Making friends. Again.

I need to learn how to make friends.

I mean, I need to learn how to make friends again.

Growing up, I learned how to make friends as a kid. I learned how to interact with classmates at recess, and how to find a spot at the lunch table. Despite not being familiar with all of the Spice Girls, I learned how to handle fourth-grade birthday parties and later, slumber parties. I had friends at school and friends (well, cousins) to play with at home. Friends were everywhere I went. The same continued to be true in high school and college. I lived with friends. I lunched with friends. I studied with friends.

But then I graduated. When I moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Charlotte, graduate school was my job. I had three courses that met once a week, typically in the early evenings. My classmates were for the most part older than me. They already had established lives, many of them with full-time jobs and families of their own. They weren't looking for new friends.

See, all of my life until then, friendships had been fairly easy. Everyone needed the people around them to fulfill their need for friendship. This peaked in college, where we were all in the middle of cornfields and couldn't go anywhere else but campus for entertainment.

One of the things I am realizing, though, is that my perception of adults not looking for new friends is inaccurate. Many adults, even those who are married with kids, do not have a strong group of friends. In fact, I'm starting to suspect that many of them feel the same way as I do. They're looking for friendships, but just haven't learned how to make friends again. They're making the same assumption about me as I make about them.

But making friends as an adult is different, and in my experience, much more difficult. I'm still learning how to do it.

I read an article recently that explained key factors in forming friendships. Here's what I remember:

• friendships form from seeing another person on a regular basis, especially if it's a natural occurrence and you don't have to schedule to meet-up
• friendships form after spending a significant amount of time with another person
• friendships form as a result of confiding in another person
• friendships form as a result of asking another person for help

So, with these in mind, I'm going to be a bit more intentional about making friends. And since I often struggle with those last two things, I'm going to need practice.


Is anyone else learning how to make friends again? Do you have specific tips on how to do so? If you're in the same boat as me, I'd encourage you to intentionally seek out new friends with me.