I always find friends when I don't expect to make them. The best way to do it is to have shared interests---and even more often, it happens when you find you have shared values/ are of one mind on a subject/ share similar backrounds.

I don't think age has much to do with it. I had fluctuating friend numbers all of my life---depending on so many things.

I've been meeting people face-to-face, and making a ton of friends lately. And none of it is sought out.

These days, since I am older, I really don't give a toss what someone else thinks of me (especially a co-worker!). I am a good human being and a good team player and I work hard (when I can). If anyone were to try and bully me, I'd laugh it off. But I'm not as depressed as I was, say, 5 years ago. It might have been way different then, and I might have been very troubled about it (because I took a lot of pride in the work I did, always.) Mostly, I think it would have led to a fair amount of confusion.