Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to make friends as an adult? If so, you’re not the only adult on Earth wondering this. As we age it’s harder to make friends. This is due to several factors that come with being an adult.
If you’re looking to make new friends in your older years, we got you covered. Below you will find our guide on how to make friends as an adult. At VP Legacies, our mission is to become the Netflix of Personal Communication. So this guide serves as an aggregate list of the qualities and attributes we see the most friendly adults have in common.
Making Friends As An Adult: Why Does It Seem So Daunting?
If you’re an adult you’ve most likely wondered to yourself, “Why is it so darn hard to make friends?” Well, we are here to tell you that most adults think the same thing. Making friends is harder as you age due to a few things. When you’re thrown into the real world with jobs, you will find yourself with a group of people, all different ages and in different stages of life. This means you will find it harder to make deep personal connections with other people. For a lot of adults, being friends is all about that connection you feel with other people — you feel you can trust them, tell them anything, bond on a deeper level. Those kind of connections can be made. It just takes a bit more effort.
Reasons Making Friends As An Adult is Difficult
There are other factors at play, such as falling out of touch with people and not having enough time to put into making new friends. Below you will find a few factors that make it hard to make new friends as you age.
Related: How to Maintain Real Connections With Your Professional Network
Lack Of Time
If you’re an adult, then you know how time-consuming being an adult is. From working (especially if you have two jobs) to running errands, there leaves little time in the day to tend to your personal needs, let alone make friends. As we age, our time becomes a precious commodity. This means that it becomes hard to find the free time to hang out with someone new or even those you have known for years.
Falling Into Old Habits
Sometimes falling into old habits can be a major issue when it comes to making friends as an adult. Maybe you’re falling into your old habit of drinking, and your friends don’t drink anymore. This will create a divide and even make it hard to hang out with them since your interests are now different.
New Technology
In today’s world, technology is forever changing and improving. A few years ago, social media platforms boomed. With their rise in popularity, they took away the personal aspect of making friends. People feel stronger personal connections when they’re face-to-face, bonding over a shared activity or deep, emotional conversation. We can feel a sense of disconnect when we are chatting via text instead. It lacks that depth we sometimes crave from a friendship.
You may find your time invested in technology, which will make it hard to find free time to meet people in person.
Other Priorities
If you have other priorities that take up a good portion of your time, then this can be a contributing factor as to why it’s hard to make friends. Maybe you’re a mom that’s spare time is dedicated to her kids. Maybe you work a job that doesn’t have set hours, and you must always be free to work on the fly. Whatever the reason is for your lack of free time or whatever your highest priorities are, this is a big reason as to why adults have a hard time making friends. Sometimes it just comes down to the fact that there isn’t enough time in the day to hang out with other people.
Not Staying In Touch
As we grow, our lives seem to become more hectic. People spend most of their time either working to make a living or taking care of those who are important to them. These tasks can be at the forefront of our lives, and since we are focusing on these important situations, other things can slip through the cracks. When it comes to older friends you may lose touch with them because of everything else going on in your life. It’s easy to fall out of touch with people, and this can be one of the significant factors when it comes to losing friends as an adult.
Related: Social Distancing: Today’s Pandemic and Loneliness Epidemic
How to Make Friends as an Adult
Reach Out To Old Friends
If you’re determined to make friends as an adult, you should start by mending the voids between your old friends. Those you have lost touch with can easily be contacted, and you can check in on them. You just need to rebuild that personal connection you once had by confiding in each other and being reminded of the things that made you both so compatible in the first place. Don’t stick to surface level conversations if you want that personal connection back; instead, talk about things that matter to you, things that you only would say to someone you trust.
Ask your old friends how life has been then proceeding to ask if they would like to meet up for coffee. If they agree, you can start rekindling your old friendships and have your old friends back in your life.
Find Groups With Shared Interests
If you’re looking to make new friends, it can be easier than it seems. A great way to meet new people outside of the office is to look for groups that share the same interests as you. You can search for a gardening group or a group that loves the same board games you do. These groups can be easily found on social media.
Connect With Colleagues Outside Of Work
If you work with someone and believe that you guys would be excellent friends, try hanging out with them outside of work. You can get drinks after the workday or even meet up over the weekends at a winery.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, social distancing can make it harder to create these personal connections with your coworkers. But there are a lot of ways you can still bond outside of that boring meeting about your latest project. Meet over Zoom for some coffee before work starts or start a thread in Slack dedicated to a game a lot of you play. It’ll be fun to have a conversation about something other than work — and maybe even set up times to all play the game together.
Start Your Own Group
If you’ve looked at groups on social media and haven’t found one that fits your interest perfectly or none of them feel right to you, you should try making your own group. Using a social media platform such as Facebook makes it easy to create groups for people to come together and to share their common interests. After recruiting a few people to your group, you should schedule a public or virtual meet up. This will allow you to meet new people and even start some friendships.
During the ongoing lockdown most cities are encouraging, you start to feel somewhat isolated. You want to share your thoughts about that new book you read. You want someone to talk to while you learn to paint. Having a virtual hang-out will bring some human interaction — and joy, laughter, and deep conversations — back into your life.
What Attitude Should You Have?
Now that we’ve talked about a few ways to make friends as an adult, we should talk about your attitude. We aren’t saying you have a bad attitude, we are saying that your attitude towards making friends can affect the outcome of creating new friendships. You need to be open to making personal connections, which means you need to be willing to share more about yourself than you would with, say, someone you meet up with just to play video games here and there. To make real personal connections that go beyond surface level hangouts, there are a few more things you have to keep in mind.
Be Lighthearted
You shouldn’t go into a new friendship by giving your new friend all your burdens and drama. This can be off putting and make your friend decide they don’t want to pursue a relationship. At the beginning of your friendship, you should be lighthearted. People love others who are amusing and entertaining.
Be Vulnerable
Being vulnerable is a key element to any relationship, romantic or not. When you’re vulnerable, you will be more inclined to open up to your friend and encourage them to open up to you. This will help you guys see what common interests and views you have. It will also build a level of trust in your friendship.
Make An Extra Effort
When starting a new friendship, it’s important to make an effort. Even making an extra effort is ideal, so your friend knows that you’re serious about your relationship with them. You should be the one to reach out first from time to time to make plans. You should also offer to help them out if need be and be there for them when they ask.
Remember To Be Yourself
Of course, no friendship will be fruitful if you aren’t yourself. You’re the important ingredient to this recipe of a long-lasting friendship, so you should let your true colors show right away. If you find that your new friend doesn’t mesh well with your personality, then don’t waste time building a relationship with someone that doesn’t appreciate you for you. If you need some help learning how to build a stronger relationship with yourself, VP Legacies has just the course for that.
Related: How to Deal With Anxiety at Work
Now You Know How To Make Friends As An Adult
We know that making friends as you age is difficult, and it seems to become more difficult with every year added to our age. This is why we created the above guide on how to make new friends as an adult to make creating new friendships as easy as can be for anyone at any age. We have covered the main reasons as to why it’s hard to make friends when you’re an adult. We have even touched based on the factors that play into this difficulty.
The best part of this guide is the tips we’ve given you on how to make new friends. From connecting through groups with shared interests to taking the leap and asking coworkers to hang out with you, these tips are bound to create some new and everlasting friendships. We look forward to seeing your friendships grow, even with your great attitude.
And remember, if you’re unsure how to build a deeper personal connection with your friends, co-workers and even strangers, VP Legacies’ Personal Connection 101 course will help with that. That’s what we are all about here; helping you build authentic and strong connections with people around you, including yourself.
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