I don’t have any friends

[BonosToupee]

I’m 61, happily married, took early retirement and am fit and active.
I’m a quiet person who likes being at home, pottering around and doing my hobbies.
I have had close friends in the past, but one passed away and others aren’t local anymore due to us/them relocating.
I have no children and my only family is a brother who I’m not really close to.
To get to the point, I keep hearing about support networks and the importance of interacting with others, and it makes me worry for the future.
I’m actually ok and happy with my lot, but keep wondering if I should make more of an effort?
Is anyone else happy being a loner or am I an oddity?

When people say ‘support network’, they don’t mean ‘Who’s going to look after you when you’re old and infirm?’ They mean things like ‘Who knows what’s going on in your life?’, ‘Whose shoulder do you cry on when something awful happens or celebrate the good stuff?’, ‘Who will text and say they’re thinking of you because they know you’re having an interview/biopsy/difficult anniversary?’, ‘Who could pick up a prescription for you if you had flu?’, ‘Who would notice if you dropped out of circulation and contact you?’ etc.

I went to a funeral last week of a man in his early 70s whom I knew only because he ran a local business near here before he retired. He had never married or had children, lived quite a solitary life and had only one remaining family member who lived in another country. He died at home, his body wasn’t found for several days, and the only people at his funeral were two neighbours and a bunch of us who arranged to go via the neighbourhood WhatsApp, having realised that would be the case. .

I think it's good to be self sufficient emotionally but I think you need to think about what will happen if you are widowed. I don't think that's quite the same as always having been single because it's such a trauma and you might need support. Not that you should run your whole life around this one worst case awful thing but resilience is important

How did you make friends after moving away? Contemplating leaving and going somewhere new but worried I won’t make any!

While that's sad for us to contemplate I guess he doesn't care as he wasn't there either. People have different balances of needs.

You misunderstood me

Some people eye roll at this 😂

but you live in a city.

@RanniTheWitch

My friends have been a wonderful support network to me. I am certainly not infirm or ill.

Throughout divorce, career highs and lows, kids highs and lows… I could go on

No, he didn’t attend his own funeral, obviously, but it’s apparently likely from the way his body was found that he was alive for some time in his house, alone and unable to contact anyone, with his dog and cats starving around him, which is not how I’d like my life to end— he was a perfectly healthy man of 71, who’d worked FT until Christmas 2025, so was not receiving any care visits or on anyone’s radar as at risk.

Some interesting points.
I do know people, I go for coffee with a neighbour every few weeks. I walk my dog and chat to other dog walkers that I see regularly. I just don’t have a ‘best’ friend.
Where I guess I could be seen as strange, is much as I love my husband, I’m sure I’d be fine without him. I’m not having a funeral…that’s partly to do with coming from a long line of undertakers and knowing the ins and outs of it all. My husband knows and it’s written into my will that I want putting in a body bag and cremating, no service, no ashes, nothing. I don’t even care if I’m only discovered dead when neighbours see flys in the window.
Grim but true…I won’t care, I’ll be dead.

What do you and your husband do together?

any children?

Thank you for this. I’m in a similar position though I have grown up children. I’ve always felt a lot more comfortable in my own company and forced myself to go out and socialise when I was younger. I found it extremely stressful and would drink excessively to make myself feel more comfortable.

I think if you are getting out of the house, exercising and doing mindful things, that is the most beneficial to happiness.

All the usual stuff. We have a camper van and travel a lot.
Childless through choice.

Happily married?

I can’t really see the issue. Would it appeal to me? Hell no. But you’re happy and it’s kind of been like this all your life from the sounds of it

And does that make him a lesser person?

OP you sound happy and content with your own life

I moved country when I retired so I have a couple online friends I chat to occasionally, my siblings, and I'm in the same city as my adult son but other than that I don't have friends and I don't really want them either

I spent decades with obligations to other people to work, parents, siblings, to a spouse, raising children, networking, and other social obligations. In my opinion I had enough social time. more than enough. I'm relieved now as all that was draining

I'm never lonely and enjoying my own company. Maybe it is because I'm autistic? I understand that other people wouldn't feel the same and they feel invigorated by their social relationships but I'm just not one of those people

No where, literally no where, did @PersephoneParlormaid indicates that is what she thought about this chap

I feel exactly the same and very much suspect I am autistic too though not formally diagnosed. I’ve been like this my whole life and even as a very young child I would spend my time alone playing in the playground.

As I grew up I made and had lots of “best” friends, though I think this was more due to the fact that this was expected of me as a female, and keeping up appearances as it were. I found some of the friendships vey tiring as they would want to be around me a lot, and I just wanted to be on my own.

I’m no longer in touch with any of my friends now, though a few have contacted me over the years.

It is the implication that because he died alone and had no friends or family at his funeral that there was something wrong with him. That people's worth is to be judged by the number of friends and family they have and the number of people who attend their funeral.
Society very much judges the loner.

Perhaps this man was happy alone. Perhaps his was a life of secret loneliness and sadness. Nobody knows. But the one thing sure is that nobody being at his funeral that actually cared about him was no longer of any concern to him.

How can she complain about not seeing anyone when she doesn’t try and see anyone?

I hate this. Eg my dad was such a lovely man but kept his circle small so his funeral was small. But the people we’ve known with massive attendance and outpouring online have been drinkers who are seen around town a lot, even if they aren’t nice people. It’s not an accurate indication

Exactly, but she hates having it pointed out to her.

You will find it very different if you don't have your husband. I was widowed suddenly two years ago at your age. My circle of friends have been my lifeline. I always imagined I'd be fine alone, but the reality is very different.

You read that as an implication
I didn’t get that at all

Really? The second part of the post was all about this man dying alone, nobody finding him for days, and the only people at his funeral being a couple of neighbours and herself and some of her friends who were there because they felt sorry for him.

What was the point of this story if not to signpost that this man was an oddity? At best an object of pity.

My dog is a big part of that as I have to go out every day. Dogs are great ice breakers.

He wasn’t in the least an ‘oddity’. He struck me as thoughtful, educated, well-travelled. He simply appears to have led a life without friends, and to have outlived all his family, which meant that when he stopped working, no one saw or heard from him regularly. The only reason I know he wasn’t found for a while was because someone explained it’s why his casket was closed (we’re in Ireland where that’s very rare).