In search of friends (or how to actually make friends as an adult)

kicking off new friend summer

Old subscribers might notice a small rebrand! “Still Treading” is now “Neuroticosm.” Just a new name for “the newsletter where you can read whatever people aren’t paying me for but I want to write anyway.” Back in my day we used to call it a “blog.”

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Happy solstice and the official beginning of the second-best season of the year!

A few weeks ago, I did a callout for a story I was working on for SELF¹ about how people made new, close friends as adults. And that shit went bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s. At least compared to how those callouts usually go on a post-Musk Twitter. And as I read through the 600+ responses that came in, I was surprised by how helpful and also genuinely…hopeful I found them.

Maybe that sounds bad. Just…we’ve heard all the tips in the abstract by now, right? Get a hobby, talk to strangers, follow your values, blah blah blah. I figured I’d get similar, if more specific and actionable, versions of what I’d already been hearing from therapists as a mental health reporter for years.

And in a way, I was right. A lot of the anecdotes that came in fell into those buckets. But I quickly remembered that the real service wasn’t in what exactly people did to make friends or how they did it—it was just hearing that they did it. Every response represented a success story. Someone who had, like me, and maybe like you, felt lonely and disconnected and in need of more fulfilling friendships.

Reading examples of how people got from where I am to where I want to be motivates me to get a hobby, talk to strangers, follow my values, and blah-blah-blah more than simply reading a tip ever does. There’s just something heartening about knowing that people really are out there meeting their new BFFs every day, even in these postnormal times when I’m struggling to do the same.

So after I had to narrow down hundreds of nuggets of wisdom and feelings and friendships to only a fraction for the final article (which you can read here), I didn’t want the rest to go to waste. And because I love a theme², I decided to make a summer out of it.

Nothing fancy, just a limited-run series for those of us who could use a little extra gas in our friend-making tanks as we try to make the most of this season. Every Thursday until summer ends or until I get bored³, I’ll be sending out weekly highlights from reader-submitted anecdotes and all the lessons that come with them.

So without further rambling, welcome to Week One of…

graphic design is my passion

PSA: Sometimes you have to tell people you want to be friends

I had this coworker once who I wanted to get to know better as a friend. I was probably only a few Slack convos away from suggesting we get a drink after work sometime when I found myself hanging in the office with them.

It wasn’t long before they got a text and sighed.

“What’s up?” I asked instead of minding my own business.

“This is going to sound awful,” they said, which incidentally was how many of my favorite stories start. Unfortunately, this was not going to be one of them, because they then explained that a friendly acquaintance of theirs was reaching out again, and they couldn’t figure out how to let her down nicely. “It’s nothing personal,” they added, almost apologetically. “She’s perfectly nice. But I have enough friends, you know?”

This is a perfectly reasonable thing to think and feel. I mean, I can’t relate to it at all, but I imagine that many of the Potential New Friends who never texted me back over the years probably can!

But as self-conscious as I felt watching a literal anxiety fantasy of mine play out in real time, it was helpful all the same. I could recognize then, like I still have to remind myself now, that sometimes our overtures of friendship are ignored and rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with us. Sometimes we’re perfectly nice and it’s nothing personal, but people don’t have the need, desire, or bandwidth for what we’re offering.

And so we have to keep trying, anyway. Because that’s life and, at the end of the day, how you make friends when you don’t have a lot of organic opportunities to do so. To paraphrase 30-year-old Hannah O. who wrote in, one of the most important parts of finding friendship as an adult is the willingness to be earnest about your desire to make friends.

To that end, here are some success stories that prove communicating your desire for friendship works in the long run. You know, to offset all the slightly mortifying moments it definitely doesn’t.

“One of my best friends was friends with my ex-boyfriend first. After we met, we discovered we were going to be living and working in the same city later that year, and we nebulously made plans to hit each other up but never did. A few months later, we randomly ran into each other on the street, and we both admitted we weren’t sure if the promise to hit each other up was an empty platitude or not, which is why neither of us had reached out yet. We started hanging out regularly and became very close friends very fast, and we’ve remained that way long after my breakup with the ex who introduced us.”
—Vandana R., 26

“I’ve been told my approach is to ask questions, be friendly, and then be like ‘hey, DO YOU WANT TO BE FRIENDS?? Let’s do a friendship activity!!’ This is apparently unusual, but I don’t know. It seems like the rest of you who tried something other than the trusty elementary school formula are just not making friends at all.”
—Jillian K., 31

“I just kept going to the same places over and over and got over my fear of being eager. Making the first move helped me connect with a lot of introverted people, some of whom have become my closest friends! Basically, I’m not afraid to ‘court’ potential pals or seem too excited to spend time together.”
—Mary C., 24.

“I’ve met several good friends in adulthood through social media, work, and LGBTQ+-focused events. I’m on the introverted side but when I feel a vibe with someone I am very proactive about it. As in, I’ll ask for Instagrams or numbers, follow up shortly after meeting, and make sure the person knows I want to get to know them a little better. I literally pursue people, suggest activities, and text every so often to check in just because I enjoy doing all of those things.”
—Beatrice M., 33

“I made a handful of really good friends as the result of being intentional about specific people I wanted to spend time with. I would invite them to hang out with me one-on-one or with a small group, and I did this for three to four months straight. I made a promise to myself that I would create plans every weekend and then send an invite. It was slow going with a fair number of rejections (I think a lot of people are content with their friend circle and aren't looking to expand), but I made two great friends by the end of those months. One of the friends I made that way is extremely social and often hosts at her home, and I started receiving invites for board game nights, movie nights, etc. This was a ‘‘tipping point’’ after which I vastly increased my exposure to potential friends, from which I made a few more really good ones. My lesson or advice here is that there will be a lot of rejections early on but there's a snowball effect. I struggled not to take those early rejections personally but it got a lot easier.”
—Aarsh D., 24

“I shoot my shot! I tell people I'm looking for friends! The friend of a friend who lives in the same place as me? Rando acquaintance from college? I send a DM. I say I want to be friends. That's how I ended up on my perfect softball team—gonna be playing for three years this fall. Would die for any of them. I got out of my comfort zone so much that it changed the definition of my comfort zone.”
—Abby I.G., 28

Now I want to know:

• If you’re excited for ~*~New Friend Summer~*~, what kind of friendship content would you want to see? I only have about half the cal planned so far, so if you’re looking for anything specific, I bet the answer is waiting in my master spreadsheet!!!

• What are your most memorable successes and “““failures””” trying to connect with potential new friends? Pls make me feel better about everyone who never texts me back.

• Are you In Search of Friends? Feel free to announce yourself because I would be absolutely tickled if NFS led to actual NFs. (Am I losing myself in the jargon? Weigh in below.)

A huge thank you again to everyone who contributed their stories and advice! See ya next week.

1. For those keeping score at home, I’m freelancing these days.

2. *and because the avalanche of follow-up stories I rushed to pitch were duly rejected, womp-womp.

3. Long-time subscribers might have noticed I’m not great at sticking with things that I can’t pay my rent with! Same. We’ll see how this goes.