How to Make Friends as an Adult

And I hope you're being a little patient with yourself because you deserve it.

And yeah, I hope you're soon. Your fear of being judged is the reason you feel lonely.

“Hear me out, have you ever noticed how strange it is that making friends used to be one of the easiest things we did?”

And now it feels like one of the hardest. When you were six years old, friendship required almost zero strategy. You sat next to someone in class, played on the same soccer team, like the same cartoons, or traded snacks at lunch. And that was it. Boom, done. You're now best friends forever. You didn't spend hours wondering if you were coming across as desperate.

You didn't overanalyze a text message before sending it.

You didn't worry about whether the friendship was progressing at the right pace.

Because when you're a kid, you're not even thinking about the potential of someone else judging you. You're able to live in the moment and just embrace the interaction for what it actually is. But as an adult, it isn't that easy, which might be why today many adults feel lonelyer than ever before. And what's fascinating is that most of us are still surrounded by people every single day. We have co-workers, neighbors, people at our gym, familiar faces at the coffee shop, we visit every morning.

We can also reach almost anyone instantly to technology. And yet loneliness continues to rise. In 2023, US Surgeon General Vivek Morty warned that loneliness and social isolation had become a significant public health concern. Link to everything from anxiety and depression to heart disease and premature death. We often treat great friendships as a luxury.

But the research suggests they're probably much closer to a necessity, yet people often tell me. Jade's just harder to make friends when you're older. And I understand why it feels that way, but I don't actually think that's true. I don't think adults have forgotten how to connect. But I do think there are a handful of invisible obstacles standing between you and the friendships that you want.

And once you see them clearly, the whole picture starts to change.

“So today, I want to walk through five shifts that completely changed the way I think about adult friendship.”

First, we're going to talk about why friendship isn't actually harder than it used to be. Then we'll talk about that fear that's keeping many people lonely. From there, I'll share a piece of psychology that explains why people probably like you more than you think. We'll look at why repetition matters more than chemistry. And finally, we'll talk about how to become the person who creates community instead of waiting for it. And by the end of this episode, my hope is that you'll stop seeing friendship as something you either have or don't have.

And start seeing it as something you can actively and easily build. As we're talking today, I wanted to keep one person in mind.

Maybe it's someone from work who always makes meetings more enjoyable.

Maybe it's someone from your gym you've chatted with just a few times. Maybe it's another parent from your child's school. A neighbor or someone you've crossed parts with often enough to recognize, but not well enough to really know. Hold that person in your mind throughout this conversation. Because by the end of the episode, I'm going to challenge you to do something with that thought.

Now, getting right into it, the first friendship shift I want to get into is this.

“You need to realize that friendship isn't harder now for you than it used to be.”

The only difference is that the system that used to create friendships for you has disappeared. And that's a very different problem. See, when we're children, friendship is built directly into the structure of our lives. School creates proximity, sports create repetition, summer camps, clubs, college dorms, and after school activities,

repeatedly place us around the same people over and over again. Now, you don't have to think very hard about building a social life, because the environment is doing most of the heavy lifting for you. The opportunities for connection are already built into your schedule. Then, adulthood arrives, and suddenly, all of that infrastructure slowly disappears.

Nobody assigns you or see anymore. Nobody puts you on a team. Nobody forces the group project. The responsibility shifts from the system to the individual. And most of us don't even realize it's happening.

We simply wake up one day feeling disconnected, and we assume something about us has changed.

We understand that our health requires intention. We understand that our careers require effort. We understand that meaningful romantic relationships require time, communication and investment. But friendship is often the one area where adults still expect things to happen naturally.

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Stay out there. We tell ourselves that if we're supposed to become friends with someone, it will somehow happen on its own. We assume that if a connection is real, it shouldn't require that much effort.

But friendship is always required effort.

The difference is that when we were younger, the effort was hidden by repeated exposure. The friendships felt effortless because the system was creating the conditions that made friendship top of mind. As adults, those conditions disappear,

but the effort you need to put into a friendship remains the same. And I want to pause here for our caveat. If you've been struggling to make friends lately, I don't want your takeaway to be that you're socially awkward, that you're bad at communication,

or somehow falling behind everyone else. I want your takeaway to be that the rules changed. The system that once did the work for you is gone, which means you now have to become intentional about creating what used to happen naturally.

And once you understand that, we can move to the second shift,

“which is that you need to stop holding yourself back due to fear.”

Even though we inherently know that new friendship requires work, most of us still don't reach out. We still don't send the text. We still don't invite the coworker to lunch. We still don't ask the neighbor to grab coffee,

which raises an important question. What's stopping us?

The reality is most people aren't lonely,

because they don't know enough people. Most people are lonely, because they're afraid of what might happen if they try to deepen those connections. Think about how often this happens in everyday life.

You meet someone interesting, you think to yourself, "I'd actually love to get to know this person better." And then, because they don't reach out to you, you're just assume they don't feel the same about you. But in reality, you never reach out either.

See, we hold ourselves back, letting insecurity get in the way of connection. What if they think I'm weird? What if I come across as desperate? What if I embarrass myself?

What if they already have enough friends? What if they say no? That voice is so familiar that most of us don't even notice it anymore. We simply assume it's being rational when in reality it's often just being overly protective.

Because when you look more closely, the problem usually isn't about rejection at all.

The problem is avoidance.

The friendship never had a chance to succeed because it never got started. The invitation was never said. The text was never written. The coffee was never scheduled.

The relationship ended before or even began. Because fear convinced us not to take the first step. I think one of the biggest misunderstandings about friendship is that we assume social confidence means never feeling awkward. We look at people who seem to have strong communities

and imagine they're just naturally outgoing, they're extra-virred. We assume they don't get nervous. We assume they never worry about what people think about them. But in my experience, that's really true. The real difference is that they're willing to feel a little awkward

in exchange for the possibility of connection. So back to the original question. What's stopping us? Our own fears are. But the truth is most other people are waiting to.

That mutual friend you wish would invite you to the party, maybe hoping you'll invite them. That old coworker you thought was cool, maybe wondering whether you'd ever want to grab coffee. The neighbor you've exchanged small talk with for two years now

may also wish they had more local friends. Everyone is waiting for someone else to go first. Everyone wants connection, but nobody wants to risk putting themselves out there.

“And that's why I believe one of the hidden costs of adulthood”

is that we become too focused on protecting our image from discomfort. We protect ourselves from embarrassment. We protect ourselves from rejection.

But in doing so, we often protect ourselves from friendship as well. We become so committed to avoiding awkwardness that we accidentally create isolation. Many of us aren't struggling because opportunities don't exist. We're struggling because fear is keeping us

from acting on those opportunities.

And once you understand that, the third shift becomes incredibly powerful.

“Here's the third thing you need to realize.”

People probably actually like you a lot more than you think they do. There's a fascinating psychological phenomenon called the "Liking Gap". Researchers have repeatedly found that after conversations, people tend to underestimate how much the other person enjoyed talking to them. In other words, you walk away thinking, "How is it a little awkward?"

While the other person walks away thinking, "I really enjoyed them." Think about how much energy we spend worrying about how we're perceived. We replay conversations in our heads. We analyze things we said. We cringe at awkward moments.

We convince ourselves that everyone noticed the joke that didn't land or the story that wasn't particularly interesting. Meanwhile, most other people are doing the exact same thing internally. They're busy worrying about themselves. They're not spending nearly as much time judging you

as you imagine they are. Many of us are making decisions based on imagined rejection rather than any actual rejection. We meet someone we genuinely enjoy and immediately begin creating a story about what they're thinking.

We tell ourselves they're probably too busy. We convince ourselves they wouldn't want to spend time with someone like me. And then we act on that story as though it's a fact. Imagine applying that logic somewhere else in life.

Imagine wanting to start a business but never telling anyone

because they might not like the idea. Imagine wanting to get healthier but never going to the gym because someone might stare at you. Imagine wanting to pursue a romantic anexion but never asking them out because they might say no we do all of these things.

Most of us would recognize that as fear, disguised as logic. Yet when it comes to friendship we do it all the time. And one thing I've noticed is that loneliness has a way of commencing you. It's permanent.

You stop saying I don't have close friends right now and you start saying I'm someone who struggles with friendship. That mentality is incredibly dangerous. Because once something becomes part of your identity you stop experimenting.

You stop reaching out because it no longer feels like you're trying something. It feels like you're trying to become someone you're not. But almost every socially connected person you admire has had reasons where they feel exactly the same. They move cities, friends got married, work became busy,

kids arrived, communities changed.

The difference isn't that they never experienced loneliness.

The difference is they never let loneliness become their identity. They treated it more like hunger. Hunger isn't who you are. It's a signal that something needs attention. Loneness works the same way.

“And this is why I believe this third shift is so important.”

The goal isn't to become more charming. The goal isn't to become more interesting. The goal is to stop assuming you've already been rejected before you've given someone the opportunity to choose. The reality is they probably like you much more than you even realize.

Once you stop making decisions based on imagined outcomes, something changes. One of my favorite quotes from Charles Houghton Kruly, which he said in the 1890s, "Is the challenge today is I'm not what I think I am.

I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am." Let that blow your mind for a moment. He said, "The challenge today is I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am.

I am what I think you think I am." Which means we live in a perception of a perception of ourselves.

“Let me break it down. What it means is if I think you think I'm smart,”

then I allow myself to feel smart. But if I think you think I'm desperate, then I feel desperate. We let what we think are this think of us. Define how we feel about ourselves. When in reality we have no idea what they're thinking.

So when you're thinking someone's not into you, not connected to you, not caring about you, not wanting to spend time with you. Chances are you're just projecting your belief system onto their thoughts and then reflecting them back to you. When you break that pattern, you become more willing to reach out.

More willing to invite, more willing to follow up, more willing to let other people decide how they feel instead of deciding for them. So now let's say you do reach out.

Now how do you turn this into a real friendship?

“That's what I want to talk about next because the fourth shift is this.”

Stop looking for chemistry and start looking for repetition. I think one of the biggest myths we carry into adulthood is the idea that friendship should feel instant. We meet someone once and then immediately ask ourselves a series of questions. Did we click? Did we have chemistry almost becomes like dating?

Did the conversation flow naturally? Did it feel special, right? It's like why we're getting romantic? Did I leave feeling cared about? And while those questions are not necessarily wrong,

they're often distracting us from what actually creates friendship in the first place.

One of the most interesting studies on friendship was conducted by researcher Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas. He wanted to understand how friendships actually form and what he found surprised a lot of people. His research found that moving from acquaintance to casual friend

requires roughly 50 hours of shared time. Moving from casual friend to actual friend takes closer to 90 hours. Developing a close relationship can require more than 200 hours together. When I first read that, it completely changed the way I thought about friendship because most people are wondering why they haven't built deeper relationships.

But if they're honest, they haven't actually spent enough time with anyone. Friendship isn't built through a single interaction. Friendship is built through accumulation. It's built through seeing each other enough times that trust has a chance to grow.

Think about your closest friends. The people you would call when something goes wrong. The people who have seen multiple versions of you over the years. How did those friendships begin? For most people, the answer isn't particularly dramatic.

Maybe you work together? Maybe you are roommates? Maybe you sat next to each other in class? Maybe you played on the same team? You kept running into each other.

The friendship wasn't born from one incredible conversation. It was born from repeated exposure over time. There's actually a psychological concept called the "mear exposure" effect, which suggests that we tend to develop more positive feelings toward people and things simply because they become familiar to us.

For familiarity creates comfort. comfort lowers barriers and once those barriers come down, connection has room to grow.

“That's why some of the strongest friendships in our lives”

started in surprisingly ordinary ways. Not because we immediately recognize each other as soulmates, but because life kept putting us in the same room.

The problem is that adulthood rarely requires the conditions

to find yourself in the same room as new friends over and over. That's why it's not enough just to put yourself out there once. You need to be the one to check back in, make plans again, and find ways to keep showing up for each other. Here's a question I want you to start asking yourself.

Instead of asking, "Did we click?" Try asking, "Would I enjoy seeing this person again?" That's a much simpler question. It's also a much more useful one. Because friendship doesn't usually emerge

from one unforgettable meeting. It emerges from 20 ordinary conversations. It emerges from enough shared experiences that eventually forms a foundation. One coffee becomes three, one lunch becomes ten,

one conversation after a workout becomes a standing Saturday walk. One interaction eventually turns into a friendship because both people keep showing up.

“That's how most meaningful relationships are built.”

Not through intensity, but through consistency.

This is also why recurring activities are so powerful.

Walking groups, running clubs, volunteer organizations, religious spiritual communities, sports leagues, book clubs, fitness classes, creative workshops. The activity itself isn't the point. The repetition is, you keep showing up.

They keep showing up. For familiarity turns into comfort. Conflict turns into trust, trust eventually turns into deep friendship. One thing that is definitely not helping our loneliness crisis is the way social media has distorted our expectations of relationships.

Because we only see the finished product. We see the group trips, the inside jokes, the wedding photos, the birthday celebrations, what we don't see are the hundreds of hours that came before those moments. We don't see the casual conversations.

The repeated lunches, the random text messages, or the small interactions that slowly built trust over time. We don't see the early stages with someone embraced being a little awkward in the pursuit of connection. We compare someone's fully formed friendship

to our first interaction with the stranger.

One piece of advice I give people is to stop just trying to meet people

“and start trying to become a regular somewhere.”

There's something incredibly powerful

about being a familiar face. Go to the same coffee shop every Saturday morning. The same yoga class every Tuesday. The same farm as market every weekend. The same dog park.

The same volunteer organisation. For familiarity slowly removes the pressure to impress. The first time you see someone, you introduce yourself. The fifth time you wave. The tenth time you're making jokes.

The 20th time you're grabbing lunch afterwards. Friendship isn't usually bill because someone had incredible social skills. It's billed because someone kept coming back. Now before we move on, let's do a quick recap.

The first shift was understanding that the systems to build friendship may have disappeared. But friendship itself hasn't changed. The second shift was recognizing that fear keeps many of us from acting on opportunities that already exist.

The third shift was learning that people probably like us more than we think they do. And the fourth shift is understanding that friendship is built through repetition, not instant chemistry. If you've been listening closely, you may have noticed something. Every shift we've talked about so far requires one thing, initiative.

Because at some point, if you want a community,

“you have to stop waiting for someone else to build it,”

which brings us to the fifth and final shift. Stop waiting for a community and start creating one. One of the most common things people say is, "I wish I had a bigger friend group. They wish they had more friends to travel with,

grab dinner with, celebrate birthdays with, or call when life gets hard. The desire is almost universal. Most people want belonging. Most people want connection.

Most of us, we want community.

The problem is that everyone wants to attend the dinner party,

but very few people want to host it. And I understand why, hosting requires effort, organizing requires vulnerability, initiating creates the possibility that other people might say no. It's so much easier to sit back and hope someone else creates the thing you're looking for.

It's so much easier to wait for an invitation than it is to send one. But the reality is, in most communities, there is almost always a connector behind the scenes. Someone starts the group chat. Someone plans the birthday dinner.

Someone organizes the annual trip. Someone remembers to invite the new person. Someone sends the follow-up text whenever one gets busy. Someone creates the opportunities

that everyone else eventually enjoys. And what's fascinating is that person does not have to be the most charismatic person in the room. They don't need to be the funniest, the coolest, or the most popular. They simply need to be the person who decided to take responsibility

for creating the thing they wished existed at the world. One of the most striking findings in the US Surgeon General's report on loneliness isn't simply that people are spending more time alone. It's that we're participating in fewer shared experiences than we used to. Fewer community groups, fewer neighbourhood organisations,

fewer volunteer clubs, fewer religious gatherings, fewer places where you see the same faces every Tuesday night without having to schedule it three weeks in advance. The report describes the steady erosion of social infrastructure. In many ways, we've become incredibly efficient

at living parallel lives. We order groceries without seeing a cashier. We work remotely. We stream movies instead of going to the theatres. We exercise with headphones on.

We consume content created by thousands of people while rarely sharing our own experiences with the person next to us. We've redesigned life so that almost everything can be done alone.

The problem is that human beings weren't built to thrive in isolation.

The Surgeon General's advisory went so far as to compare the health risks of chronic social isolation to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

“So maybe the question isn't, why don't I have community?”

Maybe the better question is, where in my week can I create a space for consistent belonging, because belonging doesn't come from one conversation. It comes from being expected somewhere, from seeing familiar faces, from becoming a regular. We don't just need more friends in our lives.

We also need more places where life happens together. If we want community and connection, we have to create consistent opportunities for it ourselves.

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Healthcare just got less painful. I know what some people are thinking. Jay, I'm not trying to become the mayor of my neighborhood, right? I'm not trying to get votes. And I'm not suggesting you host elaborate events,

or that you suddenly become responsible for 50 people social lives and take all of that on. It actually starts much smaller than most people imagine. Maybe you start doing biweekly happy hour with your coworkers. Maybe you and a couple of friends go to the same workout class every Thursday night. Maybe you start a book club that meets every other month.

Maybe you join a kickball league or a pickleball league. You join a pottery workshop. You join an improv course. Whatever it is, you just need to find one recurring opportunity for people to spend time with you. That's how real community begins.

A friend of mine has started hosting dinner every Wednesday night. Nothing fancy. No themes. No costumes. No part is like a crazy to plan.

People can come if they want.

And if they can't make it, there's always next week.

Over time, this simple dinner has become one of the most meaningful parts of dozens of people's lives. Not because every conversation is profound or because every meal is unforgettable, but because it's consistent. People know it exists. They know they belong.

They know there is always a place for them.

“And I think that's what many adults are actually missing.”

They're missing places where they know they'll be welcomed. They're missing relationships that don't come with uncertainty. They're missing communities where showing up feels natural rather than complicated. Think back to some of the happiest seasons of your life. Maybe it was childhood, maybe it was college, maybe it was your first job.

What did those seasons have in common? Usually, there was a place to go, people to see and a sense that you belong there. You didn't have to wonder whether you were welcome. The structure itself created connection, the challenge of adulthood, is that when those structures disappear, we aren't incentivized to rebuild them.

I remember when I moved to New York and then I moved to LA, this was a big priority for me. I realized that I couldn't just build my career. I actually had to build my community as well. And I remember focusing on developing friendships that weren't work-related. Focus on building relationships that had nothing to do with building my career. Focus on becoming friends with people that would ensure that I had support and connection

as my career grew as opposed to just having friends that were in my life because of work. And it was effort. It was hard. It required me to carve out time. It required me to make time. It required me to be there when someone needed me. But it made such a big difference in the long term.

“And I remember telling the way, I think we'd make great friends, let's hang.”

It was awkward to say it, but I said it. I remember reaching out to people and saying, "Hey, I'd love to grab a coffee together just to get to know each other, know each other, know each other, and I genuinely had no agenda." I think when you actually have no other intention, but to connect with someone, people feel it,

and they sense it, and they respond to it. And here's what I wanted to remember.

The goal is not to become everyone's best friend. It's not about being a people pleaser. The goal is not to create the perfect social circle. The goal is simply to become the kind of person who goes first. The kind of person who reaches out. The kind of person who invites. The kind of person who follows up. The kind of person who is willing to care before they

have any guarantee that the effort will be returned. None of these five shifts require you to become a different person. None of them require you to be more outgoing, more charismatic, or more extraverted. They simply require you to be a little more intentional, a little more courageous, a little more willing to act before you feel completely ready.

“Remember, that person I asked you to think about at the beginning of this episode?”

The co-worker, the neighbor, the Jim Buddy, the parent from school, or familiar face you've been meaning to get to know better? I want you to think about them again. Because this is where this stops being theory and starts becoming action. I want you to send the text. Not next week, not when you're feeling more confident, not when the timing feels more perfect. Today, right now, keep it simple.

Hey, let's hang out. Let's grab a coffee. Hey, are you free for dinner? That's it. No overthinking. No rewriting the message 10 times. No trying to perfect the emoji in the full stop.

It's built through the small moments. It's built through invitations, follow-ups,

“and repeated acts of showing up. Every meaningful friendship in your life started.”

Because someone took that first step. Even if neither of you remembers who it was anymore.

And yes, sometimes people will say no. Sometimes they'll be busy. And sometimes the connection won't

“develop into anything deeper. But that isn't failure. That's simply part of the journey in the process.”

The people with the strongest communities aren't the people who never experience rejection.

They're the people who refuse to let rejection stop them from trying again.