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Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
241–250 of 371 posts
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#242Join a sports team and stick with it. You’ll have lots of friends in no time. Being part of a team and working on something together that’s not work and doing it consistently over years is key. I see the same group of fifty people two times a week, rain or shine. Over time you’ll naturally develop close friends without having to awkwardly force it. Added benefit: consistent exercise.
I have never played a sport outside of gym class. When I went to local sports meetups, I mostly found people practicing the sports they played in high school or college. I sucked by comparison, and it showed.
Look for a kickball league ... they seem to be more designed for non-athletes.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing I found strange about SF is that I never found a group that would do the weekly hang. The weekly hang is a socially porous experience, it has a fixed location and fixed start time but everything else is improvised. Different people could dip in and out, people felt free to bring new friends, people they just started dating, friends from out of town etc. Some people came once and never again, others become r…
Your local Facebook or meetup.com page probably has a running group that meets regularly. Look for the "Meet at 6:30am Friday morning in the parking lot by Starbucks" group. If you show up to that enough I guarantee you'll have 20-50 friends by the end of this year and attend a fun Christmas party where you know or can chat to multiple people.
It is no exaggeration that to say that social fitness fundamentally changed my life as an adult. I had, one day at the gym, decided to try a group fitness class. I had seen the class many times. Normally at the gym I lifted weights, wearing my headphones doing my Chinese language lessons. I saw they were getting an awesome workout, so one day I went and joined them, they were super friendly and welcoming and I became a repeat customer and started doing a different class at the gym. That instructor invited me to try her class at another gym where she taught. I took her up on it and met there another even larger group very friendly, and very social people. My gym moved locations so I switched to going to the gym that I had visited. I hardly ever used the weight machines. I did the fitness classes but some do use weights.
A couple months in at the new gym I met a woman who soon became my best friend. An odd pair we made me being a 55 year old introverted redhead and her being a 36 year old gregarious French-African. But we are both engineers and love fitness. Our friendship really bonded over training for the Rachel Carson Challenge, a 36 mile hike.
And running - well that opened up and even more important social network. I started running with a small group in the neighborhood that was organized by my soon-to-be best friend, then added a larger city-wide group that another soon to be very close friend had introduced me to, and then joined the local Fleetfeet group with her after she mentioned that they were also very nice - even though they met on Sundays, which I had always treated as my Fitness day off.
The first several times I went on Fleetfeet runs without my friend was a bit awkward, as I didn't really know anyone. I am by nature on the introvert side of that scale. But running, like the Rachel Carson Challenge hike, gives you a lot of one-on-one time with people – often complete strangers. After running and talking to someone for hours, you are no longer strangers. The Fleetfeet runs usually starts at a Starbucks and then at the end of the run we would stay for coffee and a snack. You do that every week with a group of people and, like my fitness classes - if you have a social bone in your body - you're going to end up with a group of good friends.
The other thing going on in my life which was quite challenging in terms of my loneliness is that my wife has left me and I was living alone. Without my new social network, my life would've been a much bigger challenge. The amount of emotional support that I got was beyond measure. A few months into doing group runs, I talked with a new stranger who six months later became a romantic partner. Thus, I can trace my current happy relationship state to that one moment in the gym where I decided to take off my headphones and do a group fitness class.
Apologies for the long post, but your “running group” suggestion motivated me to share my story. Take off your headphones and join a fitness group! It’s a twofer as you’ll also get in great shape.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#244> "Researchers also find that when we develop groups, our friendships are more sustainable than they are with individuals. Because there's multiple touch points now, right? Someone else in the group could reach out to all of us, and then we all keep in touch." This is the most important tip in the article, in my experience. When I lived in SF, most of my friend hangs were 1-on-1 catchups over coffee or lunch. Schedul…
There's an easy lifehack to get around it: host parties and introduce your friends to one another. I've done it multiple times in the past, and there's at least two married couples that I've introduced to each other.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#245Anecdotal, but if you're looking for friends as an adult you should get a bicycle. I've moved 3 times in my adult life, and have made a solid group of friends each time by signing up for group rides, etc. Ages range from late twenties to seventies. You can usually find these on social media or by talking to a nearby bike shop.
This doesn't just apply to urban centers either. Gravel and mountain biking is huge, and generally the shops in your area will be catered to the most popular kind of biking.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#246Anecdotal, but if you're looking for friends as an adult you should get a bicycle. I've moved 3 times in my adult life, and have made a solid group of friends each time by signing up for group rides, etc. Ages range from late twenties to seventies. You can usually find these on social media or by talking to a nearby bike shop. This doesn't just apply to urban centers either. Gravel and mountain biking is huge, and ge…
I wonder if it's easier to make friends with people who are cranked up on endorphins.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#247I'm talkative, outgoing and pretty funny in real life. I think I can say that people generally enjoy my company. But I only have about three friends, and I see them maybe four times a year. I really get along with my coworkers and enjoy their company at work. My wife thinks I should make more friends. But the truth is (and I suspect this is pretty common with HN'ers), I don't want more friends! Because in addition to…
The older I get the less I find I need friends. My old friends and I share a common history that goes way back. We were dumb teens in the 70's and 80's and so have a shared experience of those decades and that stupid shit we did. We act as foils for one another — how one friend turned out differently than another while coming from the same background. And also, and more importantly as we age, old friends remind us th…
> Money and status fall by the wayside when you get past 50.
When one has these things.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#248> "Researchers also find that when we develop groups, our friendships are more sustainable than they are with individuals. Because there's multiple touch points now, right? Someone else in the group could reach out to all of us, and then we all keep in touch." This is the most important tip in the article, in my experience. When I lived in SF, most of my friend hangs were 1-on-1 catchups over coffee or lunch. Schedul…
I have found that making friends around a hobby or activity is quite easy even as an adult .. Throwing yourself into a hobby (photography, pickle ball, boardgames, running, etc.) and you will meet people who love that hobby and throw them selves into it completely .. They will talk to you for hours about it .. If you are a nice person and just ask for help, people will be available to help you in your journey .. In those groups, you will likely find a few people to start developing a friendship with .. I think it takes the risky and scary part of making friends away as it just feels like hanging out until you find those persons you click with
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#249Anecdotal, but if you're looking for friends as an adult you should get a bicycle. I've moved 3 times in my adult life, and have made a solid group of friends each time by signing up for group rides, etc. Ages range from late twenties to seventies. You can usually find these on social media or by talking to a nearby bike shop. This doesn't just apply to urban centers either. Gravel and mountain biking is huge, and ge…
OneWheel group rides, Bike group rides, Motorcycle group rides, plenty of opportunity. Mountain Biking is hit or miss, there are some snobs in that sport, road cycling as well, but for the most part all of these are great options to get outside and find like-minded people.
Maker groups, meet ups, etc for those not physically inclined. Book clubs, music clubs, and things exist. I met some really good friends from D&D groups and OneWheel rides.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#250Anecdotal, but if you're looking for friends as an adult you should get a bicycle. I've moved 3 times in my adult life, and have made a solid group of friends each time by signing up for group rides, etc. Ages range from late twenties to seventies. You can usually find these on social media or by talking to a nearby bike shop. This doesn't just apply to urban centers either. Gravel and mountain biking is huge, and ge…
This.
As an adult (I'm 53) I've managed to make lasting friends in only two contexts:
1. My local arts community, where I've served as a board member and patron for many small organizations; and
2. Cycling. I'm a big roadie, but I dabble in gravel -- primarily for social reasons. This has actually been a larger source of friends than the theater stuff, but both have been big. The bonus with cycling is that you kill two birds with one stone: you exercise AND friends in the same activity!
Now, I'm sure that one could abstract these two things out to "volunteering" and "local sports," but I feel like cycling in particular is great for this.