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Welcome to the podcast. I'm Too Old For This where we're asking the uncomfortable, inspiring and frequently asked questions of people who've truly seen it all. I'm Cath, your guide to explore the realities of getting older with open conversations, no taboos and a good dose of humor, we spend an hour and a half talking and saying nothing and solving no problems and having a good old laugh.
Say, do you talk politics? No, none of that stuff. No politics and religion are off the off the nut.
Rob, today we're talking about friendships and the kinds of relationships we have as we grow older, and how we actually enjoy those relationships over time. I've got with me, Rob, who's 75 years of age, and Veena, who's 90, and they've seen and done it all, and they're here to talk about how they managed to maintain some really wonderful friendships through the years.
Well, this session, we're going to have a little chat about connection, and partly around friendships, because I can't imagine that you've kind of lived these long lives, interesting lives, without lots of friends. I know they're kind of the foundation for me. I have a group of women called the wild Willy women, who are my dear friends. We all started our friendship in Willie abrupt down south. That's where we get the name from.
And they've been my friends for 40 years. And I'm sure that you will have had some of those. So what if so hard to go back to a single memory. But do you have a memory of when you're you first had a best friend that you I can't remember? Can you what was that like? Well, I was a very small Tom. I born, I was born in a small town, and we were all knowing each other, yeah. And the school was perhaps the kilometer and away, and we go walking every day to school. That's the primary school where I remember. And those people, most of them are dead, but some is still alive. I still contact them, that's all I can say. Wow, yes. So like for Christmas and things like that. Do you know when I go to Portugal, I've found them? Yeah, I do not much. They are, like, only two, but still there, you know?
So I know you're going back to Portugal soon, yeah, which is amazing in itself, because it's a hell of a trip, I've told him. So will you see them when you get there? Yes, oh, wow, one and one, he said, I'll have and what are you from Africa so and moved to Portugal as well. Yes, a lot of people from Portugal that I knew in Africa, because I had been a lot of towns, and so I still have them as friends.
And you, did you get up at anything bad? Sorry. Did you do anything naughty?
No, ah, sounds like you've been a very good girl, naughty.
I don't know age, when you were younger, did you do it with we did no misbehaving at all.
Two ladies, I didn't mean that kind of misbehaving.
They were married very late, yeah, yeah. I can remember, I guess my first best friend was my fiance's cousin, and he and I shared house, shared a flat together in London. Yeah, it was, they were wild days, and he was an absolute champion. We got on really, really well, and unfortunately, we didn't last for that long, because we've just separated for jobs, and then I divorced. That'll do it, won't it, yeah, but we were actually a foursome, you know, my wife, him and and his wife, we were a Thorson for quite some time, and that was they were good times, good times.
And you still have groups of friends that you I have from there. Well, from then on, when you get into advertising as a copywriter, you work with an art director normally, and some, some guys pair up for life, yeah, and you see more of your art direction than you do of your wife and kids sometimes. And I had one guy, his name is John Draper, and we bumped into each other. Oh, gosh, 80s, early 80s, probably.
And started working together. I then left the agency. He followed me, and we worked together on and off for, God knows, 30 years, and I skype him every Thursday night. Are we Skyping him at 630 tonight? And. He's nearly 80, and he still lives over in England, in Surrey. Wow, and we spend an hour and a half every Thursday night Skyping.
So what makes that friendship work? Because that, you know, that's a gift,
Yeah, with John and I is just a common sense of humor more than anything else. Yeah, we spend an hour and a half talking and saying nothing and solving no problems and having a good old laugh. So you talk politics, none of that stuff. No politics and religion are off the off the mountain. Oh, there must be cricket off the table. Well, funny enough, despite the fact he lived in the UK, he's getting into AFL So, and he gets AFL highlights on TV. So we often discuss that, yeah, he's other sport is soccer. So yeah, a bit of soccer gets taught. But just what's happening? Yeah, what's happening your day today? And there'll be, there'll be funny stories and laughs and whatever, and it's been going on for years and years.
And how about having friendships with the opposite sex? Because that's not always an easy thing to do and maintain. Did you? Did you find that through your life that you
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, other than two wives and two affairs, I'll call them.
Yeah. I mean, you've told us all the costs in working environment there were, there were lady friends who were only friends, friendship, but yeah, didn't sort of matter if you got along well with someone. Doesn't matter whether they were a bloke or most of your friends at work, yeah, I think I did, yeah, mostly especially if you're really passionate about your work, it's Yeah, and what about you? Then I have a big friend, yeah, a man friend, really, really, for 40 years. Wow, yeah, from work. Did you meet him at work? No, from from that when I was when I was already married, and we became friends because we like to talk the same thing, the same sport, everything was very other than people realize that we were so friends. Yeah, you know, because he was married, I was married, and there was nothing between us, until one day he said to me, You know what the brakes of a car is for. I said to break. That's when he realized that he loved me. Oh, wow. And when I said he made, he made a sign on the on the we were in a group, so he can always talk to me all the time. Was talking to me I was his wife didn't care and my husband didn't care, because we were really friends, yeah? Until he said that phrase, you know, that made me click. And then I realized that I really have something more than friends, yeah. But then he was mad. I was mad. He so there was nothing.
And if you stayed friends, you stay Wow, and it's still alive. You're still alive. You've got great you know, wherever you grew up, I tell you, it's good weather for living healthy long Yeah.
And do you still speak all the time about.
Yeah, yes, they sent via email. Oh, did he Yeah, yeah, that I'm going to Portugal. And of course, we meet and we talk, yeah, but then he's nothing, but he just, it's like, so see me and talk to me. And his wife has got to tell someone. So, you know, his wife is nine years younger than him. I'm his age, yeah. Besides, he's a little bit younger than me, but that's it. Toy boy, your toy friend. And you might understand this, no, no, I think that. I think that happens a lot. Yeah, yeah. It's just, you know, sometimes friendships with the opposite sex are sometimes brought with we can be years without seeing each other, all right, but when we see it seems that the time didn't fall to them. Go, that's a real friendship, isn't it? When that happens, my friends, yeah, females, it seems that really at the time didn't go. We are the same person. When we meet, we can be without talking to each other, because one is in Brazil, so you know. But if I see her, he says the same. I know a whole lot of she knows me, you know. Do you think that I find that for me, the people that I grew up with, whether it was cousins or friends, they're the real friendships, because you've shared your youth with them, yes, and you've grown up together. And so when you see each other, you're right. It's like, oh my God, these jokes. We're still telling the same jokes we told 40 years ago.
She tells me about the husband that way, yeah, of course, yeah.
The good thing is, they've forgotten the jokes they. End by the time you see. So what do you think makes a good friendship?
I don't know. Just happened. I don't know. I think he's by caring. No, yeah, maybe if he needs something, if my friend needs something, I'm willing to give without waiting a reward or something. It's just natural. Yeah, you know, your sister and your family is a giving, a taking is not there is no no thumbs ups or Yeah, no, he's giving and not just taking. And sometimes it's not even being invited
to give, isn't it? So the real friends for me have been like when, yeah, someone in family passes, for example, and they don't wait to say, Oh, if you need me, just call me. Yeah.
They just arrived. And, you know, yeah, I think with this guy, John, in the UK, I mean, we have a, I suppose the word is, it's a commonality. I don't know we, we just think and act the same. It's always as if we were brothers. Yeah, obviously we're not, and our conversations, as I said, are completely meaningless, but they're very important to me. Yeah, yeah. And have you found it harder to make friends as you've got older?
Real deep friends, yes. I mean, they're good, strong acquaintances. I mean, even here, um, I mean they're not superficial.
No, no, I think they are. Yeah, there are ones you guys here who I genuinely get on with and and we can sit and, you know, talk as if we were old friends, but we've only known each other for six months, perhaps. But yeah, there are a few guys here I will be classed now as friends, yeah, yeah, yeah. It takes a lot of courage to actually step into that space, and you kind of make yourself a bit vulnerable when you try and set up a friendship, don't you can't force something true.
Don't force it. Yeah, you've got to be prepared to be rejected. I mean, if I'm the step arena, you know, yeah, I'll go up to someone and say, Hi, how are you? Whatever you know, and you get their background, what did you do as a career? And blah, blah, blah, and then he starts you get a rap. So you don't mind doing that? I don't mind doing that. No, I probably, I don't know whether I need to do it, you know, desperately, but I like to have someone to talk to. Yeah, and if, if it just happens to be a guy in the house down the corridor, I'll go and see him. And, yeah, there's that real balance between forcing, as you say, you can't, the actual connect, the energy that you get between each other, you can't force that. Can you with this guy? He's dead 15 years and went into the reality it was more than that than I was four years without seeing and, you know, I mean, it happens to be the same time. And we start also talking the family is close.
Do you see that as a lost opportunity, that relationship?
I could I couldn't. I'm Catholic, and I just couldn't do it. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, that, but the fact that you've maintained a wonderful friendship is amazing through all of that, because you've obviously made a really big decision. So that's really impressive on okay, this is especially to me, it's very important, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you have one or two really important friendships in your life, don't you? Oh, yeah. And I say to my kids, the best friendship you can get is when you are at school, yeah, the one that lost, really, when he lost his class forever, all your life, right?
Yeah, my, mine came from my best friends, the ones that I'm talking about that the Winnie, the Winnie girls, yeah, we, and we've, we've just been on holidays to Bali in May together. That came when our children were at school, at kindergarten, and we used to take the kids to school and pick each other's kids up, because you're at work and you can't get off work and all that. So the shared kind of stress of having kids together forged it. So it's 35 years later. 40 years later, we're still continuing. I mean, friendship is largely about sharing. Yeah? Funny enough, it's, you know, you do. I mean, I I say things to this guy, John, that I probably wouldn't say to anybody else, yeah, that's right, yeah. And I don't mean sort of intimacies or just, I mean, just silly things sometimes, yeah? But I can't see myself saying it to anybody else. There's something about a friendship where you trust that no matter what you say, Oh yeah, it's you unconditional thing, yeah, yeah. When I was going to think about that, you know, if we say something that is autopsy, the ordinary, you know, yeah, yeah, it don't get you don't feel judged. Yes, yeah, no judgment. Yeah.
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