There’s a certain bravery that comes with the act of making friends. Three years ago I was on maternity leave, hanging out at home, when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find a woman standing on the footpath with a buggy. “I heard you have a baby,” she said. “I live on the road and I have a baby too. I thought we could get to know each other.” “Come in,” I said, wondering if, in my sleep-deprived, early motherhood state, I was about to get robbed. I invited her into the front room and asked if she’d like a cup of tea. She was nice. She did not, thankfully, seem like someone who was going to rob me. Three years on, our little ones are tremendous pals and we have had countless play dates in each other’s back gardens. This stranger has become a friend I can rely on. I’ve told this story a few times and it amazes people. There’s often a wistfulness to the reaction. A sense that we’ve lost the community we used to have in the past, where something like that might just happen. A feeling that maybe we could all try being a bit braver.Lately I’ve been trying to persuade myself to be more ambitious and vulnerable in my own life, whether that’s taking on a new hobby or making a new friend. Apparently I’m in a good place to do it. As we age it gets harder to make new friends, because people have their friendships locked down. But I’m in what’s known as a “strong friendship market”, according to sociologist and author Janice McCabe, who has studied friendship for two decades, because my identity is changing – having become a mother. A friendship made because it connects to an emerging identity – whether it’s becoming a parent, an ice skater or a college student – will, she theorises, do better than one that exists for no reason beyond the desire to have friends. “Mom friends” are a real phenomenon, even if the term sometimes sounds derogatory. And they’re important, particularly now when the “it takes a village to raise a child” line sometimes prompts exhausted parents to wonder: where is the village now? I grew up in a home where people just dropped in. They might be bringing something back to you – a cake tin, a book, they might be just swinging by, but you’d see the car lights flash in the driveway and know a visitor was calling. Sometimes they didn’t take off their coat (“Now I’m not staying ...”), but they’d still give it half an hour. Maybe have a quick cup of tea. Now, in my 40s with a proper, grown-up home of my own, those unexpected knock-ins are rare. Ringing the doorbell without so much as a warning text? Sound the alarm. Yet isolation is increasing and loneliness is on people’s minds. Some of the biggest films of the year have friendship as their theme. Project Hail Mary is supposed to be a space movie; it’s actually about a man having no friends and finding a friend, and then doing anything for that friend. Recently I spoke to a woman who had just bought a Ropet for her adult daughter, who has an illness that has made her retreat from life. I looked it up: it’s a fluffy AI-powered teddy you can hug and it makes soothing noises. It recognises voices and adapts to personalities. She bought it because her daughter doesn’t have friends. She loves her daughter and desperately wants her to feel loved. But of course – as neither of us said – it’s a friendship without the vulnerability attached. The only danger is the software not updating, or the battery going.[ We live in Dublin city and every night we read about tractors Opens in new window ]I want the same for my little boy. He’s three and friendship is already on his mind too. I can see him light up when his pal gives him a huge hug, but sometimes he’ll say he doesn’t want it. It makes him feel awkward. What if he leans into the hug and he’s rejected? What if that person he thinks is his friend is not his friend? “You’re not going to my party,” he declares if he’s cross. What party? That’s not the point. It’s about getting the rejection in first. So he feels in control. Safe.We’re told in movies, in books, that dating is hard, that finding a job is difficult, but friendship? No problem. Socialising is effortless. But in reality it’s more complicated than that, particularly as you age. I’m grateful to still have my schoolfriends, who are organising a gigantic class reunion for later in the year, but I also know that making them in the first place took effort. And sustaining those friendships takes effort, too.Sometimes it’s good to just knock on the door, and try.