Friends my own age in 2014

The last real friend I made in America before leaving for China was Amber. That was in the winter of '08. I left for China in '10, so you get the idea. Since returning, and in the course of my various returns, I've got one other person who could be a friend. He's a full decade younger than I am, as opposed to Amber's mere six and a half years. It's tempting to think of myself as always skewing young, but, as I think on it, that's not the case. Really, looking back on it, until well into high school, most of my friends were older. I don't think a majority of my friends were younger until my senior years (where that tends to happen), and even all through college, my friends were pretty close in age to me. Close enough that, when a girl propositioned me during The Three Musketeers at age (very nearly) sixteen when I was nineteen, I found the idea unsettling. Three years later, I'd be dating a girl one year older than she was. Now, granted, Amber was (and is) something special, but I think that it really demonstrates that my current lack of friends anywhere near my own age is something new. I've whined about it to Courtney for some time, but I've not really sought when it happened.
My first group of significantly younger friends were Amber and her two friends. That was in '08. There were three girls (Amber and one were the same age, the other was a few years older, but I always forgot that about her) who spent a lot of time with me at the theater. Seeing as any distraction from Rachael was a good one, I enjoyed their company. Still, even then, my primary friends were still Tris (until he left), Niki (whom I saw nearly every night), Rachael (in a manner of speaking), and, for a while, Arielle. It really wasn't until the theater closed in '09 that my social group really shifted. This primarily happened because I didn't have one.
Once the theater closed, I didn't know how or where to make friends. My barely literate (and in the case of one manager illiterate) co workers at Olga's weren't promising additions to anybody's social circle. I'd given up on Rachael and cut her out of my life entirely. I'd given up on Arielle some time before. The only person in my life was Amber. Courtney was off in Jasonland, which frustrated me greatly. I tried to do things to meet people my age, but, I really had no idea where one did that sort of thing. I tried going to a few bars. I took ballroom dance classes. I'd hang out a few places. But, in the end, nothing worked. When I switched jobs, I was in a law office, and was the youngest and most useless member, so work friends there were even more impossible than ones at Olga's, albeit for different reasons.
In China, I made friends primarily based on English ability. June was only a year or two younger than I was. Evangeline was still relatively close to my age. However, they were balanced by Penny (her 50's, and not somebody I dated) and Mr. Wang (84 at time of death). I had a large number of work friends, but nobody I really hung out with very much. Very few friends. Many people who cared about me, but very few friends.
By the time I came back to America, at the age of 28, I hadn't really developed any friend making social skills in the last six years, putting me smack dab at 22. I also realize that, for all intents and purposes, I'm at the same place in life as a 22 year old. Replace China with college, and you've more or less got a decent comparison. I was away someplace where I was kind of a big shot, now I'm stuck back at home with nothing to show for it. Granted, the long term prospects are different (going to Japan is almost certainly a lock), but in terms of the actual realities of my day to day life, I'm really not in any different position than I was the day after I graduated. I think, then, that maybe it's pretty understandable that the people I've talked to the most lately are far FAR younger than I am. It's because, frankly, I don't have almost anything in common with people my own age.
Looking over Facebook posts and Prosebox entries, I'm reminded of just how far removed I am from the lives of people who are chronologically close to me. Courtney and Kat talk about marriage and bills. Everybody else is talking about their kids. Or their weddings. Or their other bills. Everybody's in this world that I am simply not in. I can feel bad for everybody when they suffer for these things, but I can't claim it's anything I can really understand. When people rant about their latest kids' newest firsts, I can say, "Hooray," but it's with all the feeling of a guy who's seen a dog learn to sit. It's not my world. It's not something that I understand. It's not something that I can even imagine. What do I have in common with a person who's ever had a real life?
However, at the same time, what business do I have with these young kids? I'm at a similar point in life, but, for them, they see the years that I just went through as a world of potential. Maybe it is. Maybe it will be for them. What they look forward to with anticipation, I look back on with regret. I can't understand them any more than I can understand the people my age. I don't know what it's like to grow up in a world where social media is more important than real life (I missed the boat on that by about three years, and MAN can you tell who caught it). So much has changed since I was a college kid. So much has altered socially. I can't understand their way of thinking, and they have no reason to understand mine. I'm finding myself in that awkward position that I hate to be in: I'm isolated. I'm cut off. I'm trapped. I know, in my mind, why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm recovering health and waiting for the Japanese school year to start. Not a waste of time, really. What does it look like? To anybody on the outside, I'm another 28 year old loser. Courtney told me to try a dating website. Let's be honest, if you're 28, and you live with your parents, what kind of girls are you going to attract?
I suppose that's another area. What kind of woman would I date even if I could? Now that the Amber situation is resolved (pretty much finally, however much she tries to deny that), it leads me to the question: What kind of woman would/could/should I date? I think that the answer is a resounding: No idea. I kind of want to try dating again. I think it'd be an interesting experiment on myself. I want to see new ways to relate to people. Maybe get sucked into somebody else's group of friends, rather than sucking people into my world. But, priorities. I don't have time for that kind of thing anyway. Too many other things I need to do. I just worry that time's running out.
This brings me back to what my friend said. He frankly told me, with all eighteen years of living under his belt, that I needed to get friends my age instead of trying to befriend his. He meant it as sound and kindly advice, though there was a bit of edge and firmness to it. He's right of course. It's something that I'm well aware of. Amber maintains that it's completely unnecessary to be at a similar point in life to have a real connection to a person. All of these ideas are swelling up and playing around in my mind. I need time to digest.