Aging Friends

I've been thinking lately about how much harder it is to make friends and grow friendships, the older you get. This is the case in my experience anyway. In fact, it seems to be even harder when it's people around your own age that you're befriending. I'm usually quite happy to spend time with people somewhat older or younger than me, whether I know them well or not, and can even carry pretty good conversations with them. But when it comes to people around my age, I almost find them intimidating or something. I don't know whether I feel as if I'd like them to be my friend more than I would if they were older or younger and so I want to impress them while not seeming too desperate, whether I feel as though they may already have enough friends without adding me to the mix, or whether I feel like they're judging me.  It's a strange thing, and maybe it's just me over-analysing things like usual.
And then there's the whole 'busy' thing. Why is everyone always too busy to hang out? What are they doing that's making them so busy, if they're not spending time with people? People need to spend more time with people and invest in them, whether those people are beneficial to their image or their status, or not. I'm absolutely talking about myself here, too. It's not about what we can personally gain in friendships. Who knows, maybe these people just don't want to hang out with me...?
Really, when it comes down to it, I'm not very socially adept or becoming at the best of times, so this is probably just a lifelong phenomenon for me.
Gah, this turned into what appears to be self-pity. I knew I was running that risk but thought I could avoid it. Sure, I struggle with that stuff, even as I get older (it's so not just a High School thing!), but that's not where my thinking for this post was going. It was just meant to be an observation...