how do we do it? We simply extend ourselves to all those people we see week-in and week-out who we like, but don’t really know. We ask that new fourth person for doubles to get together for coffee or lunch. We invite that new person at the book club to meet for lunch. We apologize to the neighbor we’ve said “hi” to for the last five years, but never had over for dinner, and we ask them to come join us. We invite that new family at church to come for dinner. We sign up for hosting a foreign exchange student at the high school or college.

And who says that we can only have deep personal friendships with people our age? Not me. One of the deepest streams of our sentiments is to mentor. If you want to have personal friends who are 20 or more years younger than you, goal yourself to extend yourself to them. Make a friend out of one of the adult friends of your kids. They will LOVE really understanding what life looks like through your eyes. Ask the new young couple in the neighborhood over for some dessert and tea. Take a risk with that wonderful person with the caring smile at the bank, the Bookstore, the gym, or the salon. Tell them you’ve always liked their spirit, and ask if they would want to join you for an ice cream sometime. See where it goes. You’ll be surprised.

And with friends, touching is okay. In fact, it’s a good thing. The older we get, the more we appreciate it.