It's nice to have friends you've known since kindergarten, but sometimes you drift away from people you knew as a kid by the time you reach adulthood. And sometimes you simply want to expand your pool of friends. Either way, making friends as an adult can be challenging. Unlike kids, adults don't have a lot of ready-made opportunities to link up socially with others. You need to make a targeted effort to make friends as an adult.
Step 1
Go places where you will meet other adults with similar interests. A mutual interest gives you something on which to build a friendship. Join a book club or other social group, or get involved in volunteer work for a cause in which you believe, recommends columnist Therese Borchard of the website Beliefnet. Get involved in activities at your house of worship or take an adult education class on a topic you enjoy. Each activity increases your potential pool of new friends.
Step 2
Start a conversation with people who seem to be compatible with you, talking about your mutual interests. For example, if you're taking a class on scrapbooking, chat about creative ideas or the best places to buy supplies. If you're doing volunteer work, strike up a talk about an upcoming project. The other person might be a potential friend if she responds enthusiastically to your conversational efforts.
Step 3
Talk to the other person about more personal topics if he responds to taking about mutual interests. Don't immediately share intimate information. Talk about personal but neutral things like your home or family. Ask the other person about similar things, and see if he joins in. Adults who are seeking friends will usually respond in kind.
Step 4
Ask for contact information from people who seem compatible, according to the website SucceedSocially. Ask for a phone number or email address. People who are interested in potential friendship will willingly give you this information.
Step 5
Invite potential friends to meet you for coffee, lunch or a similar one-on-one activity. This gives each of you a chance to get to know the other better to see if you're compatible enough to become friends. If things go well, you can continue with similar meetings, phone calls, emails and other contact.
Tips and Warnings
- Making new friends is fun, but you also can reconnect with old friends. The Internet makes this easy with social networking websites like Facebook. Think about people you used to know, and look them up online. Send a quick message, and you just might rekindle a past friendship.
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