{"id":7057152,"date":"2026-09-04T19:32:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T19:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/making-new-friends-as-an-adult-what-actually-helps\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T19:32:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T19:32:24","slug":"making-new-friends-as-an-adult-what-actually-helps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7057152","title":{"rendered":"Making New Friends as an Adult: What Actually Helps"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019ve always had trouble making friends.<\/p>\n

I was the awkward kid. The nerd. The teacher\u2019s pet. I liked school, liked knowing the answers and never quite mastered the art of pretending I didn\u2019t care about things just enough to be cool.<\/p>\n

And unlike the people who can still get together with friends they\u2019ve known since kindergarten, I don\u2019t have childhood friends.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have college friends either.<\/p>\n

Or university friends.<\/p>\n

Somehow, I managed to make it through all those places where you\u2019re supposedly forming friendships that will last a lifetime without making any lifelong friends.<\/p>\n

There were people, of course. Acquaintances. People I liked. A few actual friends here and there. But friendship has never come naturally or easily to me.<\/p>\n

Then I got married.<\/p>\n

My first husband<\/a> had a way of pushing away the few friends I did have, and over time, my already small circle became even smaller. Looking back, I can see how isolated I\u2019d become. At the time, though, it happened gradually enough that I don\u2019t think I fully recognized what I was losing.<\/p>\n

Then I became a mom.<\/p>\n

And motherhood is strange when it comes to friendship, because suddenly you\u2019re surrounded by other women.<\/p>\n

There are playgroups, preschool hallways, and school pickup. Birthday parties. Baseball bleachers. Soccer sidelines. Field trips. Years and years of standing beside other moms and talking while our kids do whatever it is they\u2019ve brought us there to do.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I met a lot of women that way.<\/p>\n

Some of them were literally in my phone as \u201cKieran\u2019s Mom\u201d or \u201cKelsey\u2019s Mom Annette.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes I knew their names.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I only knew their names because they\u2019d been written on a birthday invitation.<\/p>\n

We exchanged numbers because somebody needed a ride, or there was a playdate to arrange, or we were trying to figure out who was bringing what to a school event. We could spend hours together at a hockey tournament or stand talking in a school parking lot long after pickup was technically over.<\/p>\n

Some I genuinely liked. Some I saw several times a week for years. We talked about our kids, our husbands, our jobs, our schools, our frustrations and all the ridiculous logistics of keeping a family running.<\/p>\n

But proximity isn\u2019t the same thing as friendship.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the kids were the only reason we were in each other\u2019s lives. When they changed schools, quit an activity or stopped being friends themselves, the relationship between the moms quietly disappeared too.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t say that as a criticism. I think that\u2019s simply the reality of a lot of mom friendships. Our children bring us together, and sometimes that\u2019s as far as the connection goes.<\/p>\n

For someone who had never found making new friends particularly easy in the first place, motherhood gave me a much bigger circle of acquaintances.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t necessarily give me a circle of close friends.<\/p>\n

Then I found my invisible friends<\/h2>\n

Over the past 15 years or so, something interesting has happened.<\/p>\n

I have found some really good friends.<\/p>\n

I call them my invisible friends.<\/p>\n

I met them on the internet.<\/p>\n

Some came through work. Some through shared interests. Some through social media or online communities. They started as names on a screen and somehow, over time, became people I genuinely care about.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019re not really invisible anymore.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve met many of them in person at conferences. We have text chats and group chats. We check in on each other. Every once in a while, we manage to have an actual meetup. Some of these women know what\u2019s happening in my life in far more detail than people I see regularly.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re real friends.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re just not necessarily here.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the part I\u2019ve been thinking about lately.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a lot of local friends.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a big group of women nearby who I can text on a Saturday morning and ask if anyone wants to grab lunch. I don\u2019t have many people I can spontaneously ask to go for a walk, have lunch or come over because I feel like talking to another human being.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the internet taught me something I spent much of my life doubting: I actually can<\/em> make friends.<\/p>\n

Apparently, I\u2019m just particularly good at making new friends who live several states away.<\/p>\n

Working from home doesn\u2019t exactly help<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s another practical problem: I work from home<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I love many things about working from home, but expanding my local social circle isn\u2019t one of its benefits.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no coworker in the next office who gradually becomes a friend. Nobody to grab lunch with. No conversations in the break room. No after-work drink that turns into discovering you actually really like the person you\u2019ve been sitting beside for two years.<\/p>\n

My commute doesn\u2019t provide many opportunities either. I walk from one part of my house to another.<\/p>\n

Working from home means I have to be much more deliberate about getting out into the world.<\/p>\n

And when you\u2019re already someone who doesn\u2019t find making new friends as adults particularly easy, it\u2019s remarkably convenient to stay home.<\/p>\n

I have work to do. I have a house full of things that need doing. I can communicate with clients, colleagues and friends all day without actually seeing another person.<\/p>\n

I could probably go days without needing to leave the house.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s comfortable.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not necessarily conducive to making local friends.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve had to put myself out there.<\/p>\n

I volunteered for something I actually care about<\/h2>\n

One of the best things I\u2019ve done is volunteer my time with an organization that genuinely piques my interest.<\/p>\n

That last part matters. I didn\u2019t go looking for an activity with the sole purpose of finding friends. I got involved because I was interested in the work and wanted to contribute.<\/p>\n

But something else happened.<\/p>\n

I made friends.<\/em><\/p>\n

Not instantly. I didn\u2019t walk into my first meeting and emerge three hours later with a new social circle. It happened gradually. I kept showing up. I worked with the same people. We had things to talk about because we already shared an interest. Conversations that started around the work wandered into our lives. I got to know people beyond their names on a meeting agenda. And some of those people have become friends.<\/p>\n

For me, that\u2019s probably one of the most important lessons in all of this. Maybe making new friends in adulthood works better when friendship isn\u2019t the only objective. Do something you\u2019re genuinely interested in. Volunteer for a cause you care about. Join an organization. Take a class because you actually want to learn the thing. Get involved in your community.<\/p>\n

At the very least, you\u2019ve spent your time doing something worthwhile. And you may repeatedly find yourself in a room with people who already have something in common with you. For an awkward nerd, that\u2019s a much better starting point than walking into a room of strangers and hoping to dazzle them with my social skills.<\/p>\n

Making new friends as adults is surprisingly vulnerable<\/h2>\n

There is something almost embarrassingly vulnerable about trying to make a friend as a grown woman.<\/p>\n

Kids can walk up to another kid and ask, \u201cDo you want to play?\u201d<\/p>\n

Adults don\u2019t really do that.<\/p>\n

Imagine meeting a woman you like and saying, \u201cYou seem great. Would you like to be my friend?\u201d<\/p>\n

I would rather crawl under the table.<\/em><\/p>\n

Instead, we have this strange adult ritual.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We have a good conversation. We discover we have things in common. We laugh. We say: \u201cWe should get together sometime!\u201d And then nobody does anything.<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, between memes, we text, \u201cWhen ARE we going to have lunch?\u201d and then text more memes.<\/p>\n

Six months later, we see each other again. \u201cWe REALLY should get together!\u201d<\/p>\n

Still nothing.<\/p>\n

One of the things I\u2019m learning about making new friends in adulthood is that someone has to be the one to actually follow through. Not \u201csometime.\u201d Tuesday. Lunch. At noon. At that new caf\u00e9 we were talking about trying.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting with people I already sort of know<\/h2>\n

When I think about ways of making new friends, my first instinct is to imagine that I need to go somewhere completely new and meet entirely new people.<\/p>\n

Maybe I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

There are already women around the edges of my life whom I like.<\/p>\n

The woman I always enjoy talking to when I run into her. The acquaintance whose Facebook posts make me laugh. The person I know through work who I\u2019ve always thought I might like outside of work too. Someone I\u2019ve met through volunteering whom I always end up talking to long after the meeting is technically over.<\/p>\n

Maybe friendship doesn\u2019t always start with meeting someone new.<\/p>\n

Maybe sometimes it starts by paying more attention to the people who are already there.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve begun thinking less about \u201cfinding friends\u201d and more about noticing potential friendships.<\/p>\n

Who do I look forward to talking to?<\/p>\n

Who makes conversation easy?<\/p>\n

Who leaves me thinking, I really like her?<\/p>\n

And then comes the difficult part: doing something about it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to make an actual plan<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe should get lunch sometime\u201d is apparently where potential friendships go to die.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m guilty of saying it.<\/p>\n

Other people have said it to me.<\/p>\n

We all mean it when we say it.<\/p>\n

And then life happens.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m trying to get better at turning vague enthusiasm into something concrete.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to get lunch next Thursday?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWant to go for a walk this weekend?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a thing happening Saturday. Do you want to go?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tiny difference in wording, but it\u2019s actually a fairly big emotional leap.<\/p>\n

Because now the other person has to answer.<\/p>\n

And yes, they might say no.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m learning not to treat every no like a rejection<\/h2>\n

This may be particularly important for those of us who have always found friendship difficult.<\/p>\n

When you already carry around the belief that you\u2019re not particularly good at making friends, every unanswered text or declined invitation can feel like evidence.<\/p>\n

See? This is why I don\u2019t do this.<\/em><\/p>\n

But adulthood is complicated. People really are busy. They have work deadlines and sick kids and aging parents and appointments and spouses working shifts and weeks where they\u2019re barely holding everything together.<\/p>\n

A \u201cno\u201d to lunch isn\u2019t necessarily a \u201cno\u201d to me. Sometimes it actually is a no to me. That\u2019s okay too. I\u2019m not going to click with everybody. Everybody isn\u2019t going to click with me. I don\u2019t need everybody.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking for a few people with whom friendship feels mutual.<\/em><\/p>\n

I think repetition matters more than chemistry<\/h2>\n

We tend to talk about friendship as if we\u2019re supposed to meet someone and immediately know we\u2019ve found our person.<\/p>\n

But when I look at the friendships that have actually lasted in my life \u2014 including my invisible friends \u2014 most of them weren\u2019t built in one dramatic moment.<\/p>\n

They grew through repetition.<\/p>\n

Another conversation.<\/p>\n

Another message.<\/p>\n

Another conference.<\/p>\n

Another meeting.<\/p>\n

Another joke.<\/p>\n

Another check-in.<\/p>\n

Another shared experience.<\/p>\n

My volunteering experience has reinforced that for me. I didn\u2019t need to manufacture a friendship. I just needed to keep showing up somewhere that interested me, with people I enjoyed being around, and give those relationships time to develop.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s made me rethink a lot of the usual advice about joining groups, taking classes or volunteering. The activity itself may not matter nearly as much as whether I keep going. A one-time workshop gives me one chance to meet someone. A weekly class gives me months.<\/p>\n

A single community event may be fun. Volunteering regularly means seeing the same people again and again. Familiarity gives friendship somewhere to grow.<\/p>\n

That may be especially useful for people like me, because I have never been particularly good at walking into a room full of strangers and charming everyone within 20 minutes. I do much better when I have time.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mom friends don\u2019t have to stay \u201cmom friends\u201d<\/h2>\n

This is something I wish I\u2019d understood better when my children were younger.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we mentally file people according to how we met them.<\/p>\n

School mom. Soccer mom. Dance mom. Neighbor. Coworker.<\/p>\n

But occasionally there\u2019s someone underneath the category whom we genuinely like.<\/p>\n

The kids don\u2019t have to remain best friends for the mothers to stay friends. We don\u2019t have to talk about our children every time we see one another.<\/p>\n

And as my kids have gotten older, I\u2019m much more interested in the women themselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What are you reading?<\/p>\n

What are you doing?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on in your life?<\/p>\n

What interests you now that so much of our identity doesn\u2019t have to revolve around arranging somebody else\u2019s activities?<\/p>\n

Maybe one of the ways of making new friends as a mom is realizing that the woman you already know as somebody\u2019s mother might actually be someone you\u2019d choose for yourself.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not trying to build a giant friend group<\/h2>\n

This has taken some pressure off. I\u2019m not trying to recreate the social life I think I was supposed to have had at 17.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t need a group of twelve women who\u2019ve all known each other for 30 years and have matching bracelets and an annual girls\u2019 weekend. That ship has sailed. Also, twelve people sounds exhausting<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I would like a few local friendships that feel comfortable.<\/p>\n

Someone to text about lunch.<\/p>\n

Someone who wants to go for a walk.<\/p>\n

Someone who sends me something ridiculous because she knows I\u2019ll find it funny.<\/p>\n

Someone I can invite to lunch without both of us needing to consult calendars for the second Tuesday of next month.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s enough. Maybe more than enough.<\/p>\n

My invisible friends taught me that I\u2019m not actually bad at friendship<\/h2>\n

This may be the biggest thing I\u2019ve learned. For a long time, I think I confused having difficulty making friends with being bad at friendship. They\u2019re not the same thing.<\/p>\n

My invisible friends are proof. We\u2019ve sustained relationships across cities, states and countries. We\u2019ve gone from usernames and profile pictures to real conversations, real support and real history.<\/p>\n

And now the friendships I\u2019ve made through volunteering are proof too.<\/p>\n

The problem wasn\u2019t that I was incapable of connecting with people. Maybe I just needed the right people. Maybe I needed time. Maybe I needed spaces where being a nerd, having opinions, asking questions and caring deeply about things weren\u2019t characteristics I needed to tone down.<\/p>\n

The internet gave me some of those spaces. Getting involved in something I care about has given me another. Now I\u2019d just like to find a little more of it close to home.<\/p>\n

Somebody still has to ask<\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019m ever going to become the woman who effortlessly walks into a room and leaves with five new best friends. I\u2019m still awkward. Still a nerd. I\u2019d probably still be the teacher\u2019s pet if anyone would give me the opportunity.<\/p>\n

But I know something now that I didn\u2019t know when I was the kid standing on the edge of the group.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m capable of friendship. I\u2019m capable of finding people I love and who love me back. And I\u2019ve learned that sometimes making new friends means doing something uncomfortable first.<\/p>\n

Leaving the house.<\/p>\n

Joining the group.<\/p>\n

Volunteering.<\/p>\n

Showing up again.<\/p>\n

Starting the conversation.<\/p>\n

Sending the text.<\/p>\n

Suggesting the lunch.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s not about becoming a completely different, more outgoing version of myself.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s just about putting myself in places where I can find people I genuinely like \u2014 and then being brave enough to let them know I\u2019d like to see them again.<\/p>\n

The grown-up version of what I never found easy to say as a kid:<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to play?\u201d<\/p>\n

Except now it\u2019s:<\/p>\n

\u201cWant to grab lunch?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always had trouble making friends. I was the awkward kid. The nerd. The teacher\u2019s pet. I liked school, liked knowing the answers and never quite mastered the art of pretending I didn\u2019t care about things just enough to be cool. And unlike the people who can still get together with friends they\u2019ve known since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7057153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151863,98236],"tags":[732,6450,5007,2167],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7057152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-making-friends","category-relationships","tag-adult","tag-friends","tag-helps","tag-making"],"yoast_head":"\nMaking New Friends as an Adult: What Actually Helps - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7057152\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making New Friends as an Adult: What Actually Helps - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve always had trouble making friends. 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