Why making friends as an adult is harder
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Making connections with people you're around frequently is easy. The problem is that adult life doesn't throw you into those situations post-college outside of work.
Now it's on you. Find a group. Sports are the easiest. You will absolutely make strong, long lasting friendships if you play sports. It doesn't matter if you're athletic or talented.
You just gotta show up and see the same people every week over and over. If you're a reasonably well adjusted person (and even that sometimes doesn't matter) you will make friends.
Again, making connections and friends is easy. Being around the same people regularly is difficult. Solve that problem and the friendships will come with little effort.
I have found that people generally understand the value of friendship and are welcoming to newcomers. It's been a very refreshing surprise as I've gotten older.
Get out there!
This is obviously great advice, but most groups don't organically sprout around interests. Sports, especially, are something that I have a very difficult time imagining enjoying. And with the slow enshittification of meetup, where do you find these groups? Your local library?
Try it and find out if you really don’t like it. Maybe you’ll hear about something else you will like more.
There is a wide range of sports :) My mom always tried to force me into team sports like football, hockey and alike, which never really was my thing. But as an adult, I enjoy things like skiing, water-sports, table-tennis and a bunch of other sports, that I see less like "sports" but more like "enjoyable activities", but also really makes it easy to meet people with similar interests :)
I wasn’t in a phase where I desired meeting either of those groups, so while volunteering was a positive experience, the social aspect of it was not.
I actually felt a little guilty volunteering-- the selection process was a little competitive and I didn't want somebody who wanted to get a start in their career turned away.
Check the local newspaper as they often list events and activities.
That's just life, I guess.
It is shockingly common, in the modern world, to have only a job and watching-TV-while-doomscrolling-exhausted.
But it is worth thinking about. Beyond planned activities, beyond hobbies: what appeals to you at all?
Another way to look at it is outwards: what things do I know how to do that could be socially valuable and need an outlet? Like, do you know how to use a 3D printer, do you still vaguely remember how to play a musical instrument from childhood, do you find gardening easy?
If you are only looking for people with the same niche interest, it will probably be more difficult to find local groups. But if you're open to meeting new people that are interested in social connectivity, local sports teams are the way to go. I've meet friends through co-ed sports that work in fields I would rather not come into much direct contact with: police officers, tsa, tax auditor, etc. People I never would have met otherwise (turns out they are just like other humans; who knew!) Seriously though, they don't all become best friends, but mostly social acquaintances and that works for me. I did get a couple best friends out of it some time ago.
> Sports, especially, are something that I have a very difficult time imagining enjoying.
Kickball. There are no high school/college/main pro leagues, so you avoid that one competitive team that all played on a school sports team. And get a bunch of people looking to socialize while playing a rather silly game no one is expected to excel at. To shore up that reality, join co-ed sports teams. I have witnessed games in both Mens and Womens leagues and they are much more about the competition.
Meetup still works, although it is slowly enshittifying, I would agree. Taking away features that had always been there systematically so they can sell a subscription service to everyone. Ugh.
But for now you can still see lists of meetup events and descriptions and sign up to attend those events without paying.
If it weren't for Meetup I wouldn't have stumbled upon a local movies and dinner group last year that has quite a few people I really relate to and we now plan other activities outside of meetup as well. Trying out a few other new meetups next year as well that look maybe a bit promising.
> Again, making connections and friends is easy. Being around the same people regularly is difficult.
Agreed, 90% of the difficulty making new friends is showing at the same place/event regularly. Remaining 10% is actually being someone people want to be friends with.
Then I sailed, crewed raceboats. I got to know many people quite well. There's a lot of social coordination and communication in sailing. Just sitting on the rail on an upwind beat is a conversation, the same conversation every time but like chicken soup for the soul. Also a good crew is lot like a startup. Not easy to break into but worth it.
For this reason I think WFH is a massively more risky social experiment than most realize. It works for folks who were either already inclined to "go out and do things" or those who already had established social groups. We will see how this pans out in a generation or two.
Having to have everything scheduled weeks in advance is utterly exhausting and incredibly anxiety inducing to me. If I didn't already have friends I could do spontaneous things with, I'm not sure how I'd be able to have any sort of social life at all. I certainly am not alone in this, even if I'm a minority.
I don't see how WFH makes this worse, in fact it probably makes it better (less time spent commuting, more ability to end the day early with a flexible employer, etc)
Maybe it was pandemic, maybe it was all that free time, but suddenly we all noticed each other. I had never even spoken to some of these people before.
Suddenly we were all spending time in the same place instead of waving as we drove by on our way to work and taking kids to activities.
Now I have friends. I don’t go to work then come home and stay inside.
Plus working from home I have time to get involved in some of the kid’s activities and made more friends.
That overwhelming majority of people I know that have been doing WFH on and off for a decade work regular hours and spend the remainder (time otherwise commuting) socialising (outside the house), sports, gardening, building projects, etc.
IRL AFK at least - the 24/7 gamers and shutin's likely have a different world view, but they appear to be in a minoity albeit one perhaps growing.
You probably wont get to know a lot of people who don't go outside their house, so pretty biased sample there.
Which is pretty much the subtext of my comment.
For some WFH will be a big win. But for others a big loss.
How big the big losse are will depend on the individual and their willingness to take action(s) to mitigate the loss.
I believe the Japanese have a near analogous term for this: Hikikomori.
So what’s your point?
Hikikomori is a level or two beyond what most westerners would think of when imagining an extremely introverted or reclusive person. The condition is more akin to PTSD stemming from severe mental/social trauma.
For further context, the etymology of hikikomori is to "hiku" (literally "pull", contextually in this case to "pull back" from daily life) and "komoru" (to "shelter up", in this case most likely sheltering in your bedroom or mancave or similar safe space).
What makes the news and what makes it to the Western media are the most extreme cases.
The actual development to the extreme (or not) can be quite gradual.
Right on all points, I think.
But next year resolution is that I will be renting a desk in a coworking space.
While I don’t have problem as I have enough fiends and family to hang out with.
I believe that I leave business opportunities lying somewhere there on the table and if current contract ends I will be on much worse bargaining position than when I will having more business connections hopefully created by sharing co work space.
I really liked being in the office and have the ability to talk to people which share your interests (which is just my work currently)
That’s the part I’d work on fixing. Friendships generally start based on shared interests, and you definitely need something in your life other than work.
That's not to say that I've never had coworkers whose only interest was work. I just didn't become friends with them, because what is there to talk about? I greeted them and made basic small talk with them while we worked together, but that's not friendship.
And that's not to say that my friends' interests have nothing to do with the work they do. But their interests in those areas go above and beyond what they are paid to do.
The great thing about it is you get to choose the space so it can fit what you're looking for (quiet, programmer heavy, artsy, walking distance, with a cafeteria, next to the gym, etc), you also don't have the pressure of them being colleagues so your relationship can be about other things (sports, games, music, pottery, going out)
I think it's the opposite. The standard where people commute to the office, spend all day in the workplace, and commute home with barely enough time to tend to their needs is the failed social experiment, creating unprecedented levels of isolation and entire generations of people who can't form relations outside of work.
I also don't think it's all that healthy for people's primary avenue for building friendships being in a venue where layoffs and transfers could disrupt that process suddenly and without any real recourse.
One thing the marketing of industrialization (I want to say propaganda, but I know how people are...) was quite successful at was in erasing memory of the period just before, when piece-work at home (and farming, lots of farming) was the primary form productive labor took. There is quite a lot of documentation of industrial bosses complaining about such set-ups because they allowed workers to set their own hours and modulate their output to their needs (excuse me, "be lazy").
Which isn't to say you can't but...it's work. It is first and foremost the lifeline holding up your entire financial existence. It is non-optional.
You can choose to work from a co-working space, coffeeshops, libraries, or just stay at home. But instead of getting home exhausted at 6-7pm needing to cook, clean, chores, etc, you can get that stuff done during your lunch break and then pop around to a friend's house by 5:05pm.
It's so much better I can't imagine going back to an office where I'm sitting alone and sad in a cube all day trying to focus while people yammer on the phone right next to me.
Closer to work, would be great, if I could afford the shinny prices of the rentals on the district the office is located on.
Which would be the complete opposite from districts where other family members work on.
Then when you have kids you need to think about where they go to school and you might want to live close enough to grandparents that they can help out. These constraints make living close to work impossible for a huge chunk of people.
Humans and associated social institutions evolved out of a WFH culture for hundreds of years, and perhaps those time-proven institutions would work better in 2024 if we returned to a WFH culture. Commuting culture may have been the “massive risky social experiment” of the last Century.
I wonder if this would vary by country and culture?
I wonder if there is a statistically noticeable difference in experience between places like the US and Northern Europe that seem to be more more work-focused compared to Southern European countries like Spain and Italy which have a reputation for having a better work/life balance.
Where is this reputation coming from? Every single engineer from Greece and Italy and some from France I met complained about long working hours being the norm and a cultural issue there. If he left the office before 4PM the boss would ask him "are you only having a half day today?" with the expectation being workday is at least till 6pm.
I feel like this is some overly romanticized picture coming from Americans or rich northern europeans who think people in southern Europe are lazy and chilling all day instead of working their butts off, because that's what they saw in movies or on their holidays there.
It's actually the opposite. Workers in work focused but rich countries with strong economies have better WLB than workers in laid back countries but with struggling/stagnating economies.
Spain is not a struggling economy. Source: an article on the Economist this week about Spain growing at a similar pace as the US this year.
Also, GDP growth is a shit measurements of WLB and general welfare of the working population.
For example, if a lot of rich foreigners, tourists and retirees are buying properties and spending money on Airbnbs in your sunny country lifting up the GDP that has no impact on the welfare and WLB of white collar workers working in software or hardware engineering for example.
Which is how Spain still has one of the highest youth unemployment rares in the EU.
But yeah, Spain is a bit better, but Italy WLB is definitely nothing to write him about according to Italians who emigrated.
I really recommend the economist article I mentioned. Spain has much to improve but some of those prejudices are becoming unfounded.
The original claim was
> laid back countries but with struggling/stagnating economies.
And it has been proven Spain s economy is not stagnating. That is false.
This doesn't refute my point on poor WLB in Italy. China is the world's second economy and its WLB is pretty Terrible.
GDP!=WLB
>some of those prejudices are becoming unfounded
It's just what the people who emigrate out are saying. It's not prejudice.
> Workers in work focused but rich countries with strong economies have better WLB than workers in laid back countries but with struggling/stagnating economies.
There is no official definition of "laid back country", but I assume Germany would fit your "rich countries with strong economies". I am also assuming that Spain (the south of EU) fits your "laid back countries but with struggling/stagnating economies".
The problem with that mental model is that right now Germany's economy is struggling and Spain's economy is getting stronger.
My point is this dichotomy does not match reality. The prejudice is thinking that Spain and Italy are "laid back" and that their economy is struggling, while Germany is somehow "not laid back" and their economy is strong. At the moment, this model (at least in Europe) is more based on ideas of 2010 or so that in reality.
There is also the assumption that WLB is better in Germany, which is very debatable. If that is the case, what does it mean to be a "laid back country"? Does it mean good WLB, or does it mean lazy? To me, in addition to the countries not being in the assumed situation, the mental model contradicts itself there (bad WLB+laid back vs good WLB+ not laid back).
> It's just what the people who emigrate out are saying. It's not prejudice.
I am one of those people myself. I do not mean bad by it, and I am not implying you are a bad person or anything like that. It just does not match the current reality of these countries IMO. It fits more a stereotype of 2010-2020.
I understand what you mean, but didn't mean to come at it from that angle necessarily. Less work isn't the only way to have a different work/life balance.
I was thinking more about things to do outside of work that are more part of the culture, things like tapas and spending time at cafes and town squares, i.e. people typically socializing more outside of work.
For example, I assume someone who enjoys the third place feel of an iconic UK pub would have an easier time fending off work from home cabin fever than someone who lives in a suburb bereft of such places. I wondered if, statistically, people in some cultures had an easier time working from home due to reasons like this.
You still need jobs and money for those. They aren't free. And tapas can be had all over the world. You don't need to live in Spain to enjoy Spanish food.
People in Spain wouldn't be leaving the sun, beaches and tapas to go work in depressing Germany, UK, NL or Sweden for no reason.
It seems to me like there are no good options.
I feel similarly, but I don't understand how working at the office solves this problem. Are you saying that you mostly socialize by spontaneously going out after work with coworkers? Or that your you and your friends work in the same general vicinity, so you can text them near the end of the workday, and spontaneously go do something together?
I find trying to socialize and make friends in an office situation to be incredibly stressful. Everyone in an office is there to primarily make money, and the politics implied make it hard for me to let my guard down and meaningfully connect with anyone.
I greatly prefer socializing with people over hobbies -- everyone is at the gathering willingly to enjoy a hobby, which means I have something in common with everyone participating.
Far superior, but then... I like having a groove and knowing when my next social gathering will be. I like routines. It sounds like you don't, which I can sympathize with, and I'm glad you have friends to spontaneously hang out with and hope you get to expand your circle and enjoy your life.
This cannot be understated. When you consider the number of singles and young couples out there, it's pretty astounding how difficult it is to meet them in an organic manner. I totally agree with the person you were replying to, in the sense that people can get out there and just start meeting others, but it's still a tremendous investment of time and effort when the vast majority of other friendship-seeking individuals out there aren't investing anything close to that level of effort. I know because I've pretty much figured out how to just talk to people I meet in public, but it's still exhausting when your desire is to meet people who can be longer term friends or even romantic partners.
What makes things even more difficult is the limited number of venues where it's feasible or appropriate for people to meet each other. I recently considered joining a church in order to expand my social circle (and yes, as well as open myself up to spiritual experiences) but, frankly, church crowds today resemble senior groups. I love talking to elderly folks, but it can be difficult to relate to them on a close friendship level. I find this to also be true of other ways to form social circles, to a somewhat lesser extent. Many meetup groups are full of the 50+ crowd, and surprisingly devoid of the 20s through 40s crowd. I think the older generations are just better at getting out there regularly; young people tend to show up to a single event (and even paid classes!) and never return. I can't entirely blame them, but it's also a chicken-or-the-egg problem. Everyone complains about being lonely, but then they don't get out there and return to the same venues so they can see the same people repeatedly.
There's a lot of busy people, but I've met enough people who really aren't that busy that I think business is too often used as an excuse to not leave one's comfort zone. It's so easy to stay in the comfort of one's home that I think that's what many people resort to doing. Netflix, Reddit, Doordash, Amazon, Hinge, and Pornhub in combination are much too immediately satiating.
The are many options such as:
- Going to pubs and striking up conversations at the bar
- Meetup groups
- Volunteering
- Going to places like museums and striking up conversations
- Singles mixers
- Bar trivia nights
- Taking classes
And far too few people do them consistently, if at all.
They don't want to make friends, they want someone else to want to be their friend so they know they are liked in the real world. That is what is missing, not the actual experience of friendship. Even if someone asked them to be their friend, many would say no because it would take time away from what is really important to them. Netflix, Reddit, Doordash, Amazon, Hinge, and Pornhub.
How do I know this? Because it exactly describes myself.
Since then I’ve moved which has enabled a massive CoL reduction which is great, but at the same time I’m not sure this is where I want to be for even the next 5-10 years and so I’ve been resistant to putting down roots. Needing to drive to do anything also doesn’t help, as I find driving on anything but practically empty roads unpleasant.
There may be a pedestrian/cyclist-friendly city with great public transportation in my future, and so if I make a point to go out and do things consistently it’ll probably be there.
Question about this. My partner is similar -- if we aren't going to be somewhere "forever" they are hesitant to do any "work" to socialize etc. because "we are leaving soon". In what ways do you perceive "putting down roots" as somehow unappealing if you don't know how long you'll be there?
(I almost said "how long you'll be around" -- but none of us know that, so really the question is even more pointed!)
Other than that, if it’s likely that I’ll want/need to move some time in the near-ish future, it doesn’t make sense to build a situation that would make that future move more difficult (emotionally or otherwise) than it needs to be. Having a sizable social circle established prior to moving introduces room for messy hesitance and regret.
Another factor that is important is being open-minded, whether that means being a little more willing to explore things that aren’t your wheelhouse or being tolerant of behaviors or lines of thinking that aren’t natural to you. That doesn’t mean you need to pretend to be someone you loathe or surround yourself with insufferable people, but instead find a way to deal with averse concepts in a constructive way, to be just flexible enough to find an enjoyable common ground. Walk away if there isn’t any, or it isn’t worth the effort you have to put in.
I think too many people think friendship is what happens between people that are the same, and it happens magically and effortlessly. Friendship is work, always. Some people are just less work or pay higher dividends than others. You need patience and the ability to know when a friendship costs more than it’s worth. I think we just tend to have less patience, energy, and flexibility as we get older, but some of that is a choice.
This is so true. Just think, why is it that as children we often become friends with the kid who lives next door or across the street? Is it that we magically have the same tastes? Or is it just that we see them all the time?
That the processes we are part of have one purpose and one purpose only when it comes to social life, to force everyone to invest there whole social life into a company ? That half the apps written here, are to divide and conquer society and use the created misery and loneliness for additional upsales of the withheld happiness? That companies are actively antagonistic to anybody having friends and friendships?
As Pat Paulsen might have said, "Picky, picky, picky." Threads about social disconnection come up pretty often on the front page for all that. I don't think the people being ground into dust (and I agree with you that there are an increasing number of them) are on HN. People posting here seem to have the financial wherewithal to break the bonds of work at least occasionally and often more than that.
Yes, modern capitalist society is really great at making human needs scarce (friends, relationships) and human wants abundant (junk food, video games).
But I don't think there's really a point in stewing too much about the society we live in, it's easier to accept that this is our reality, and that we have to work extra hard for the things in life that matter. Giving up only creates a much worse situation for yourself.
People back in the day had to do extremely difficult manual labor all day long, think of it as though the "extremely difficult labor" has changed into social labor - from making friends to dating to maintaining relationships.
And you know you don't have to be a workaholic, right? I work 9-5, I have time for other things in life. I have a few friends at the office but I'm not thinking "work is life" ever.
"Meet Saturday morning 6:30am" is the group you want. Show up, run, be friendly. 6 months from now you'll have 10-50 friends.
Sure, but why is it a given that the game group is all the same age? The groups I'm in vary from somewhere below the drinking age (never asked), to people in their 60s and above.
Now, granted, I'm 40 - I'm more likely to build a long-term friendship with the older folks than the 20 year olds - but so far, everyone seems to be getting along fairly well, and I've had these people over at my house.
I have no comment on the dating aspect; I'm monogamously married, and have no particular opinion on the matter, though I will say that D&D leans so heavily male, I can count the number of women I've played with in the past six months on two hands without needing fingers. It's a problem in the hobby. :/
I've found a local group of friends by posting that I want to start a D&D campaign - I did this both online, and by literally putting up posters. Later, I joined a discord with the same intent.
I've run one campaign with some local friends, and am in two others with other people. We see each other at least once every two weeks.
I feel like there's a curve where in college people are super open to making friends until mid-late 20s where friend groups are well established/people are focused on their careers and then people are more open to making friends again in mid 30s where people lose touch with old friends and are looking to make new ones (either through kids or other shared activities).
There’s a second part to this though. You have to put in some effort to break people out of “club friend” into “real life friend.” Make plans and invite them.
I ask because your friend group will radically be shaped by who you’d kids friends are.
I have a 4-year old, it’s 100% whoever my kids friends = my friends.
I second that. I started dancing social Argentinian tango at about 35, first just visiting classes, then practicas, then milongas. I now have more friends from there than from my school and university years.
Also know that things outside of sports work great too, like amateur chess/photography club, local library reading groups, local hackers' club, voluntary organisations, etc.
I am saying this from experience. And will recommend.
I think the larger problem is that many approach friendship with the wrong expectations. As Zig Ziglar said.
"If you going out trying to find a friend, friends are scarce. If you go out trying to be a friend, friends are everywhere."
My brain solidified late, in my late 30s, but it did eventually solidify and when it did something like a switch or circuit breaker flipped and I came to this conclusion
I'm going to pretend that I came to it independently.
I have more, closer, friends in my 40s than I did at any time in my life previously.
I don't even know how it happened, I think that I just stopped caring about any potential for embarrassment and I learned that a good conversation is equal parts statements and questions.
One of the reasons, I think, is, being able to choose your friends. In schools, I was forced to see the same group of people every day, for years.
A few things I’ve done that work:
1. Start a “Dad’s night” with people in my neighborhood. We picked Wednesday night from 9 - 10pm. Started out just as BYOB in my back yard. Eventually we periodically went to a local pub that was near the neighborhood.
When you have kids of a certain age, it’s inconsiderate to bail on your wife while the kids are still awake. The hard time limit keeps it easy for anybody during the work week. Doing it mid week keeps weekend plans from getting in the way.
Lots of dads were thrilled to have this. The trick is consistent scheduling even if you have some weeks with no shows. That’s why starting it in my back yard was easiest until we regularly had about 8 people showing up. Doesn’t put you out if nobody can make it. Don’t get your feelings hurt because things like this start slow.
Covid killed it, but most of those guys became a Friday lunch group instead.
2. If you can, a cheap poker night. Like $10 buy in so the point is more to hang out than to loot your neighbors coffers and it keeps it accessible for people who have never played. This probably works for most games, but poker is such a broadly played game that it’s not that intimidating. Works in all weather conditions and works well with a sporting event on TV in the background.
Again, the key is consistent scheduling.
For either of these options, make sure people know they can bring a friend if they think they’ll get along with the group.
3. Take up golf. I haven’t done this but I know enough people who have. It works. Join a country club and play regularly. They’ll pair you up with people and groups. It’s not for everybody, but works well for lots of people.
4. Join a church with adult Sunday school. Free and easy way to meet people in your community. Usually comes with family friendly activities around community service too.
5. Get involved with local tech communities and meetup groups.
For all of my problems with religion, churches are a good way for religious people to make friends and establish a social circle. It's one of the few Third Places left in our society.
What would make you think they prey on vulnerable people?
The world is more like the playground than you might think. Just ask if someone wants to be friends. They probably do.
This comment will help me. I used to talk to people in line, despite being a bit shy and sometimes socially anxious.
My shyness and anxiety can take a hike. I feel upset enough to block them out.
And that's fine! But the friends I have made and kept have been worth it.
Beyond just having unstructured time together, I think I made some of my best friends when I was in a group that had a common goal, and we had to work together to achieve that goal. While the common goal actually isn't the most important factor in making friends, I think it provides the framework that makes the "unstructured" time so much more natural, easy, and regular. E.g. joining a sports team provides the framework of regular practice, but then you can make great friends getting something to eat after. Or in a community theater group, the rehearsals provides the structure, but it's all the downtime where you really get to build friendships.
I mention this because I so often here the advice of "join a group of other people with shared interests", and while that's true, I've found that is it's too "laissez faire", then the normal pressures of adult life can often get in the way, and it's harder to connect. E.g. a book club is nice, but when you get really busy it's easy to just bail and not feel as connected to the folks in the club.
As a kid, having playmates was easyish but having friends was tricky. As an ND intellectual multilingual round peg in a town of unilingual anti-everything square holes, I had acquaintances but no good friends until high school, one or two then, none in uni, though there were sufficient like-minded people that it mattered less, and, from then until 10 years ago, at most one or two.
In late 2014 I bought a Jeep and joined a hardcore offroad group (rocks, not mud). They are the most diverse group I've ever hung with, and I have half a dozen people I would consider close friends and rather more who would drop everything and drive 50km in a snow storm if I needed help.
I lucked out. But to say it was ever easy is misaligned with my experience.
I had work friends in my 20s, but it was always difficult for me to make new friends after college. Joining a common-interest meetup group made it so much easier. I find the key is to meet weekly and in-person. If you don't do this, you just won't be able to put the time in to actually have a real friend.
It would be nice if it was as easy for adults as it is for kids. My daughter will go up to another kid and say "Do you want to be my friend?" and they will play all day together.
It is easy. Only need to make it your full-time job, like it is for kids.
But advancing technology takes that away. People need each other less and less with each passing day because we are too self-sufficient with technology. AI is the final step that will make friendships very hard to form indeed.
You just need a shared interest or objective in as close to 'real life' as you can get it, and you need to dedicate time to it that you would otherwise give to TV and doom-scrolling.
Gamers make real friends. Open source enthusiasts can make real friends. Music fans can make real friends (though your local scene is considerably better for this).
It does take management and maintenance, and if you're a single person then covid lockdowns will have broken many ties; I am definitely a more insular person than I was before.
But stop wasting your time watching TV, make a plan to make your social media more focussed on local activities and less focussed on personal drama, and try to be part of something a bit bigger than yourself. Get a dog, maybe.
My own addition to this beyond the "we need third spaces", etc. that gets repeated is that I believe where you live has a huge influence that maybe scales in a way that is not tangible to a person who hasn't experienced it. My life in NYC is wildly different than what it was back on the west coast. I struggled to make friends in Portland, Seattle, and SF. I found that those cities were not just lacking friendliness but somewhat actively hostile towards building friendships. Seattle having the "Seattle Freeze", SF being full of introverted fobs who had a disdain for anything that wasn't their own culture, and Portland being against anything that wasn't anticomformist.
By no means is NYC perfect, it is far from it, but it has allowed me to meet a lot of people who are completely open to meeting new people and making new friends. Will these be friends I have for the rest of my life? Probably not but they sure do make the time pass more easily. I do find it has a "quality" issue when it comes to friendships but I think that is somewhat also due to the sheer volume of people I am thrown. What is alarming to me about NYC is how many people who are native to this region are willing to make new friends. It almost felt that with any place that I lived on the west coast, it was almost a given that you'd never make friends with locals because once they found their little insular group then they'd never branch out of it and never make new friends. It created an overall unwelcoming environment because everyone didn't want to ever try anything new.
Anyway, just my two cents. Different cities even within the same country can yield wildly different results. I will miss the accessibility of friendship when I do inevitably move back to the bay area to start a family - but I am hoping I will be so focused on my immediate family that I will not be too bothered by the loneliness of not having as many easily accessible friendships.
But the diversity of people you find is awesome. I loved getting out of the tech bubble by meeting people who were learning the local language. Owners of kebab stores, nurses, waiters, and more.
My point is that, love it or hate it, church can be a great way to meet good people. I'm still anti-religion, anti-church, although a bit less. But I can't deny the social support church can provide.
I found that the structure of the Christian congregation is equivalent to the anarchist affinity group. I realized that, unlike us, Christians build infrastructure to support their organizing, and we should probably adopt that.
I'm still the same atheist, just a churchgoing one. I don't go to mass often or ever recite the Nicene Creed, but otherwise it's been a fantastic social outlet, great intellectual company, and the organ festival is off the hook.
Us atheists don’t really have something like that.
Plenty of atheists are capable of finding both meaning in life and social groups to join.
Point being, in a religious environment you don't have to have skill - the meaning in life and social groups are automatic and baked in. That's not the case for atheists so it's easier to get "left behind" if you happen to be "unskilled", as you put it.
What you describe is probably a minority amongst folks who claim to believe in a religion.
The church took a hard right turn, and I gave up any semblance of belief when I went to college. But as an adult with kids of my own, I do wish that I had a “third place” to take my family for community and kinship. I don’t really want to raise the kids in a religion, but I’ve occasionally considered trying to find a “light” church or something so they get the same sense of community that I had.
Most religions really do center themselves on very useful concepts like mindfulness, gratitude, and helping others. But like anything, religions can be coopted by those with personality disorders to exercise their need for control, tribalistic exclusion, etc.
The older you get, the less you trust people because you know what you and those you grew up with have become.
You got deep insights into decades of politics, dark patterns in engineering, and fraud and lies everywhere. All that is done by people, who are either like you or not. In any case, it's hard to trust any of them, especially if you have kids and you understand how all these people turned into what they are now. That's up to 13% of the population, I estimate, who, if you are more honest than corrupting (in the worse sense), can simply be dropped after one or two conversations and evenings. Move on as quickly as possible, don't let them occupy any space whatsoever in your mind.
Radical honesty, trusting your gut and acting on it when it comes to people and most other things goes a long way and saves you decades of time, brain power, nerves and rewards you with so much peace of mind. If it's not an honest match, fuck it. There's a million other people.
But that must not necessarily matter when it's about just having fun. Just a getting a few good licks out of an evening and being human works with anyone. It's in everyone's interest to let shitty people pay for their sexual gratification, though. Their 'bad boy' or 'bad girl'-vibes are just a facade, a charade, a bad act and any intimate time with them is worth much less than the average sex toy.
Another factor, for me, is being married. My wife has a lot of friends. They go on walks together, have regular Ladies Lunches were they try different restaurants in the area. I've become friends with some of the other husbands when we do things together as couples. Everything from movies, to holiday parties, to escape rooms, to board game nights (party games), to murder mystery dinners, etc.
The problem with latching to your wife's social network is that they might end remaining your wife's friends as opposed to your friends. Especially if you only see each other in the context of "my wife's friend". It is a very common pattern. And then if you ever break up with your wife, she is gone and so are her friends.
Learning to make friends on your own is a valuable skill.
Doing group activities is the key, but finding a group that can include me and my son is very rare. Also, our neighbors are incredibly impolite. We're hoping to move homes soon, and I am hoping the change in perspective will have a good impact. So I would add neighborhood community also has an impact on socializing.
I learned pretty late that you can get along very well with people who have vastly different taste and as long as your ideals are not directly contradicting, it still works.
So I guess my suggestion is: don't artificially limit your pool of potential friends by looking for the perfect match. No need to find your soul-copy. Someone with whom concersation flows is just fine.
Depending on how extreme the ideals are you mention, I get along swimmingly with people who are diametrically inverted to my personal beliefs. Idgaf what they think, and idgaf what they think about what I think.
Common ground doesn’t need to be qualified by “well we agree that chess is awesome, but you’re a (political party) affiliate, so fuck you!”
As an adult, you have to do that bit yourself. (Thanks mom!)
Recently I've noticed lots of people I thin judge to be good have house plants. So there's definitely something about being able to care for dogs or plants or people. I'd love to hear other thoughts about house plant owners!
If I didn't already have a dog, I might build a robotic platform so that I could wander to the park with a dwarf fruit tree in tow.
Join a group - any group. Attend meetings. Contribute. Make friends.
It's still that easy. But, you have to give up social media doomscrolling and movie binging. So there's that.
A better title might be - why it's hard now to get off your butt and do anything other than work and slacking. Because it is hard. But if you do it - all the same friendship avenues are still there.
But a wider social scene I have been part of has people with evident learning difficulties, people with obvious neurodivergence, people with physical disabilities.
If you show up and show interest in sharing a common goal with a large enough circle of people, then those people will find you a way to participate at your own speed.
If you have a way to show up for social activities, or assistance to show up, you could show up, you have a desire to show up, and you don't show up... some of that really is laziness at worst and avoidance at best.
This is basically the "1. Do thing, 2. ???, 3. Profit!" South Park meme. If you're normal and like to drink a beer while talking about travel, TV, base politics or sportsball, sure it works.
But let's be honest, you normal people can smell when someone isn't part of their tribe, even with a good mask on.
I’ve done it in the past, with mixed results. My father would roam through different groups, rotary, lions club, church, fathers of my friends… that resulted in a say 1% friendships, which would last from 1 to 3 years. And boy there are dangers there too! Nobody is talking about them! Was I the only one who got a manic hanging every day at my door? I had many experiences where people I didn’t want to be around would stick to me in a stalker way…
The solution I identify in my comments does not fly in the face of reality, because it is how I went from being crushingly lonely and weird in my early 30s to having the kind of friends who (just today) said "are you really doing Christmas by yourself? Fly out to <another country> and come to us, you'd be very welcome", and they absolutely mean it.
I'm still someone who lives solo and the covid lockdowns were a difficult, lonely time. But I have friends because I found myself introduced to an event on the fringes of a much bigger social scene, and I decided to turn up more and take an active part in it.
You find a thing that is bigger than yourself, whatever it is, you show interest, and you keep turning up. It's not solutionism: it's how friendship starts, for most people. You offer or accept help. You share a task that needs doing. You share an activity that is fun. You expand your personal circle to a dog, and they expand your circle to the owners of other dogs. Whatever.
Of course humans are all different, but essentially all the adults at a grown up social group, community project, activism event, regular club, dog park, have something in common: they are adults who want friendship. That may well be the only thing they have in common apart from their interest in some shared endeavour.
I am a long way from normal and it worked for me. People genuinely thought I was confident and outgoing simply for turning up and chatting, and eventually it began to be a lot more true. Even if I had to leave earlier than most to find some quiet.
Any shared activity that has enough participants has a role for people like us -- helping set up/tear down, organising, making coffees and snacks (the kitchen is an easy place to be), taking photographs, shuttling messages between organisers. Any shared activity has little bubbles of social grouping, fun and friendship around these functional parts. At a music thing: sound engineers, merch tents, collecting donations on the door -- lots of little bubbles of odd people finding their own speed.
As long as you take time to relax and enjoy it as well -- I find this part difficult -- then there is a life for you. For me, I was a photographer, I helped with the web and email side, I helped with AV, whatever. I became indispensable. And then I found my people around the edges of it. I struggle again now, post-lockdown-fragmentation and a bout of depression, so I stepped back from active involvement in the same way, but I know my people are out there and they still value me just for turning up.
Try not to assume there are "normal people" who want to lock you out. It's cynical, a little rude frankly. It is also a form of fundamental attribution error. Any large social functioning/gathering of adults is a gathering of people who have the same need for adult friendship and connection as you; many of them are lonely at other times. Why else would it even be happening?
Side note: as true as the "sportsball" clichés might be, stop thinking that. Never, ever, ever say it out loud.
If it's not for you (it isn't for me), so what? Never murder an enthusiasm. It's rude.
Do I take three hours today to talk to some strangers or do I spend that time fixing my staircase or remediating the mold issue in my upstairs bathroom or do I finally build that STEM kit my 10 year old has been asking me to do with him for the past few weeks?
In school, or college, it was easier to be in proximity to other people which is just not possible as an adult.
I think it is more that you made friends with people that already lived near you (ie the kids going to your school). As adults, the only people that match a similar profile are your work colleagues but adults tend be more closed off to making friends. In some cultures, it is still easy but north european cultures seem to make it so that when you reach some age you close off to new people.
This sound correct for some people, but I'm not sure if it's the majority.
Right now I live in a town with ~20,000 people, feels like I cannot go outside without people around me and there are constant regular events being done.
I grew up on a island with ~700 people, and even there you were not really alone unless you were out in the forest. Even that place regularly had events organized by people.
Besides, I'm guessing most people in the world live in or close to metropolitan areas, and there certainly there isn't any problem of "live so far from one another", but maybe the opposite problem.
Maybe I'm exceptionally flexible, but I don't see those as being a requirement for finding friends. Growing up on the island with an interest for programming there was like two other people on the island who even knew what programming was, and were into computers.
So most of my friends of that time I didn't really have anything in common with except we lived on this island with our parents, and we liked the same types of jokes. But generally our world-view was very different even back then, didn't seem to have stopped us.
I don't find making friends that hard, surprisingly, given I'm an introvert.
You need to find a thing that is bigger than yourself to be a part of. And then show up and be willing to pitch in.
Other adults who know that adult friendship is important will be there.
The rest sorts itself out pretty fast, because almost everyone enjoys the company of someone who is willing to put themselves out there, even a shy, awkward person.
There are of course people who can't "show up" so easily -- people with limited mobility, people who are physically severely isolated. But the internet does offer some spaces where those people can have a lot of what face-to-face friendship offers. Again you just have to find a shared activity and show up.
“I have a hard time making friends” may be eventually interpreted as “I have a hard time putting me in situations to be able to make friends” just 2 sides of the same coin, isn’t it?
Only the most profound reason for doing so will create a multigenerational community. But there are smaller shorter lasting communities you can string together if you would like.
"One way to fight loneliness: Germans call it a Stammtisch"
The organization would connect men together and then those men with “chores” they could do within their neighborhood. Yeah, kind of like a free Task Rabbit.
But the idea is that the men go out on a mission together to help random people in their community, whether that’s helping someone move some furniture around, or hang some pictures, or maybe paint a bedroom, or pick up some food for someone that’s sick. The guys need an excuse to hang out together, but they’re helping people in the process. And maybe they can go grab a drink or lunch when they’re done. They get a sense of purpose and something to feel good about, as well as a companion for the day’s little journey.
I imagine people will read this and think this sounds idiotic, and that’s fine, but if you might want to explore this idea with me a little more, my email is in my profile.
I don't think it's idiotic. I think you're selling yourself short using that word. Try "silly".
This is why I already feel doomed in my 40s. It was hard enough when I was younger and it was supposedly easier.
Meaningful equations, huh? Sounds like the kind of plagiarism where someone replaces words with things found in a thesaurus.
Language Exchanges.
Many cities have a regular (Language)/English meetup. Spanish/English, Italian/English, etc. You might have to search a bit, but check Meet-up.com
Basically, you go to a bar/cafe, there are tables with flags like "Basic English", "Advanced Spanish". You sit down, introduce yourself, and chit chat! Since I am a native english speaker, I usually start by sitting with English Basic, so I can help people really in need :) then I go find Spanish basic, and will later move go a higher level table when my brain is warmed up.
What's great is that (1) everyone wants to learn another language, (2) travel is fun to talk about, (3) This format "fixes the glitch" about going to a bar/cafe solo, and finding it socially challenging to approach new people - having lots of conversations here is the point!
The demographic is diverse! Locals, travelers, young & old, a great mix of girls and guys.
I'll share my past 2 month journey - because it's actually shocking to me to go from 2'ish years of loneliness-vibes, to within a couple months - meeting some amazing people and getting into a social groove.
Language exchange visit #1: Met lots of interesting people. Later the event had a club/dance vibe, ended up dancing with some of the new people I met. That was cool! Since this was in another city and I was traveling, I wasn't able to follow up and hang with the new people I met.
Language exchange visit #2: Found on Meet-up. At a loud bar, hard to converse. A regular there told me about another weekly language meetup, in a nearby area. Basically, its a latin dance school which hosts 3 languages exchanges a week.
Language exchange visit #3: I found the language learning part great (well structured, rotate tables each 5-10 minutes), the dancing was frustrating. Couldn't understand the dance instructions, felt lost and clumsy in the group setting, I left discouraged a few times - and did't want to go back. Bummed.
Met a neighbor of mine, told her about the recent experience. She told me about another regular language exchange, in a farther part of town - and suggested I go.
Language exchange visit #4: Great meet up - calm coffee shop / wine bar vibe. I met several people, exchanged contacts. One guy mentioned he's hosting an upcoming holiday party and invited me. I went to it, and it was fun! Some other people from the language exchange were there, so I had a couple of people to talk with at the party. "See you at the language exchange?" - "I'll be there!"
Language exchange visit #5. Returned to the previous bar/cafe, greeted by familiar faces (several people remembered my name). I've been trying to get group sports going - and there are padel courts near me (a game similar to pickleball, squash, tennis). The guy partner from a nice couple I met expressed interest in playing padel - so I thought it would be a good way to expand the friendship vibes, and lean into social / fitness / fun activity, rather than "let's get a drink"
Me and the guy booked a padel court, and had a ton of fun playing. Near the end of the game, he mentioned - Man, we should do this weekly!
The following week, we scheduled another padel session. My new padel buddy asked if he could invite a few friends to join us play (with padel, you can do 1v1 or 2v2 people). Sure!
That padel game was so much fun! 4 dudes on a court, with no ideas the rules of the game, just having a blast keeping the ball going back and forth. Felt like teenagers again!
While taking break between games, I got an invite to a small-gathering holiday dinner party. I had been planning to have a solo night with the dogs, but wanted to actually spend time with good people too. The holiday party was last night, and tons of fun!
Work-wise, got an immediate benefit.
At the padel game, when doing the "what do you do for work" convo, I mentioned I'm a software developer / entrepreneur, and help people build their dream thing. One of the guys asked if we could meet up for coffee and talk through his business idea, which is happening this weekend...
Since I'm on entrepreneur mode - and that's been challenging - this was validation that the group sports / work pathway seems pretty good. Healthy active people with good ideas / important problems - hoping it will lead to some great clients/projects/opportunities.
I hope this inspires someone to give language exchange meet-ups a try, and also to lean into fun social group sports.