Your 10-Step Guide to Making and Keeping Friends as an Adult
By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC
Adulting can be hard for many reasons. One of the toughest challenges, which I’ve talked about with almost all of my clients at one point or another, is friendship. Busy schedules made up of parenting responsibilities, long work hours, housework, and meal prepping can often leave little time for hanging out with friends you already have, let alone making new ones.
Whether you recently moved to the City and are struggling to build new friendships, or you’re having a hard time keeping up with the ones you already have, keep reading. This step-by-step guide will teach you how to meet new people, turn acquaintances into deeper friendships, and continue pouring into friendships you already have, even if you’re busier than ever.
Step 1: Position Yourself
Making friends is kind of like dating. You have to put yourself out there. Download Bumble BFF, sign up for a pottery class, reactivate your gym membership, or start working from places like coffee shops or coworking spaces in order to increase the number of people you meet and could potentially become friends with.
2. Adjust Your Expectations
It’s unlikely that you’ll meet a new lifelong friend everytime you go out to do one of the things mentioned above. You could go to 10 pilates classes and never meet a single person. Don’t lose hope! Consistency is key. Keep attending activities you’re interested in or chatting with different people on friendship apps, and eventually, it’s likely you’ll meet someone who will become a friend.
Also, remember that unlike what we see on TV, strong friendships don’t happen overnight. They often start out slow, with periodic conversations here and there, and then grow in intimacy and closeness over time.
Step 3: Start a Conversation
Every friendship begins with a single conversation. Compliment the person’s mat next to yours at yoga class and ask where they got it. Introduce yourself to someone in your Bible study and ask how long they’ve been going to their church. Again, it’s okay for friendships to start out slow. Your initial conversation doesn’t have to be deep, it just has to establish contact.
Step 4: Go With the Flow
If you meet someone and conversation seems to be flowing, extend the interaction in a way that seems natural. If you compliment someone’s jeans and start talking about their favorite places to shop, invite them to go to the mall with you. Ask the person whose yoga mat you complimented if they’re coming to class next week. If you’re talking about music with someone, ask for their number so you can share your Spotify playlist with them. Sticking to the theme of what you initially connected over will make hanging out or talking in the future feel less forced.
Step 5: Cope With Outcomes Ahead of Time
This is where expectations become very important. Just because you got someone’s number or went to the mall with them, it doesn’t mean you’re instantly going to become best friends. Sure, you might start immediately hanging out several times per week, or you might go a month without hanging out again, or that one time might be it! Keep in mind that even if the friendship doesn’t kick off right away, it could develop more and become very close over time.
It’s also possible that you and this person are just not a good fit. This can be difficult, especially if you’ve dealt with abandonment, betrayal, or loneliness in the past. Practice coping with this possibility ahead of time. What would you do if this friendship didn’t work out? How would you deal with those emotions in a healthy way? What would you do to continue creating opportunities to make new friends?
Step 6: Follow Up
After hanging out with someone new for the first time, the “what do I do now” feeling can be very similar to the one many people experience after a first date. Should you text them right away and tell them what a great time you had? Wait a day? Wait for them to reach out to you?
My advice on this topic is to resist the urge to follow any rigid set of “rules” or play games. Be yourself. Reach out whenever and however feels natural to you. Be receptive to the other person’s cues (like, don’t text them 5 times if they didn’t even respond once), but avoid overanalyzing them. Practice authenticity. The people most likely to become close friends down the line are the ones who like you just the way you are.
Step 7: Skip the Small Talk
When you first start hanging out with someone new, conversations are likely to be more superficial. However, once you get to know each other better, practice talking about deeper topics in order to build intimacy. Ask open ended questions about the other person’s interests, worldview, past experiences, and passions. Also, talk about your own. Close relationships can only be formed when two people allow each other to see and accept who they truly are.
Step 8: Check In
Ok, so now you’re at the stage where you and someone else are more than acquaintances. Maybe you’re new friends, or maybe you’re best friends who have had a relationship for years. Either way, it’s important to maintain consistent communication if you want to keep the friendship alive. Take responsibility for reaching out and saying hello or asking how your friend has been. Doing this shows that you care about the other person and value their presence in your life.
Step 9: Don’t Make Assumptions
Sometimes, people get busy. Actually, scratch that. Most people are busy a lot. It may be easy for you to fall into the trap of thinking that if you haven’t heard from a friend in a while, or if they forget to reply to your text, they’ve either forgotten or stopped caring about you. This is so often not the case. Chances are, the last time you texted your friend, they were holding their phone in one hand and wiping baby spit-up off their face with the other. Or they were out to dinner. Or they typed a response and forgot to hit send.
You really have no way of knowing what’s going on in a friend’s day to day life unless they tell you or you ask. If you feel the impulse to either shut down and withdraw or get even by ghosting a friend who hasn’t contacted you in a while, get curious about what’s really going on for you emotionally. See what happens if you reach out again, or, if you’re really noticing a pattern of non-communication from a friend, be straightforward and ask them if everything is okay.
Step 10: Audit
Now that I’ve hopefully convinced you to go easy on your friends and give them the benefit of the doubt a lot of the time, I have to make sure I point out that some friends are not, in fact, good ones. You may have some friends who take much more from you than they give. You may have one or more who regularly ignore you, even when you make every effort to communicate with them in a healthy way. Some may even be critical of you, always try to compete with you, or humiliate you in front of others.
These are not your friends. People who spend time with you but are abusive, neglectful, or just downright uninterested in you are likely showing up in your life for their own selfish reasons. That’s not your fault. You may have outgrown them, or maybe it was never a good friendship to begin with. This can be a painful realization, but not as painful as continuing to offer yourself to someone who repeatedly mistreats you.
Sometimes, you have to do a friendship audit. Especially if you’re busy, it can be healthy to go through your list of friends from time to time and ask, “Who do I feel supported by? Who do I enjoy being around? Who energizes me, and who depletes me? Who encourages me and makes me feel good about myself? Who is able to be vulnerable with me like I am with them?” If you’re realizing that you’re spending your valuable time with people who aren’t feeding your soul, make the decision to reallocate your resources to those who are. It’s not mean, and it’s not about hard feelings or drama. It’s about your health and wellbeing.
Making or keeping friends as an adult can be difficult, especially if you have a packed schedule. Nevertheless, friendships are important for mental and emotional health and deserve a decent-sized chunk of your time. To build or maintain healthy friendships that are worth your time, practice these steps regularly. Your future self will thank you when they look back and realize how long the special people in your life have been by your sides.