There is absolutely nothing wrong with making friends ,we have been doing it thousands of years ,most knowledge is passed down ,from our senior mentors to our young , there's a huge difference between "book knowledge " and practical life skills ,I myself love talking to older people ,I learned so much practical living skills that isn't taught in schools by talking to and befriending people from "the greatest generation" , people who fought the wars, people who survived the wars , people who survived the holocaust ,people who survived the "great deppresion" . If you ever research language history traditions ,you will find some unusual things ,like in native American culture being a "tribal elder" doesn't come with age ,it comes from knowing your people's stories and knowledge and being able to share them with younger people ,so all there acquired knowledge and wisdom is almost completely passed down by and through oral history .

Yes I am older now myself (50ish), I am packed with knowledge and skills that I picked up talking to people and making friends with people who lived things that I wasn't around for . Its only in this "computer age" that has seen the decline in interpersonal skills, let your classmates think whatever they want ,you have nothing that needs to be defended by making friends ,regardless of the persons age ( it's part of becoming a well rounded person ) .

On a side note before silicone moulds , we took a block of wood made a cavity ,soaked it with transmission fluid filled it with cement to harden ,when it was hardened and we pulled it out ,you could then weather and age it with muriatic acid solutions to almost perfectly impersonate natural rock .our house had a stone and cement foundation that sometimes developed cracks or holes from age ,so i learned how to make exact fit "rocks" that wouldn't scream "I am a bad patch job", and the science and art of building stone walls (we have stone walls built more than 150 years ago still standing in the New England states).

You would be surprised, something you learn today can be dormant in your head for 30 years when suddenly you'll need it and " poof" it will come back and save your bacon . On another site my nickname was "human Google" because things google couldnt tell somebody how to do ,i could . I was raised to be a lifetime learner ,that was my moms stipulation growing up ,she loved a quote from Ganhdi " Live like todays your last day , Learn like you will live forever" ,so go make friends and learn something well at it .