“ How did you meet your actual friends? ”
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In my youth- Meet the kid who lives next door. More often than not, we hit it off. Now we were friends. These are the kids in my class, or who live in my neighborhood and take the bus with me. I hit it off with one or two, now these are my friends.

As an adult- Meet the woman who lives next door. Same thing as when a kid, we hit it off, made small talk, shared about ourselves, took interest in each other.

Most all my friends lack some of the qualities you say you seek in a friend. Looking back on some friendship, I feel I made a poor choice in keeping friends that weren’t really genuine, good, caring friends to me. If I was so much more choosy, maybe I would have had a much harder time finding a friend.

I think it is a matter of having good character and seeking that in others, maintaining boundaries. Weeding out bad friends. But making them was easy for me, though I only always just had a couple. I wasn’t an outcast among the general population of my class, just close knit friendships with a couple of best friends.

The activities I do with friends now, like with this new friend, for example is: She may text me to go for a walk with her while she walks her dogs. We chat and walk for 1/2 hour. That’s it. Or we hung out the other night for a couple hours just talking. We did go together in her car to pick up some food once. I may go to some event with her in the future if we plan it, maybe even a trip.