Find a Common Goal to Make Friends As an Adult.
A little over a year ago, I joined a choir of 80 people. One of the reasons I auditioned was because I enjoyed singing in a round dance both in high school and college, but if you ask me to be honest about why I really sign up for all these rehearsals and performances. I have to admit that this is because I wanted to make 80 new friends.
(Or at least three or four new friends and over 75 friends.)
Making friends in adulthood is difficult, but it becomes easier if you can find other people with the same interests and do something interesting together. In the best case scenario, you will find a new best friend; at worst, you form low-stakes friendships that will make you feel like you are part of a community.
That’s why I smiled appreciatively when I saw this tweet from habit expert James Clear :
As Clear says, “Friendship arises on the way to something else.” I’m not sure if I have ever developed a friendship that was not part of a shared aspiration (I count things like elementary school classes as “shared activities”), except on one occasion when I was eight years old. and my parents took me to visit the family with another little girl my age and said, “Now you two are going to be friends.”
But it works worse when you’re a 38-year-old single woman – and we can argue if it’s harder for single people or people who work together to make new friends in the comments. I am very interested to hear your thoughts on this matter. – so I made an effort to put myself in places where friendship can naturally develop.
Interestingly, it was easier to make friends with people in the choir than people in the group exercise classes I take at the YMCA. This could be because choral singing is the kind of thing where a room full of people is working towards a single goal, and BodyAttack, as fun as it is, is really just a room full of people, each trying to sit down a little deeper than them. last time.
So if you’re feeling a little lonely this week, start looking for a way to do something interesting with someone else (or, if possible, a whole group of other people). As Dr. Miriam Kirmeier explained in her episode of the Lifehacker podcast on how to make friends as an adult, “This is really the first step. It’s intentional to show yourself off. Engage in different activities when you know you will meet new people – and ideally people with whom you have something in common, because that similarity is often the root of friendship. ”