6 Tips for Making Friends as an Adult
Do you feel confident making friends as an adult?
Friends are an essential part of our lives, but actually making friends as you get older seems to get harder and harder. But why is that, and what can be done to make it easier to forge friendships in adulthood?
Why friendships are important in adulthood
As humans, we need community. We’re wired for connection, and when we don’t have strong connections to people, our mental and physical health can suffer.
While the majority of focus on relationships in adulthood is on romantic or family relationships, friendship is an important aspect of our social lives. Friendships offer us space, freedom, and a shared history that other relationships might not.
With friends, there’s less pressure to be perfect or someone you’re not. Friends can help support and love you during good and bad moments. In a cultural moment where people are lonelier than ever, developing friendships can help people feel less alone and like they belong somewhere.
Social connections like friendships can even help lower stress levels, increase self-awareness, boost your self-esteem, give you opportunities to practice social skills, and even support overall resilience, which can be a protective factor when life gets hard. Friendships that matter to you also give you somewhere to turn in moments of hardship or distress, so you can feel less alone.
So, why is it so hard to make friends as an adult? There are lots of reasons.
First, people are often just really busy or in different stages of life to their friends, which makes keeping in touch tricky. When one friend is always busy with work stuff and another is always busy with their kids, it can be hard to make schedules line up to see each other, even when you want to.
It can also be kind of awkward to put yourself out there as an adult. When we make friends as kids, we often don't have the same kind of self-consciousness we do when we grow up. It’s so much easier to bond when you’re little, and it can trip you up.
We often aren’t taught how to develop new relationships besides romantic ones in adulthood. Friendship tends to take a backseat to our nuclear families and other obligations, which can make it hard to maintain close connections.
Friendships are an important part of life. If you’re looking to make friends as an adult, here are tips to get started:
Understand who you are
The first step to making friends is to understand yourself on a deeper level. If you don’t know who you are, what you care about, what you like to spend time doing, etc., it’s going to be harder to make connections with other people. Without knowing yourself, you might try to build friendships with people who don’t share your values, which could lead to conflict down the line.
In addition, knowing yourself makes it easier for you to show and tell people what you’re all about, so they can decide if you have a good vibe and they want to become friends. The better you understand who you are, the easier it will be to connect with others.
Tell people you want to make friends
Whether in person or online, it’s going to be hard to make friends if people don’t know you want to make friends. So be very obvious about it! Tell people in your life that you’re looking for new friends and ask if they know anyone you’d connect with. Ask people you meet if they’d like to get together for coffee or a chat. Being clear about what you want can make it easier for people to decide if they want to be friends or not.
Reach out to acquaintances and old friends you’ve lost touch with
Friends don’t always have to be new friends - it might also be helpful to rekindle old connections that have fallen by the wayside through the years. We all have people we’ve lost touch with or people we know but aren’t close to. Are there any folks in those categories that you’d like to reconnect with or get to know better?
We all have periods of time where we don’t keep up with people we know consistently, so don’t talk yourself out of it due to shame or embarrassment. Maybe they’re looking for connections too, and making the first step can help spark a new stage in your friendship.
Put yourself out there
This aspect of making friends is often intimidating to people, but it’s essential to put yourself out there so you can meet people. Put yourself in places, online or IRL, where you’ll meet people with similar interests.
To get started, consider joining groups; attending meetups; signing up for a class; taking your dog to a park; becoming a regular somewhere, like a restaurant, coffee shop, bakery, or bar; or joining an intramural sports league. It might take some time to find your people, but exploring different ways to put yourself out there can help you find out more about yourself and what you’re looking for in your relationships.
Get involved in something
Another great way to put yourself out there and meet people is to get involved in a cause that’s important to you. There are always great organizations looking for people to help! Volunteering for a cause you care about is a great way to meet people who share your values and who you have things in common with.
Consider what causes are important to you. Maybe it’s food access. Maybe it’s housing security and outreach. Maybe it’s reproductive rights. Whatever causes matter to you, google it plus your city, and get a list of organizations to reach out to to get started.
Give it time
Finally, remember that building friendships that matter to you is going to take time. Deep friendship is not going to happen overnight, because it takes time to build up to the level of intimacy that close friends feel. However with some time, intention, and vulnerability, you’ll be able to develop relationships that make you feel seen and cared for.
Are you looking for support with building new relationships in adulthood? Working with a therapist can help. Our therapists at Anchor Counseling New York are accepting new clients - schedule an appointment today to get started.
