It may be easiest to explain this one by example.
I have a few different core groups of friends - a few from school, several mom friends, some couple friends and individual relationships that are offshoots, and work/volunteer friends. I think most likely mom friends and couple friends/combinations are my closest.
When you think of your closest core group of friends, are they the same people with whom you went to grade school? Are they friends from a club? Work? How has this changed over time?
Our kids are grown and flown. My wife has many friends, and we have a few couples as friends.
At this time, my own best friends are from different generations. One turns 80 this summer. We became friends at our condo building and share interests in authors, music and reminiscing about our “younger, wilder years”. Another, around 50, is a friend with mutual interests in music, visual arts, authors, books, restaurants, movies and other friends/acquaintances. We became friends primarily through our mutual efforts to support the arts in my hometown, where he still lives. A third friend, just 30, is partner to a woman, also 30, we’ve known since her birth. Also from my hometown, though none of us live there now. We enjoy some of the same authors and keep lists of each other’s recommended reads.
We are on the fringe of a new-to-us, vibrant circle of friends in Wisconsin, where we purchased a second home a few years ago and spend about 13 weeks a year. As part timers, we’ll probably only ever be on the fringe to most of the group. We lucked out with our next door neighbors, who are very open, welcoming, have lived here forever and know everyone.
My best friends from childhood have passed on. One remaining childhood friend who I might see at reunions and funerals, has strong political opinions very far from my own. Another friendship from high school days is primarily a Facebook friend, because he lives more than 1,000 miles away; as does another friend from college days (so long ago!).
