Hi everyone! I’m in my late 20s and I’ve been reminiscing on my young adult life and what I like/don’t like. One point that has been coming up for me is close, vulnerable friendships. I used to have a few friends who I was very close to a few years ago, who I could talk to about deep life stuff, big emotions, vulnerable feelings and worries, and also just enjoy time together discussing silly/serious media or the world.
I have since lost these friends, one way or another. Some simply drifted, some left in a flurry of drama and hurt feelings. I thankfully kept some friends, but a lot of them have been lost.
Despite the volatility of those friendships, there was something I was getting from them that I really needed and still need. I think that need is simply the human desire for close companionship. I have a partner, and he’s wonderful; he’s not particularly feel-y however, and my friends aren’t either. I think I need more emotionally-vulnerable people.
My question is this… How does one make these friends as an adult? In fact, how does one make any friends as an adult? I’m finding myself not knowing how to proceed and find other emotional folk. Any advice would be appreciated. <3
- meetup.com is a good resource for finding local groups for interests and hobbies.
- Community education classes are a good place to meet people and are open to friendships with older folks.
- Unitarian churches or Sunday Assembly are great if you’re looking for community without getting tied up in a specific religion.
- Tabletop games and arcades/pinball are reliable for meeting nerdier folks.
- Maker/hacker spaces are super fun if you have them locally.
- Libraries and cafes often have bulletin boards with advertisements for local get-togethers.
It has been so helpful reading everyone’s responses to this! I really appreciate how everyone has been responding with their own advice and insights! I’m going to be going through all of these and writing down main points and creating an actionable plan out of them. One main point is it sounds like I need to be really getting into hobby groups/volunteer groups; I absolutely will be doing this.
I also really appreciate people providing their own experiences with this feeling. It makes me feel as though I’m not as alone with this. Adulthood is hard! But it doesn’t have to be lonely, and that’s something I want to really work on.
Finding Lemmy has been really wonderful; it feels so much friendlier than the other place.
Thank you, everyone. <3
I have 3 very close friends, the kind where if I told em I need to bury a body, they’d grab a shovel. I lived with all 3 of them. Two as roommates, one is an ex-SO (found out we work better as friends). Something about living with people allows that depth of friendship you don’t get when you’re siloed away most of the time and only see them on occasion.
But it’s not everyone of course. My current roommates are friends, but not close friends.
Hmm, this is tough. Groups really make things easier, almost any big group will work. For example, one of my hobbies is being part of the furry community. Furries are kinda like a cross between Greek life and a very chill religion, but not in the culty way, more like a “allows you to join groups and meet people wherever with some predefined subjects to talk to” way. There’s big social events like big ski trips. There’s caving trips. Days at the range. Furry pilot groups. There’s social networks on telegram for your roommates, your city, your state, your country, and the international community.
Furries also have giant meetups called conventions. This is where you will probably be paired with people from a bunch of different backgrounds, but all connected by one hobby, which allows you to find common ground. The convention becomes a giant third place with lots of panels; everything from D&D, to arts and crafts, to games, meetups about NASA, even bands, raves, and NSFW panels. If you haven’t met anyone before, you keep going to panels until you start making con friends. Once you’ve made con friends, you can start going to events locally or in other cities, because everyone knows someone, haha.
Being a furry is pretty fun. You can join a state group on a big road trip, and meet up with a fee of the local furries for a pancake breakfast somewhere. Everyone has their own unique avatar kinda like an Xbox avatar or a Mii, so people will start to recognize you online, and in the real world. Every time you move to a new city, or return to a con, you’ll bump into old friends and make new ones. Come to think of it, it’s a very old world, pre-internet concept, but it survived the digital era remarkably well.
It’s also yielded a lot of deep friendships over the years. There’s always gonna be normal friends, but a lot are the vulnerable type where we really really talk and have meaningful conversations. A lot of furries are some form of queer because the community is so warm and welcoming. It adds a certain…je ne sais quoi, some sort of deeper emotional connection in some regards.
This is what one of those IDs/characters looks like! Usually people just have one, so it’s pretty easy to recognize someone and go “OMG! We met in Toronto two years ago! Did are you planning on going to (convention) in Reno this year? I’ll also be going to that event in Cali where they rent out the retired aircraft carrier and throw a party on it!”
It’s hard but not impossible, the thing with us as adults is people trust others less — but like people are saying, go to activities and events and really just introduce yourself.
Do things that you’re interested in and you’ll meet others, there’s a D&D night near me at a local games cafe that I’ve thought about going to for a while, stuff like that.
