How to Make Friends as an Adult
It seems like everyone lately has been lamenting about how difficult it is to make new friends as an adult. In my conversations with acquaintances and clients alike, the desire for more adult friendships is clearly there, but it is often overridden by feelings of inertia or burnout due to the difficulty finding and maintaining friendships in our increased busy and isolated lives. In the hopes of normalizing this experience, I will go over some common reasons people find it challenging to make new adult friends, as well as some suggestions for ways to meet new people as an adult.
Why is it So Challenging to Make Friends as an Adult?
Fewer Built-In Opportunities
When we were younger, there were various opportunities to socialize built into the social structure of our daily lives; school classes, extracurricular clubs, sports teams, religious groups, Greek life, and campus organizations, to name a few. Because education is mandatory until the mid teenage years, schools and universities provide natural social environments conducive to peer interaction and relationship formation. However, these disappear as we get older and unless we make the effort to sustain or replace them, we lose the social opportunities they provided.
Individualistic Priorities and Hustle Culture
These earlier built-in social structures give way to siloed, individualist-minded workplaces that prioritize productivity and profit over connection, and promote competition over collaboration. This “hustle culture” mentality reinforces the belief that we should be constantly striving for progress even at the expense of our health and relationships. Not only do we lose the structures that were providing these social opportunities earlier in life, but we are given the message that we should focus more on material successes and getting ahead of others, which is often in opposition to making friends.
Limited Time and Energy
In addition to devoting so much time and energy to our jobs, many adults are also juggling family responsibilities, health issues, and other commitments. This can lead to stress and burnout, often making it impossible to spend time with the friends one does have, let alone put in the effort to find new ones. Relationships require time and emotional investment, and it is often easier to succumb to our inertia or familiar faces and routines rather than pushing ourselves outside our comfort zones.
Different Interests and Life Stages
As people grow older and become more set in their identities and habits, they tend to become less willing to explore interests outside of their own or flexible when it comes to accommodating others. People’s priorities change as they get older, and one of the areas this is most evident is in friendships. Many adults already have established friend groups, partners, or families, creating less incentive to form new connections. If people are in different life stages, for example if one friend has children and the other doesn’t, this can make it harder to relate to one another, further widening the gap.
Fear of Rejection or Social Discomfort
When we are children, we are not as fearful or sensitive to social cues, which can be attributed to less life experience and our brains not yet being fully developed. Perception, self-awareness, and judgment all become more heightened during teen and young adult years, which also happens to coincide with the social pressures and norms associated with alcohol use, widely viewed as part of the social culture of high school or college/university life. One of the main reasons that alcohol is often used as a “social lubricant” in these settings is because it lowers inhibitions that might prevent people from socializing due to their fear of rejection or feeling awkward. However, this can work against people because they don’t learn how to tolerate healthy discomfort or develop important social skills on their own. Additionally, they might be less likely to take social risks later in life because they have not built this important “social muscle",” and without practice this muscle will atrophy–a consequence that has now been directly linked to the social isolation experienced during the COVID pandemic.
What Are Some Ways to Meet New People as an Adult?
Making new friends as an adult may be more challenging for the reasons above, but with a little persistence and patience it is completely attainable, and likely easier than you anticipate! The following are some suggestions for ways and places to meet new people:
Join groups or organizations that offer activities or topics that are of interest to you, such as book/podcast clubs, sports teams, art or cooking classes
Explore volunteer or activism opportunities related to issues you care about
Seek out professional associations, industry networking events, or career-related Slack/Discord communities
Leverage social media and online resources; various apps are designed for platonic friendships, such as Bumble BFF, Meetup, Nextdoor, and Facebook. Additionally, social media platforms often allow you to filter content by interest or location, which could lead to new connections or generate ideas for ways to meet others
Make one-off social situations or activities more regular by frequenting your local business regularly, sending a recurring calendar invite, or planning the next get together during/after the current one
Hang out in local gathering places such as restaurants and bars, coworking spaces, dog parks, or community centers
Challenge yourself to approach one new person every day or week and initiate friendly conversation with them, whether it’s your neighborhood barista or a regular in your yoga class
Say yes to invites more often - even though it can feel daunting meeting new people, it is important to regularly exercise your “social muscle” and it just might lead to you meeting your new BFF!
If you experience extreme anxiety in social situations or a fear of rejection that is debilitating (i.e. it leads to avoidance behaviors or is keeping you from living your desired life), you might need professional help from a therapist. Luckily, there are very effective treatments for this, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Exposure Therapy, which you can learn more about here.