Isn't Making Friends as an Adult weird as all ****?

The simple answer is to just not bother trying. If it happens, great, but the simple reality is that 99.99% of the people one comes across will not be your friend or even make eye contact with you much less give you a simple "hello."

Just be your own friend. That's the only realistic advice anyone can give to someone in adulthood.

Khanimus said:

I can get along with people just fucking fine in new settings. I just fucking suck at following those up.

Acouple months back was my gf's sister's wedding. I didn't know really any of their friends, but I found a "safety net" of her bridesmaids' boyfriends and we all got along real well. My girlfriend likewise was getting along with the other bridesmaids, and the six of us had a real good time.

We all added eachother to facebook after that (something I rarely ever do now), we were drinking, having some genuinely fun conversation and shit. We got along great. Hell, we saw them again afew weeks later when her sister was in town, and we all got along real well.

So why the fuck is it so hard for me to just send them a message and be like "Hey, y'all busy next Saturday? Feel like coming down and doing something?" Why is that such a fucking hurdle to cross?

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Friendship is like dating
You don't want to find out reading the room wrong or if they say no wondering if they really like hanging out with you

Monkeyball said:

Hah, it's always funny when people call their online gaming buddies their friends. They are not your friends. As soon as you stop playing their games, they gone.

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So... like any kind of "friends" you find in your life? Work friends, highschool friends,etc

They are all your friends, but most of them are gone when you leave that place.

It sucks. I don't have any local close friends anymore. They're all long distance and/or online.

Ravelle said:

Define adult.

I'm 32 and I can pretty much hangout with anyone but I also have a very big friend circle, friends and their partner become friends, I have a couple collegues from friends that became friends and a cousin from a friend.

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So your friend had a kid with your aunt/uncle?

nel e nel said:

So your friend had a kid with your aunt/uncle?

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I meant to say, the cousin from a friend of mine.

There's like dozens of fucking ways to get yourself out there and meet like minded people. Look up social groups on Facebook, or hiking groups, etc. spend less time on here interacting with strangers who dgaf about you and more time going out.

Friends are overrated

Friends at work?

Hydeus said:

Friends at work?

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No this is the worst.

I'm already forced to be nice to you for 12 hours every day, please I don't want to see y'all anymore.

This complaint seems weird to me. Do you people live in the middle of nowhere and do nothing but work?

Making adult friends is trivial, as long as you're willing to get off your ass and DO something outside of the same hobbies you had since you were five.

Example: i wanted to get involved more with local politics, so i walked in to my local democratic committee meeting and told them i was there to volunteer.

Plenty of people my age, 30s and 40s. I do some campaign events, work some polls, make conversation, im invited to committee get togethers and am appointed to a seat.

There's a few people i happen to like personally so contact information gets exchanged and we hang out.

How is this difficult?

Weird as all what? I must know.

GayAnimeDad said:

Weird as all what? I must know.

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What is a gay anime dad?

When it happens naturally, no not at all... Just don't try to force it or anything.

GayAnimeDad said:

Weird as all what? I must know.

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Fuck. Weird as fuck.

FFFUUUUUUUUUCKKK like that.

thepenguin55 said:

Yeah and if you live in a place like Ohio then you lose friends because they all moved out of state.

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I'm in Ohio and no one moves out of here, this place is like a black hole on earth and sucks people back if they try to escape.

Go on a holiday, stay at a hostel. I've made tonnes of friends that way. I guess people say I'm an extrovert though. I made some great friends at yachtweek in Croatia too.

I have more friends now than I did in high school. *shrug*

You aren't as social or approachable if most of your friends were made in school or at work.

Yeah. I moved after school for Uni, then again for work. That pretty much separated every tie. If I got married (lol) I could probably invite like three people.

CoolestSpot said:

Maybe if you have a niche interest you meet them somehow through that

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Just to reply to this specifically -- I've made a lot of great friends through the Man City Supporter's Club here in Austin. It is definitely difficult to make friends as an adult especially if your job does not involve you working in close proximity to people around your age or in a similar situation. I work at a university and so most of the colleagues I have are PhD students who are passing through and generally a lot younger. I enjoy their company during the work day but only a few over the years have become friends to the level that we'd hang out or chat much outside work.

But the folks I've become friends with through the City club are genuine great friends. On a similar note, relatively soon after we moved here from Chicago (where I had a lot of very close friends thanks to my job), we met up with a couple by way of GAF thanks to a thread about a Party Down event at the Alamo Drafthouse. They've been great friends for my wife and I for about 6 or 7 years now.

This is definitely the way to do it -- try and zero in on some shared interests by any means necessary and build from there.

The hardest part about making work friends is being socially outward, but belonging to an entirely different lifestyle. Work Friends for me is either:
A)Uni Students working a service gig to have party money.
B)Professional service workers are sleezy as fuck late 20 early 30s College Hunters
C)Kitchen Crew, aka my place at job, are either older, younger, or everyone my age is too busy going as hard or even harder than A and B all together.
I have been doing this for years now and I just want to slow down ffs, but it keeps going.

My girlfriend is struggling with this now. She wants friends outside of work, but she doesn't know how to do it or anything.

I try to help her out as much as I can, but she's so lonely it makes me upset.

Teh Hamburglar said:

What is a gay anime dad?

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That's the question keeps me up at night...

do mods keep retroactively changing thread titles with curses in them, or is this just some weird, childish trend?

Teh Hamburglar said:

What is a gay anime dad?

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I don't post as much these days so I don't see your posts as often as back in the day. Hope you're doing well!

Ryne said:

My girlfriend is struggling with this now. She wants friends outside of work, but she doesn't know how to do it or anything.

I try to help her out as much as I can, but she's so lonely it makes me upset.

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I found out recently that Tinder (or one of the other dating apps) has a "BFF" version that I am assuming functions in the same way but is specifically for just making friends. I've never used one of these apps since my wife and I have been together for about 15 years now, but if something like a supporter group for a sport (or an an alumni club for her university if she went to a big one) isn't that appealing, then this might be a good way to interact with new people. I think if I didn't have the outlets I do for making friends, I'd be inclined to try it.

Dunno, I go to language classes and meet new people all the time.

Or do you guys mean friends as super close friends? That kind of friendships is kinda difficult to maintain after a certain age.

lacer said:

do mods keep retroactively changing thread titles with curses in them, or is this just some weird, childish trend?

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this. its really fucking annoying.

if you don't want to say the word, don't imply it or censor it.

Just get out more and let it happen naturally.

The people who belong in your life will stay there. It's a balancing act that takes 2 sides, and both sides must make the other feel wanted in someway. This includes reaching out occasionally on your end.

abellwillring said:

I don't post as much these days so I don't see your posts as often as back in the day. Hope you're doing well!


I found out recently that Tinder (or one of the other dating apps) has a "BFF" version that I am assuming functions in the same way but is specifically for just making friends. I've never used one of these apps since my wife and I have been together for about 15 years now, but if something like a supporter group for a sport (or an an alumni club for her university if she went to a big one) isn't that appealing, then this might be a good way to interact with new people. I think if I didn't have the outlets I do for making friends, I'd be inclined to try it.

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Lol thank you. I'm living the dream. Just not sure who's.

Have kids. Every friend I've made as an adult seems to stem from hanging out while our kids are partaking in various shit together.

Neo C. said:

Dunno, I go to language classes and meet new people all the time.

Or do you guys mean friends as super close friends? That kind of friendships is kinda difficult to maintain after a certain age.

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I took this as it's hard to make super close friends as an adult. I have work friends and whatnot and while I like to occasionally get together with them outside of work I don't have have a particularly strong bond with any of them and finding people that I have that sort of bond with is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Hardest thing for me is finding friends that both I and the wife like.. she has her friends and I have mine, and we socialize fine, but aren't crossing friend boundaries unless its a social gathering. We've tried making new friends that we can be.. I dunno, 'equal friends' but it hasn't taken root yet.

It's not hard making hangout friends. It's really fucking hard to make ones who have your back.

Penguin said:

Friendship is like dating
You don't want to find out reading the room wrong or if they say no wondering if they really like hanging out with you

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Late response and all, (lol thread bump) but yeah this is a big one. People fear rejection all the time, even from friends. They don't want to feel clingy or ask to hang out and people think you're weird for that. Above all people wanna play it cool and come off that way, but "playing it cool" generally means not following up, or asking to hang out, or reaching out, or any of that stuff.

Everyone thinks "they didn't ask me to hang out, so I'm not gonna ask them because they would've asked me if they wanted to. I'd say yes if they asked me though" and in the end nobody talks to anybody.

Ultima_5 said:

this. its really fucking annoying.

if you don't want to say the word, don't imply it or censor it.

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meh, who gives a s--t