Young, Professional and Without Friends: The Winning Formula to Making New Friends as a Young Adult
By: Joyce Chuinkam, Senior Research Manager at Talk Shoppe
Think about your group of closest friends, your “besties”, your “soul family”. If you’re like a lot of Americans, you either met these people in high school or college - all before the age of 23. According to a 2019 study by Evite in conjunction with OnePoll, the average American adult has not made a new friend in the past 5 years for reasons that range from being shy to believing that everyone has friendship groups already formed.
We spoke to 21 Millennials and Gen Z’ers who have moved to a new city in the past 5 years about how to make real friends. We’re talking about the friends you can call at 4 am if you get into an accident, or the ones you can share a bed with when their Airbnb turns out to be a scam and laugh about it for years to come.
We anticipate that making friends in a post-COVID world will not be any easier because:
We’re anxious! After having been indoors for over a year, social anxiety is high. People have lost touch with what proper social etiquette is and what it looks like in a COVID vaccinated world. “Am I starring? I have been looking at myself on camera for a year, I don’t know what to do with my eyes.”
We have to juggle added COVID unknowns! In addition to social anxiety, layer on more COVID etiquette - what is the right or wrong thing to say or do about the vaccine? How comfortable are individuals in social settings? “Can I socially-distanced hug you?” Are there conspiracy theorists amongst us? Considering real losses occurred for many people, making light of the situation is not always the best route.
We are creatures of habit! We seek comfort in the familiar, meaning that coming out of this, many are seeking to reconnect with the loved ones they knew prior to the lockdown from whom they have been separated. Making new connections might be less important than deepening existing ones.
Although the odds might appear stacked against you, don’t be discouraged. We came up with the winning formula to make new friends in adulthood.
Step aside Dale Carnegie; here’s how to win friends as an adult, whether you’re navigating a demanding career, just moved to a new city or trying to get back out there following a global pandemic.
THE FORMULA:
Consistency: A recent Buzzfeed article featured a TikTok going viral for claiming to have unlocked the secret to making friends as an adult: show up to a place regularly and soon enough strange faces become familiar. Our findings agree (kind of - that is just one part of the equation). Keep showing up to the relationship, not just the venue or gathering. Meeting a group of people around a shared interest bears less pressure compared to a 1-on-1 via a friendship app such as Bumble BFF, however, in both instances, it takes more than a few meet ups to solidify a bond. And though you love your fly fishing group, not everyone you see there every week will become a friend. Eventually, take it from fly fishing to a hike.
Vulnerability: So you take your fly fishing friend from the weekly group to a hike. You’ve put yourself out there to meet up outside the setting you initially met in. Woohoo! What you talk about on the hike matters. If you find yourself still talking about fly fishing, or whatever the original connecting activity was, you might need to dig a little deeper.
Open up boys! Men are more likely to be guarded and take longer to crack the mask of masculinity, mostly out of fear of how the recipient will receive the information i.e. pull away or share their secrets with others against their will. Men, however, also tend to have a more consistent tight knit circle of friends while women are more open to making looser social ties. So once you’re in with the bro’s, you’re in!
Vulnerability can be a double-edged sword though, be careful! Too much too soon and you might become an “energy vampire”.Gradually build trust as you discuss other topics and create the foundation for you and your new friend to test the waters for a trusted safe space in one another. Pace yourself with sharing and make sure you are reciprocating a listening ear.
Reciprocity: One-sided related relationships feel “frustrating”, “isolating” and like the receiver does not value the giver as much as the giver values the receiver. Everyone is trying to make “boss moves” with a whole lot going on these days; young adults in particular are prioritizing career, and existing friendships. One party taking the lead on planning amidst life’s responsibilities is a sacrifice expected to be appreciated by:
Showing up
Reciprocating initiation efforts
Reciprocity is more critical in new friendships, particularly as it relates to taking initiative, vulnerability and the time poured into the relationship.
“We don’t want to always go to that person, because you know that that person is always going to be there for you, so we don’t want to use that person, you want to definitely appreciate them, but not overdo it”
Time: Show up consistently, be vulnerable and reciprocate over time to build lasting friendships. The bad news is it won’t happen overnight. The good news is it won’t happen overnight; the more time goes by, the more shared experiences, the more character is revealed, the deeper and more authentic the bond. Despite having a lot going on, and prioritizing existing relationships, Gen Z are seeking friendships to challenge themselves and grow as individuals. For this reason, the new friends they seek tend to be those that differ from their existing friendships. Millennials, on the other hand, are seeking new friendships around new hobbies that existing friends might not share and new friends with shared goals to motivate and support one another in achieving.
“The word I kept using was “regressive.” Not to hate on my college friends or my friends from high school, but it was just I felt like if I were just hanging out with people that I hung out with when I was 17 and it’d be kind of like ‘am I really growing as a person?’ I just wanted to branch out and meet new people.”
So, yes it is hard to make friends when juggling work, family and life and yes it will be even more challenging considering the influence of COVID, but no you should not give up.