Why It's So Hard to Make Friends as an Adult (and 8 Simple Solutions)

Ancient philosophers and modern scientists agree: A key to happiness—perhaps the most important key to happiness—is strong bonds with other people. 

When I talk to people about their happiness, one of the most common comments is that they wish they had more friends. But making friends takes time, energy, and sometimes money (to pay for something like a class or bike tour where you might meet people), and these may be in short supply.

Why is it so hard to make friends as an adult?

• When we’re younger, most of us have built-in systems that make it easy to find friends—school, sports, and activities, sharing living spaces, new jobs, and new neighborhoods are all sources of potential friends when we’re in that phase of life.
• Making new friends also requires a regular investment of time and effort over a long period. When we already have demands on those resources—work, housework, family—it’s easy to let new and existing friendships fall down the list of priorities.
• It can feel hard to make a connection with people who already have an established social circle. You might wonder, “Why would this person spend time getting to know me when they already have a group of friends?”
• When we move to a new place, we often have to create a new social circle. This takes time, energy, and initiative. Sometimes a new job can help us make friends; sometimes not. Sometimes we have a friend in a new place who can act as an ambassador to help us forge new bonds; sometimes not. 

8 Strategies for Cultivating Friendships:

1. Find common ground: Shared experiences or circumstances can present potential friends—and offer an easy conversation starter. If you’re seeking new connections, work colleagues, parents of a child’s classmates, fellow pet owners, and neighbors all already have something in common with you. In particular…
2. Make friends with friends of your friends: Research shows that one of the best ways to make friends is to make friends with the friends of your friends. So once you have a friend or two, use those relationships to find more friends.
3. Join a group around an interest: Identify a hobby, subject, or skill that interests you, and take a class, join a group, or start a group of your own. Book clubs, volunteer groups, group tours, fitness classes, lectures, crafting groups, and workshops are great places to meet people with similar interests. It’s often easier to make friends through working than through talking.
4. Keep the scheduling hassles as light as possible: If you’re planning a group gathering, just pick a day that works for most people rather than delaying indefinitely while you try to find a date that works for everyone.
5. If you’re tight on time, remember frequency makes a bigger impact than duration: You don’t have to spend an entire afternoon with someone to cultivate a friendship. Start with a quick coffee date or send a meme to start a conversation. A group can meet once every six weeks or even once every two months, if once a month is a stretch.
6. Revive a dormant friendship: Do you have any dormant friendships you’d like to rekindle? Someone you’ve lost touch with? It can be intimidating to reach out to an old friend after a long period of time, but they may be feeling the same way. Identify someone you’d like to reconnect with, and make a plan to send them a text or email this week, even just to say you’ve been thinking of them.
7. Get on the bandwagon: Watch a popular show or movie, read the latest bestseller, or listen to an interesting podcast so you can join in the general conversation. Not sure what to watch, read, or listen to? Ask for a recommendation as a way to create a connection. 
8. Talk more: While many people believe they’ll be more likable if they talk less, research suggests that people who spoke more than half the time in conversation were found to be more interesting and likable.

People are more likely to feel happy at their job when they have a work friend.

Research suggests that collaboration, work-life balance, efficiency, and stress levels all improve when co-workers are friendly. 

Many lifetime friendships come from working together.

These days, however, many of us are in workplaces that are still figuring out the new possibilities and challenges of a more flexible workplace. Whatever our specific situation, we all need to work harder to forge friendships when we’re not spending time together as regularly as was once common.

To cultivate friendships at work, you might start a “water cooler” chat channel on Slack; invite a colleague to talk shop over coffee, or keep a conversation starter on your desk. 

Another strategy is to ask thought-provoking questions to break the ice:

• What would you do if you had more time? More energy? More money?
• What can you do for hours without feeling bored?
• Are you more motivated by competition or collaboration?

Find more thought-provoking icebreaker questions that will move your conversations beyond small talk in the "Readings & Documents" section here.

Friends play a key role in a happy life, so making and keeping friends should be a high priority for all of us.

Sometimes, people assume that friendships should arise spontaneously and easily, but while sometimes they do, often they don’t—especially once we’re adults.

So to foster friendships, it’s worth the effort to make a plan; spend time, energy, and money; and persist. As William Blake wrote, “The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.” 

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