I have many acquaintances but few friends. Should I be worried, and is it too late to make new friends?

I met a junior college classmate a few weeks ago. I'd not seen him for 32 years.

It was actually H who arranged it.

They had played chess in JC, spending long hours in dark corners bent over the game.

My classmate was the one who'd introduced us eons ago (we were in the library and he'd plonked one of H's textbooks on my table, forcing him to come over and get it from me.)

It'd be fun to meet him again, I said. Let's arrange something.

And so we had tea one Saturday with him and his wife and another JC mate and his wife.

Much of the afternoon was spent remi- niscing about the old days. Time passed pleasantly - it was nice to catch up with my classmate and to meet new people.

I hardly ever do that these days.

I can't remember the last time I'd wanted to meet anyone new socially.

When I'm invited to any gathering, my first thought is to wriggle out of it.

It's mainly because I'm shy in social situations (yes, even at my age), no matter how I steel myself for them.

I don't quite know how to relax. I can't seem to go with the flow. I become aware I'm behaving unnaturally and that makes me feel even more awkward. I can't wait to go home.

Shyness is a strange thing.

I will be perfectly at ease discussing work with colleagues in the office, for instance. But say, we break off for lunch and the situation takes a more "social" turn, and I'll immediately freeze. For some reason, I suddenly won't know what to say or what to do with my hands.

If I'm like this with people I'm familiar with, imagine the pressure of meeting strangers.

Because I'm shy about meeting new people in a social setting (I'm perfectly fine when it's work-related), my social circle is small. The number of friends I have is even smaller.

I have lots of acquaintances because I meet people regularly in my job. I also have loads of colleagues, many of whom I like a lot. They make working life enjoyable and I wish the best for them professionally and personally. But somehow, not many of these office-friendships spill outside the newsroom.

But friends as in people who know me through and through, whom I can unload my problems to, and who I know will stand by me in bad times?

Excluding H (do husbands count? What about my sister?), I have maybe, hopefully, two? Or is it just one?

It's a pathetic number, I know, and I often wonder what's wrong with me. Why don't I have a "best" friend? Have I been too selfish to foster close friendships? Lazy? Am I not a nice person? Do I fear intimacy?

My sister is the opposite. She has a knack for making friends no matter where she is, and many of her friendships operate on a deep level.

I had more friends when I was younger. In secondary school and JC, I was part of strong female posses. We shared secrets, met up on weekends, went to parties and nattered endlessly on the phone.

But we went our separate ways and I've lost touch with almost all of them.

When I started working, colleagues took the place of friends.

When I started having relationships, my focus was on them - in other words, I devoted all my time to my boyfriends and neglected earlier friendships, which then withered and died.

I've not been unhappy about having few friends, but I sometimes wonder if having more would make my life richer, more interesting and fulfilled.

When I married H, I thought my social life would change dramatically.

Surely my circle of friends would expand overnight. His friends would become mine and vice versa. I imagined how my weekends would now be packed with attending dinner parties and giving them.

Alas, I discovered, he doesn't have that many friends either.

Like me, he's not a social animal. In fact, he's even more of a loner than me, and it doesn't help that he'd been away from Singapore for many years.

My social life has widened since I got married, but not by much. And while I like his friends (mostly from school), it hasn't reached a stage where we are so comfortable that they have become mine too.

Married people like to say that they are each other's best friends, which is sweet, but surely they need friends beyond their spouses too?

A spouse isn't guaranteed to be around forever (death, divorce, whatever), so it's risky to rely on him or her as your sole mate. But what sort of friendships should you maintain as a married person?

There's individual friendships where your spouse isn't part of the equation. If this is with someone of the same sex, there's usually no problem. It gets complex when it's with someone of the opposite sex. Should a married woman be platonic friends with a man who isn't friends with her husband?

There's also couple friendships, where couples are firm friends with each other and "date".

Research has found that couples who have shared friends tend to be happier and have stronger relationships.

For one thing, couple friendships add spice to your marriage.

Most marriages will reach a point where you've heard your partner's stories a hundred times and know every little habit of his.

Spending time with another couple introduces new experiences (and stories) which can make life more fun.

You can also learn about yourself by observing how another couple interact. What they do and do not do can be pointers to what you ought to do, or not, in your marriage.

But developing couple friendships is even trickier than individual friendships - all four parties have got to like one another and click. If good friendships are rare, good couple friendships are a taller order.

Friendships - whether singly, as a couple or even friendship between spouses - don't necessarily last forever. Some run their course and collapse, others die from neglect or perceived slights.

But real friends are a source of support and fun, and maybe it's time I work harder at developing friendships.

That Saturday tea was, I suppose, a start.

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