My husband's long illnes and eventual death taught me to look at things a little different than I had. The friends who stuck by me thru this were real friends and all others got tossed. I came to realize what really matters.... good family and best friends are paramount. I'm agreeing with Nora Ephron on everything.

Having said this, I have no one but myself to satisfy (so-to-speak) and so it is far easier for me than you with cranky men in your life.

I have a really good and dear old friend who lives an hour away. We get together whenever we can. Cranky old men have been our nemesis. Hers divorced her, it was a brutal time but now long over and healed and she realizes she is lucky and so much happier. She's my role model. And she's still a grandma and caregiver for a disabled son and works full time. And she looks great. I wish I could bottle and sell her!!

I have always lived thusly. My mother was in two suboptimal marriages. Under no circumstances would I repeat those mistakes. So no cranky man in my life.

My social life has not returned to its pre pandemic level, which is a function of Covid plus my husband's extended stay in Austin where I am totally isolated :-( We should be home by the end of the summer. That will be so much better for me all around.

I have removed all unsupportive people from my life, including the last of my extended family. I went through a major crisis a few years ago and those who took glee in my problems were ousted, regardless of blood ties. I do not miss any of those people, though I miss the illusion they represented.

My uterus may be evicted in the near future.

Not having close friends, pink, this totally bums me out as well. The whole making friends in middle age is quite a cunnundrum. So many events make it so a lot of us need new frieds, divorces, widowing, moves, but yet unless we move to a 55+ community, we seem unable to make new, good friends easily.

I have a huge social circle at home due to lots of arts and civics involvement. Close friends are pretty much at naught these days. I lost all of those, except for one, in the great culling, mentioned above.

So far I have not had to get rid of any body parts, although some aren't what they used to be. ; )

I can honestly say I have a happy life. My greatest joy is the relationship my husband and I have. I never have a doubt that he is there for me, no matter what. He will always have my back. We don't have children, but we have not missed that. We love our life together, and it is only better now that I have retired and he is "entertaining" the thought. Even if he continues to work, his schedule can be very flexible so I am good with that. He loves what he does. Next in line would be a circle of close friends. True, close friends are hard to find. I have a large circle of "friends" that I truly enjoy time with, etc. but a much smaller circle of true, close friends. I honestly see our closest friends as part of our family. The hardest times in our lives have been the illnesses and deaths of 3 of our parents. These friends went through that with us each time. They were there to hold us up, to do whatever they could to help us. We've been able to be there for them in the same situation. We sometimes share holidays, etc. We love each other. Another plus is our church family. That is hard to describe, but there are some very dear people to us that we have come to know over the years (25 or better). All different ages. Many of these people have been with us through those hard times too. Honestly, I don't feel middle aged, but I know we fit the description LOL. It's a good time of life and I am so thankful to have the life I have. (@Zalco, I do think it would be hard at this age to move and make completely new friends. My sister and her husband are going through this, but through their church, a set of neighbors, volunteer and social groups such as book club, cards group, etc. they are managing.)

Well, I cut out all alleged friends years ago. Everyone always wanted something from me. And were never available for me. So bye. I am friendly with a few people at work, but have never socialized outside of work with them. I am content with that. Close friends are somewhat of a burden. Or have been to me anyway, I never had one that would share my own burdens. There is a lady I am friendly with at work who i feel would make a great close friend, but I do not really wish to test that theory.

My SO can be grumpy at times, but almost never with me and I have my own grumpy moments so its all balanced.

Besides my SO, I do not really crave close relationships and before I met him was perfectly happy being alone romantically as well. He did a lot of convincing for me to give him a shot. I am glad I did but I dare say if I had not and was still alone I would be fine.

I see my family in different levels of frequency. The only difference is distance, as I get along with all of my siblings quite equally, though I would never lean on them or pour my heart out for support to any of them. I feel some obligation to my parents and siblings, but they have never really done anything to make me want to cut them off anyway. So I do not feel burdened by that obligation.

I will always do what is best for me. Always. If that is making a new friend or cutting one off, so be it. If it is joining a social circle or holing up at home, great. If it is talking a long walk for exercise or eating a whole cake, imma do what I want to make myself happy.

I think putting oneself first is a foreign concept for most people, especially women. But it is truly the key to happiness,IMO.

As a "cheerful introvert" (as my daughter describes me), I was used to having a few close friends, and happy with that. As I've gotten older (I'm 64, so well past middle age) my social circle has improbably widened, and while I don't feed my friends, we do go out to lunch a lot (or did, pre-Covid), to the movies, museums, excursions to NYC to the theater, etc.

My husband can get mildly grouchy, but has been remarkably cheerful through the pandemic, which has surprised me, as he's an extrovert and I thought the early lockdown days would drive him crazy, but he was fine. He and I each have good friends that we've known since elementary school; we stay in touch with them and go to each other's life events. They're almost like family to us, which is important since we have very little in the way of actual family.

I'm an only child of two only children, and my husband's one unmarried sibling passed away a few years ago. Our parents are all dead, so our only family is our two 30something children with whom we're thankfully very close, although not, alas, geographically.

Having worked in hospitals in the medical field for a number of years, I quickly realized that you really need to enjoy whatever life you have and the people in it. My childhood-to-adult best friend drowned on Easter Sunday when we were 23, so that there are no guarantees just how long you have on this Earth really hit home with me then! And so, I've just been trying to enjoy my/our retirement. That darn Covid threw a real clinker into my time with my girlfriends. Wonderful gals but scared to death for almost two years to visit together. My now-retired hubs and I are having fun doing so many things together that we hardly had time to do when he was still seeing patients, etc. 8AM -9PM most days. Our 28 y/o daughter who's a clinical mental health therapist is living back with us while she/they save for a house, so I am really enjoying our time together, too. DS and wife live across the country, and I wish he was closer, but it is what it is. I'm just trying to "stop and smell the roses", enjoying the little and the bigger things these days where I can.

Agree wholeheartedly with Nora!

I have been fortunate with friendships. I have two groups of friends who I see regularly and who I could call if i ever needed anything. My oldest group of friends started getting together in 1995 when we were on the Prom Committee for our kids who were juniors in high school. Our town isn't very large and we had known each other before through sports and school activities. We had so much fun that we decided to have lunch together once a month - and we're now on year # 27. We've laughed, cried and shared our happiness and sadness. Only one of us is still in the same town - 3 are in neighboring communities and one moved down the shore. But we still look forward to our monthly get togethers.

The other group is much more recent. one of our local hospitals opened a wellness center 10 years ago and 4 of us joined the water classes. It took a few years for the friendship to develop - it started with an invitation to get coffee and a bagel after class and grew from there. Two others joined the classes when they retired and we became good friends. Two of them lived in the over 55 community that DH and I moved to. Since then one of the other ladies moved here too. We see each other 3-5 times a week - in the pool, in the neighborhood, at the gym. We constantly remind each other how blessed we are to find such close friendships at this stage of our lives.

Nora’s advice is spot on. In the past five years I have essentially given up on Dh’s side of the family, whose combination of guns and politics is anathema to me. He still sees them whenever he wants, which is rarely. Our family and my late brother’s family are enough for me to keep up with. Our friends are good, and while our acquaintances may not be as good they are at least interesting 😎 Our church is solace and our new neighborhood is peaceful and pretty with little effort on our part. Our life is very full and we are thankful.

DH and I are loners. We work together running our family business and for the most part enjoy each other's company. Our grandson is our world and when we are not working we spend our time with him.

I have two BFF's that I talk with at least once each week but our in person get togethers are sporadic as two of us still work and the other one is retired and always travelling. DH is a workaholic and home body, he has no close friends other than the husbands of my friends.

I am an only child so I am very comfortable alone. While DH has sisters, he prefers alone time most of the time.

Strangely, I am a bit of an extrovert in that I tend to start conversation with complete strangers. I also love to entertain with friends and acquaintances but have done little since the onset of COVID. I love volunteering in the community and sometimes drag DH along.

DH and I are content with our lives and we could retire but will probably work until we cannot as we enjoy it. I guess work is our hobby. We do have a couple of pleasure trips planned later this year and next, one of which is a sort of a bucket list trip. I am planning two more bucket list trips for 2024 and 2025. We also travel several times each year for business sometimes together and sometimes solo. We enjoy these trips as well.

We have very few relatives and most are users or judgmental so we avoid them. We host one big party in the early fall to "meet" our social obligations for the relatives. It is a large enough gathering that we do not have to spend more than a few minutes with each relative. LOL I do have 3 cousins who I adore but we talk and see each other infrequently.

We consider my two BFF's and their husbands our family.

We are very close with our adult son and daughter and of course our grandson.

As for body parts, I'm about ready to jettison a knee in favor of a replacement. It is limiting my mobility. Other than that, I am intact.

Oh and humor in the face of disaster is both DH and I's strong suit. It's the minor day to day minutia that tends to perturb the heck out of me. I'm working on it.

Lynn, you are so right. We never know when our last day may be. I guess as I get older I think more about that. Last year 4 cousins and my sister and myself started "cousin's lunches". They happen 3-4 times a year. I have two cousins in the area, the other two are out-of-town, as is my sister. The two out-of-town cousins come to our area at least twice a year (their sister lives here), so we get together for a long lunch. We start at 1:30 so the restaurant is less crowded and we can stay as long as we want and catch up. I am so glad we started this!

One of my most treasured groups of friends is a small group of my mom's friends. These ladies went through school together. A couple started in elementary school together, the rest high school. They are early 80's now, but the ones left in the group are still spry! I was invited to join the monthly get-together along with another member's daughter after our mom's passed away within 24 hours of each other. I have become especially close with two of these women and would do anything in the world for them and I know they would for me. Three of us are going to visit one of the ladies who is now about 2 hours from here. She has MD and can no longer drive, so is not able to join our lunches. She is one of the two I am closest too. I am so looking forward to our visit!