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Making friends as an adult


MajesticUnicorn

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MajesticUnicorn

Anyone have any experience or advice with making friends as an adult?

 

My story - I’m 24, I moved across the country 1.5ish years ago to pursue a job I love in a location I love...but where I knew no one. A lot of great things have come as a result of the move, but the area I’m still struggling with is making friends.

 

I have great coworkers who I enjoy working with. We do happy hours and group outings sometimes. There’s one girl in particular I get along really well with, my desk mate. But for the most part, these relationships are confined to work hours.

 

I have my roommate, who I also get along well with. We’ll watch shows together several nights of the week, occasionally go out or have wine together. I do think there’s potential for us to get closer but right now it’s pretty surface level. She is leaving for the summer, but will be back in a few months.

 

I have my boyfriend who I love and enjoy spending time with. I see him at least once a week and on weekends, which I guess could be part of why my social life could be lacking. We don’t really go out as much as we used to. I’ve made friends through him and hang with his family, but I really want my own social life too.

 

I feel like what I’m missing is meaningful friendship. I had it where I moved from in a few friends that I could always count on for girl time. I do keep in touch with them but distance is challenging, and it’s just not the same not having close friends around.

 

I don’t know if I’ve been too passive in trying to make friends or just expecting it to fall in my lap? I go to the gym, church sometimes, events in the community on occasion and any social outing my roommate invites me to. Being a bit introverted probably doesn’t help.

 

Any tips? I love it here and the little life I’ve built on my own, but I feel like I can’t last here and won’t be truly happy if I don’t have some sort of community or friendships in my life.

 

 

Oh, it’s also worth noting I live in a very small, tourist town. Only about 2,000 locals or so, most of which are male. We get thousands of tourists visiting on vacation. A lot of the “locals” only stick around for a season - ie winter, or summer...which also makes it hard. I made a great friend last year who lived away.

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Reach out to some of the work people, or one of them at least, and invite her to something. Someone has to make the first move. Don't choose one who is busy with her family life. It takes time to make good friendships. It's good you have a roommate.

 

I moved when I was about your age and had no one there at all. No internet back then either. Letter writing. I worked at a fun place so I made work friends. One of them turned into more of a real friend. But then she moved. I became friends with a roommate. I had men friends and one or two was pretty close, too. Most of them I did meet through the retail place I worked or out at music stuff. So be sure you're going places you enjoy and have an interest in because you want to find people you share interests in.

 

You could maybe take a fun community college class like cooking or kayaking, something just fun, to mingle with people.

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Sometimes I might come across a great idea or line and I appreciate it for its wisdom, but I don’t always know how to put it into action.

 

I recently posted in this sub-forum a quote by Zig Ziglar.

 

 

He once said

 

 

If you go out looking for friends, you're going to find they are very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you'll find them everywhere.

 

 

The quote sounded like a wise idea, but it wasn’t until a couple days ago that I understood it’s true meaning from someone I had met.

 

 

I’m going to internalize it and try my luck.

 

 

Good luck.

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d0nnivain

Join groups. I have made my best adult friends in summer share houses; by participating in a women's business organization; through alumni groups; & at a book club.

 

You need to find something that meets regularly, preferably once per week but once per month will do. Then you get involved in that & viola you will have friends. What you do isn't as important as doing something, anything, that you are passionate about.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Recreational activities are a way to make friendships. I don't have problems with making friends. It's dating that drives me up the wall.

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Recreational activities are a way to make friendships. I don't have problems with making friends. It's dating that drives me up the wall.

 

I find both of these can drive me up the wall, but making progress slowly

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OatsAndHall
If you go out looking for friends, you're going to find they are very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you'll find them everywhere.

 

 

There's a lot of truth to this statement. I made friends with quite a few people by offering to help them out with various labor tasks; moving, tearing down an old shed, hanging dry wall, branding, etc..etc.. They needed a hand and I had the free time.

 

 

 

When I first moved up here, another teacher was hauling all of his stuff up to different classroom. I stopped what I was doing, helped him out and now we're good friends.

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mark clemson

Liking the posts above. Also FYI, there are apparently now friendship apps. I haven't tried them, but something to possibly consider...

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Also FYI, there are apparently now friendship apps. I haven't tried them, but something to possibly consider...

 

I can't imagine how awful that is going to be. But I suppose it would be OK for people who don't do human interaction well & need that device in their hands.

 

The world is a sad place indeed.

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Penguin_hugs

I'm in a similar situation- bit introverted, been living in a new place for about 2 years but not really made many friends because I'm rubbish at putting myself out there!

 

I joined Meetup- which is an app for joining groups and joined a social group in my town for women in their 20s and 30s who had moved to the area and I'm definitey working on friendships from that. I was amazed how fast the other girls seemed to be all pals together- whereas it takes me way longer to click with people. But I'm definitely working on closer friendships with a few people that I feel I match up well with.

 

Also- I joined my BF at his board game socials- tend to get on better with the guys there than the girls. And I don't have masses in common with the girlfriends etc but it's definitely giving me more confidence with chatting to people and being more outgoing.

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There's a lot of truth to this statement. I made friends with quite a few people by offering to help them out with various labor tasks; moving, tearing down an old shed, hanging dry wall, branding, etc..etc.. They needed a hand and I had the free time.

 

 

 

When I first moved up here, another teacher was hauling all of his stuff up to different classroom. I stopped what I was doing, helped him out and now we're good friends.

 

 

yes just echoing this is good advice,

 

the only time it can backfire is if the neighbours will not leave you alone expecting to do jobs for them!

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OatsAndHall
yes just echoing this is good advice,

 

the only time it can backfire is if the neighbours will not leave you alone expecting to do jobs for them!

 

 

Ha!

 

 

I keep my distance from neighbors unless we really click for this reason.

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