Making Friendships in Adulthood: Why It Feels So Hard

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Making new friends in adulthood is a challenge that many people face. You might be seeking new connections, entering a new life phase, moving into a new geographical area, stepping intentionally away from childhood or adult peer groups with whom you no longer feel aligned. You might be starting a new job, or activity with the hope of making new connections. Whatever the context, making new friends in adulthood can be anxiety-provoking, exciting, nerve-wracking, or all of the above.

What makes it so hard?

By the time that we reach adulthood, we often assume that everyone has "set up their lives." We can tell ourselves that making new friends will be hard; that everyone has met all the people that they want to meet and that their friendship groups are established. If we are not in a media-style “fun and fabulous” friendship group, we can feel that we have missed out on an opportunity or failed adulthood. This can sometimes mean that we don't try to form new relationships or that we miss opportunities to do so because we aren’t quite “looking up”.

Our inner voices might be repeating an unhelpful negative narrative, telling us that there is no point, that we are not interesting, or that we don't have anything to offer. Or that we should have already created our so-called “lifelong friends." As a result, we risk closing the very doors that we wish to open.

Sometimes our friend-making skills can feel a bit rusty. When we watch children in their local park, they just kind of gravitate towards each other and start playing games with rules that they create in the moment. They have less self-consciousness. They are more relaxed and happier in flow. Most of all, they are less scared about the idea of rejection. In fact, they often don't think very much about it at all.

As adults, we are more likely to convince ourselves that others won’t like us, that we aren’t interesting. We anticipate rejection and underestimate our ability to cope with it if it occurs. Perhaps viewing friend-finding as an act of discovery, or running small experiments, could help. A good place to start is being clear about who or what it is that we are seeking.

Clarifying what you are seeking

Looking to interact with people who share our interests can be a good place to start. Are you looking to meet friends with similar personalities to yours? Are you seeking a travel buddy, a cinema companion, a confidante? Painting a picture in your mind or describing your desired friendship future can facilitate the search. Asking yourself how you would like to spend time with a new friend (or friends) can be fruitful. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Would you be spending time together…

·      At home?

·      In cafes or local pubs?

·      Visiting the cinema or theatre?

·      Walking, hiking or running in nature?

·      Taking weekend city breaks abroad?

·      Exploring antique shops, or seeing new sights?

·      Visiting museums or art galleries

·      Connecting virtually through gaming or watching shows or movies?

·      Going to the gym or a yoga class?

·      Learning a new language or a new creative skill?

·      Discussing and exchanging books?

When we start to picture and imagine how we might spend time with new friends, we open the door to identifying where we might find them.

Leaning into opportunities for connection

So you have identified the activities that you enjoy or would like to try. You have pictured your ideal weekend or evenings with friends. The next step is an action piece: taking your own interests, that picture that you have created in your mind, and finding real-life opportunities to pursue your interests alongside other people. For example, if you love the theatre or cinema, can you find a group of people who attend together? If it is yoga, how about testing out a few new classes to find a good fit? Love books? How about attending a book club that fits your interests and target demographic? You can test out activities that you never thought you'd be interested in, as well as those that you know you already enjoy.

Normalising the anxiety of stepping out of our comfort zones

Many aspects of socialising and meeting new people can feel daunting: Stepping out into new contexts, striking up conversation with new people, and demonstrating open body language and receptivity if someone speaks to you.

These can all feel anxiety-provoking and nerve-wracking, and that is completely natural. You are trying something new, and most things that are new aren't easy straight away. We typically build our confidence and connections through repetition: trying something over and over again. For example, the more you attend that gym class, the more likely you are to see the same people and you may strike up a conversation while you are queuing to go into the class.

There are always ways that we can take our interests and turn them into social activities, we just need to be open to doing so. Quite often fear of rejection or a fear of appearing silly, is what stops us in our tracks. So how do we make this process feel lighter or more accessible? How do we remove the obstacles and break these action points down into small steps?

How therapy can help

Therapy can help us to understand our history of friendship-making and our experiences, real or imagined, of rejection. Therapy can help us to clarify what or who we are looking to bring into our lives and build our self-esteem and confidence to step out into these new activities, new contexts, and to lean into conversations rather than standing back.

In therapy, you can have the opportunity to scaffold a plan together around building new friendships and trying new activities. The therapist can support you, be a safe place for you to return to as you try new things and explore your ‘findings’ together. Therapy can help you to understand what approaches work well and what works less well.

Therapy is also a place where you can understand and explore any anxieties or fears that you might have about meeting new people. You can even role-play and practice conversation openers and how you would respond if somebody approaches you with conversation.

Most of all, the therapist will encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and into the new zone of opportunity where those new friendships that you crave are waiting for you.

If you find yourself in adulthood wanting to expand your network of friendships, activities and step into new relationships, therapy might be a helpful place for you to explore.  

Dr Erin Reid is a counselling psychologist offering online therapy to individuals, couples, adolescents, and families across the UK and internationally, and Walk and Talk' therapy in Northwest London green spaces. Visit drerinreid.com to find out more.