Generally, a romantic relationship gets more ovation than friendship, which is more important in a person’s life in the long run. With growth, the importance of having a community becomes more intense. This is because life can get too hard to do alone so when you find a shoulder to lean on both in the good and bad times, it eases your burden and makes life easier.
Unlike when you make friends as a toddler on your first day at kindergarten, making friends as an adult can be tasking because it is an entirely different ball game.
Read Also: Navigating the Challenges of Long-distance Relationships
You need to make time to meet like-minded people, interact with them, and regularly hang out with them to maintain the friendship. You need to be an emotionally present friend and help out when your friend needs you. As an adult with responsibilities, it could be harder to keep up with all of these. This is why this article has been written to help you navigate the challenges of making friends and the best way to maintain your friendships no matter how hard it seems.
1. Be Open-minded and Approachable
The first step to making friends as an adult is to be open-minded and to avoid being closed off especially when meeting new people. When people find you cold, distant, and unapproachable, it will be harder to connect and talk more to become friends. This also doesn’t mean you have to be jovial with every single person who crosses your path but joining in conversations and sharing your thoughts sometimes in a gathering wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Consider joining a community, this could be a community of book lovers, music, or art enthusiasts. If you also have other interests that don’t include these, perhaps traveling, there are so many communities with like-minded individuals that you could be a part of. Another thing to note is that these communities could be virtual, not necessarily physical. Just like a long-distance romantic relationship is a thing, there are long-distance friendships that don’t feel as though both parties are far apart.
2. Be Proactive About Making Friends
Do not wait to be reached out to by people you find interesting and would like to be friends with. The same way you reach out to your crush and compliment them to spark some kind of emotion before telling them you like them. You can approach a friendship like that, it may sound lame having to ask someone to be your friend but why not see it as a chance to create your circle of friends?
Knowing that you picked your people and they also chose you could give the friendship a solid foundation. It is understandable to be scared of rejection but just like with every other thing in life, disappointments are inevitable when trying to make friends. Do not let the fear of rejection stop you and keep trying until you find your tribe. Attend that conference, go on that picnic, exchange contacts, and social media handles, you will thank yourself for it.
3. Practice Vulnerability and Share your Experience
Being your authentic self will help with building a deeper connection with your friends. You would have conversations trailing across several phases of life and in the process, you could be prompted to share some of your flaws or a painful memory. You’d be shocked to find out that this person you’ve just met has been through the same thing. Sometimes, it takes sharing our experience to realize that someone else has been at that point in their lives before.
This is a great way to build a connection with someone. Also, sharing your flaws helps with understanding each other better. It can be scary because it could mean you are opening yourself up to judgment, however, it helps to build a friendship without secrets. Both parties are privy to each other’s flaws and are accepting of them. It gives room for freedom, you don’t have to walk on eggshells around your friend. There’s nothing more freeing than that.
4. Create Time and Do Fun Things Together
With adulthood comes the payment of bills and spending more time trying to make money, the hustle just never stops. This can get overwhelming and have you missing out on the best things in life. Like going swimming on a weekend with friends, a picnic by the beach just taking in the beautiful atmosphere. You need to make conscious efforts and dedicate time to these activities. This way, you don’t just get to call people your friends while going through life alone, you can also spend time with each other doing fun things. This will help you get some days off from adulting.
5. Lower Your Expectations of People and Be Patient
Understand that it is our uniqueness as humans that makes us stand out. Finding like-minded people can take time and effort. It is important to note that making lasting friendships would not happen overnight and it could take going through a rough patch to know just who you have been dealing with. You could get lucky and meet someone who checks all your friendship boxes in the first month of meeting and you could get so excited that you move them into the bestie zone.
However, just at the peak of the second month, you suddenly realize that you’ve been the third wheel because they have a friend who is even closer to them than you are. You see pictures of them out together every other night but you can’t seem to get them to hang out with you because they’re always busy. When this happens, you could get discouraged and decide to close off on friendship altogether. Friendship heartbreaks can be painful but the response to that is never to quit, you’d be doing yourself a disfavour that way.
Instead, remain resolute in your decision to have meaningful friends who will be there for you as you are for them and push you to your full potential. Keep putting yourself out there and believe that your tribe will find you when the time is right.