Making Friends as an Adult

I am not ashamed to say this… making friends as an adult is hard! Ugh, why does it have to be so awkward and complicated? I remember being younger and making friends with any person who crossed my path. I was even like that at the start of college. It wasn’t until about my junior year where I lost the confidence to walk up to randoms and force a friendship on them.

In a business setting, I can work any room. In fact, I really enjoy networking. The problem is, once the conversation turns into more of a social hour instead of business talk, I lose my ability to be charming or something. I have no idea what it is. I think I became socially anxious when trying to make friends with other women… who knows what happened.

The fact of the matter is, making friends as an adult just plain stinks. To fix this issue, I decided to try something new. I found an article on Bustle that lists “7 Ways to Make New Friends as an Adult.” So, I want to see if these options are worth trying. Let’s dive in and break the options down.

• Meet up – Nope. No way. I am too paranoid to do this. If I was meeting up with someone I have already chatted with or met on some level, I would do this. Meeting up with complete strangers to hang out? Nope.
• Go to night school – Tried it. Didn’t fail, but it is hard when you are there to learn. I am too focused on my success in graduate school to converse during class.
• Volunteer – Now this is one I can get down with. Actually, David and I are searching for a church that suits our needs from a religious standpoint, but also from a fellowship standpoint. We want to find a space where we can meet like-minded people who are also young, married, and wanting to start a family. Nothing against those singles out there, by the way. We just hate to make people feel like a third wheel and love chatting about married life/future plans/etc. Anyway… I know that many churches encourage mission work/volunteering, so this option may be our best bet. 
• Use your kids or pets – We tried this, too. David and I used to frequent a dog park with Koa, but a lot of the people already arrived with their friends and seemed uninterested in forming friendships. When we move to a new home, though, maybe we can give this one a shot again.
• Up your social media game – Paha… um this one is weird, but I know what they mean. I guess you could say I have upped my game, especially with my blog. I am the kind of person who likes a person’s status and can interact confidently online…. but a friendship in person seems almost impossible. Does that make sense? I am sure that if a few people I interact with online asked me to get coffee, I would be fine and down with it. I always worry, though, that maybe some friendships are just best over the phone or online.
  • I want to dive a little deeper on this one because upping my social media game doesn’t have to mean chatting more with existing friends. I Googled some apps that people use to make new friends and this is what I found:
    • I found two options worth looking into for making female friends. The first is Girlfriend Social and the second is VINA. I made an account with GF Social, but VINA is only for iOS at the moment. I am team android, so once it is available for me, I will download it. I plan to come back in a few months and post a review of these friend-making options. Stay tuned!
• Shake your friend tree – This option basically says to “ask your friends to hook you up with some of their friends.” I don’t like this haha. One of the main reasons David and I are searching for new friends is because we are in a new stage of our life. It isn’t that we want to ditch our old friends; far from it. We just want to find some new people to hang with who are on a similar journey to us. Married couples, couples who are starting a family, dog lovers…. you get it.
• Leave your house – Well this is a long shot. I have turned into a homebody. I do enjoy going out from time to time, but if you asked me if I wanted to hang out with my dog, watch Netflix, and eat food on my couch or go out to a bar with friends… I choose my couch.

Looking through these options, I can appreciate Bustle’s effort to give simple ideas for adults to make friends. Since I have grown to be more introverted since college, I will need a little push. How do you make friends as an adult? For the married couples out there, do you find yourself gravitating towards friends on similar paths as you? Let me know your thoughts.