Why making friends after 60 is harder than you think

I used to think making friends was just something that happened to you, like weather. You went to school, and there they were. You got a job, and there they were again, standing next to you at the copier or on the loading dock, and eventually you were getting a beer with them on a Friday without ever really deciding to. Nobody tells you that the whole system runs on scaffolding you didn't build and don't own. And one day — for me it was a Tuesday, not even a special one — the scaffolding gets pulled down and you're standing there wondering where everybody went. So why does this actually feel harder now?Here's the part nobody warns you about: it's not that you got worse at making friends. It's that the machine that used to do it for you stopped running. Think about every friend you've made in your life. Chances are almost all of them came from a place you were required to be. School. Work. Your kid's soccer team, where you spent three seasons standing next to the same parents in the…