Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)

Find a group of exercising partying degenerates. Then degenerate.

I'm kind of joking, but I'm really not.

To me it is more like that I already have good friends and I barely get enough time to stay in touch with them. So a new friendship must make space by "deprioritizing" some of the existing ones, which feels bad.

yup. weekly trivia nights at the pub did it for us. most of us are drinkers, but for those that aren't there's still dinner, a fun activity and good company

Oh how very true. I’m going through at this very moment. As a dad(of a 4 year old), having moved to a new city during COVID, it has been a struggle to find friends. Although I do attend a few meet-ups every now and then, play tennis in a group, take Dutch classes, I just could not meet anyone often enough to become friends with.

Whenever I try to organise something to hangout, it’s a nightmare to find a time that works for most. Often a couple of months away.

The anxiety of “do they think I come off too weird trying to force them to be a friend” is very real.

I wish there was a commonly used app like Tinder with explicit intentions of making friends, hanging out with a wider user base than one-off local apps which is dominated by a handful of people.

I'm a nomad travelling solo so it's crucial for me to be good at socialising. I now consider myself to be quite social and can gel with anyone.

Most of the friendships happen over some common interest or activity like playing sports, dancing, seminars, group tours, etc. If you can get into some hobby or activity that involves other people (common interest) then it is much easy to strike conversations (mutual interest) and make friendships. However, If you can't even start a conversation or keep the conversation flowing naturally then that's a personal issue.

Some tips:

- Smile when you talk. Smile in general if you could.

- Asking questions is the fundamental of converting strangers to friends. Asking question means getting to know person. Ask questions that you are curious about otherwise you gonna bore yourself as well as the person. Personal questions work wonders.

- While travelling I realised most people are not that social and feel awkward starting a conversation with a stranger. I always assume that it's my responsibility to start the conversation so I lead. And, once the conversation starts flowing I see that the other person is actually friendly and interested to know about me as well.