51 Tips On How To Make Friends As An Adult, As Shared By People In This Online Group

MyPeeSacIsFull said:
"In my experience, adults don't want friends. They want activity partners. Pick an activity that you enjoy doing, and find some people to do it with. If you're lucky, some friendships will organically arise from that. If you're REALLY lucky, they'll even stay friends with you after one or both of you stop doing that activity. But mostly, people just want activity partners."

Mostly_Just_needhelp replied
"Yeah, this is hard for me. I just like being part of people’s lives. Everyone is always DOING things. Can’t we all just chill? Talk? Blah. I like doing activities a lot too but they take a lot of solo time to get better at."

"Stand near an extrovert and hope they adopt you."

"I'm gonna add a very specific one: the app Slowly. It's an app that acts like a meeting app, except that everything works as if you were sending real letters. You can receive them from all over the world and 99% of people use them to make friends (looking for a partner like most meeting apps). You enter in your hobbies, maybe put in the countries, gender, and ages of the people you want to talk to (i left it open and received beautiful letters from aged people wanting to talk to someone), and there you go! I met my two best friends there, one from Germany and one from brazil, we've been talking for years now. It's too much work for scammers, so everyone is genuine. I can not recommend it."

"If you're around or in a city, walking a dog is the best conversation starter."

"I met my best friend in the psych ward."

"I joined a rock climbing gym and made TONS of friends."

"Volunteer! I became a Girl Scout leader and have become friends with some of the other leaders & some of the parents from my troop."

"You stand too close to random people at the groceries and when they ask you what's your problem, you tell them you don't have any friends. Then you hug it out and become friends."

"Dungeons and dragons."

"Went on a date with a girl I met on a dating site. She took me to a house party and introduced me to some of her friends. Never saw her again, but I ended up with one of her friends as a roommate and our house became the after-party spot. Now I live on the other side of the country and I miss them.

One of the best friends I have right now is a girl I tried to pick up at a bar. She let me down gently but wasn't opposed to hanging out again. Many beers and vegan corndogs later we're each other's emergency contacts.

Buy drinks at a karaoke bar."

BassplayerDad said:
"Slowly. Hobbies, community
involvement, through work. Good luck."

worldspawn00 replied:
"If you like doing things with your hands (wood/metal work/fabrics, etc...), electronics, or programming, hacker/maker spaces are great, they usually have themed events and classes, as well as social events, and that's where I made my current friends when I moved to a new city."

"Gathered up the courage to go to an event TWICE instead of trying something out once and flaking like usual."

"I started inviting people from online dating sites who said they were looking for friends to play dnd. Some of them were actually looking for friends. I also started a fencing group in my area and advertised it in relevant Facebook groups. A few people showed up and now we occasionally do things that aren't fencing-related."

"The friends that I have made in adulthood were not made through boozy social situations - even though I'm Irish and we LOVE our boozy socials.

I've made friends through work and through hobbies - I love taking fun classes. I like taking dance classes mostly and when you're going to the same class week in, and week out, you get talking to the other people in the class and friendships can blossom.

You can be friendly and smiley and strike up a bit of conversation and from that, you build up a bit of rapport. I made friends by asking a couple of the girls if they'd like to grab a coffee after class and then it became a weekly "thing", coffee after class.

It doesn't have to be dance - any kind of class works, even if it's an educational one. Evening classes are a GREAT place to make new friends.

Then - and I know everyone's workplace is different, certainly mine is very easy to make friends - through work you can make some nice friends. Sit with people at lunch hour instead of eating at your desk or in your car - chat to people during the work day and find out things about them - if they have a family, if THEY have any hobbies etc. Then, when you build up a bit of friendliness ask them if they'd like to go for lunch or (yes I know, AGAIN!) a coffee after work and so forth.

It definitely helps to be friendly and outgoing. I'm not naturally outgoing but I am naturally a very friendly person so I guess that makes me approachable. So try to be approachable and learn the art of small, friendly talk."

"My turn to shine since I moved countries 3x as an adult. Ranked from most effective to least:

Work: never eat lunch alone, organise hang outs after work

Professional networking organisations: nothing bonds more than hating your industry/job together

Going out alone & chatting up strangers: woman here & have befriended men who approached me this way, so don’t say this won’t work for men. You just have to genuinely want to be friends instead of being a creeper. If you have kids & they have kids, they’ll WANT to be friends

Random fun classes/activities: if you’re both into it, you probably will click

Online dating: surprisingly made many good friends of this. Of course, some were with benefits.

New mom groups: everyone is depressed to a certain degree, sleep deprived & desperate for support"

"Coffee clubs, or book clubs."

"For me, it is just making a conscious effort to hang out with people outside of where you know them. Most people are down to hang out at least once. If it goes well. Boom you got a friend."

"Long train rides with nice strangers."

"Borrow tools and actually give them back."

"Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings"