How to Make Friends as an Adult Without Being Weird About It

When I was seven years old, I walked up to a kid on the playground and said "do you want to be friends?" and he said "yeah" and we were friends for twelve years. That was it. The entire negotiation took four seconds. No follow-up emails. No checking calendars. No wondering if we were "actually friends" or just "people who know each other." We were friends because we said we were, and then we went and threw rocks at a puddle.

I'm 31 now. I moved to a new city two years ago for work. I knew exactly one person here -- a college buddy who, as it turns out, works 60 hours a week and has a girlfriend who schedules their social calendar three weeks in advance. I see him roughly once a month, usually for a rushed dinner where he checks his phone fourteen times.

So I needed friends. And I discovered something that nobody warns you about: making friends as an adult man is one of the most socially awkward experiences of modern life. It's like dating apps but without the clear objective. At least on a dating app, everyone knows why they're there. Trying to make a friend at 31 is like trying to ask someone out without being able to say what you're asking them out for.

Why It's So Hard (It's Not Just You)

First, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room: making friends as an adult is universally difficult, and if you're struggling with it, you're in the majority, not the minority.

Studies keep coming out about the loneliness epidemic among men, and every time I read one, I think "yeah, that tracks." Men are especially bad at this because we were socialized to believe that needing social connection is a weakness, that real men are lone wolves, and that admitting you're lonely is roughly equivalent to admitting you still sleep with a night light. None of that is true, of course, but it's baked into the firmware.

When you're in school, friendships happen automatically because you're forced into proximity with the same people for hours every day. Same thing with college. You don't have to try to make friends because the environment manufactures friendship opportunities for you. You sit next to someone in class, you complain about the homework together, you end up at the same party, and boom -- you're friends.

As an adult, that structure disappears. You go to work, you come home, you repeat. Your coworkers might be friendly, but "work friend" and "actual friend" are different things, and the gap between them is a canyon most people never cross. Your existing friends are scattered across different cities, time zones, and life stages. Some got married. Some had kids. Some just... drifted, the way adults drift, slowly and without anyone noticing until suddenly it's been eight months since you talked.

And then there's the logistical nightmare. Even when you meet someone you click with, the process of turning that into a friendship requires scheduling, which requires both people to have free time on the same day, which requires a level of calendar coordination that rivals planning a military operation.

The Uncomfortable Truth: You Have to Be the Initiator

Here's the thing that changed everything for me, and I hated it at first: someone has to make the first move, and that someone has to be you.

I spent my first six months in the new city waiting for friendships to happen to me. Spoiler: they didn't. Nobody knocked on my door and said "hey, you seem cool, want to hang out?" Because that's not how adult life works. The guys who have active social lives are the guys who do the asking -- who suggest the activity, pick the time, and send the follow-up text.

This felt deeply uncomfortable at first. Every time I thought about texting someone I'd met casually and suggesting we grab a beer, my brain would run through a highlight reel of worst-case scenarios. What if they think it's weird? What if they say no? What if they say yes out of politeness and then it's awkward? What if I'm being desperate?

Here's what actually happened every time I sent one of those texts: the person said yes. Every single time. Not because I'm some magnetic personality -- because other adults are also lonely and also want friends and are also waiting for someone else to make the first move. The bar for "being the initiator" is so low it's underground. A simple "hey, want to grab a beer this week?" is all it takes, and the recipient is almost always relieved that someone else did the hard part.

Where to Actually Meet People

Alright, so you need to meet people first before you can befriend them. Here are the places that actually worked for me, ranked by effectiveness.

Join a recreational sports league. This is the number one answer and I hate that it's the number one answer because I'm not particularly athletic. But it works. I joined a casual kickball league through one of those city social sports organizations, fully expecting it to be lame. It was not lame. It was a bunch of adults who also wanted to meet people, using kickball as the excuse. Nobody cared about winning. Everyone cared about the bar afterwards.

Within three weeks, I had a group text going with five guys from the team. Within two months, we were hanging out outside of kickball. One of them became one of my best friends. We've gone on a weekend trip together and I was in the general vicinity of his wedding party. All because I showed up to kick a red rubber ball on a Tuesday night.

Regular fitness classes or a climbing gym. A climbing gym is the ultimate friend-making environment because you literally need a partner. You show up, you need someone to belay you, you start talking. The shared vulnerability of dangling off a wall while a stranger holds your rope creates a bond that's hard to replicate in other settings. I've met more people at the climbing gym in six months than I met at regular gyms in ten years.

Volunteering. This one surprised me. I started volunteering at a food bank on Saturday mornings, not to make friends but because I had free time and felt vaguely guilty about it. But when you spend three hours sorting canned goods next to the same people every week, conversation happens naturally. There's no pressure because you're both focused on a task, which removes the awkwardness of "we're here specifically to socialize." I met two guys there who I now see regularly, and none of us ever formally decided to be friends. It just happened. The way it's supposed to.

Through existing friends (even casual ones). The friend-of-a-friend pipeline is real. My college buddy introduced me to two of his coworkers at a barbecue. One of them and I had almost nothing in common. The other one and I spent 45 minutes talking about a TV show we both loved and exchanged numbers. We've hung out a dozen times since. Don't underestimate the power of showing up to social events where you only know one person. That one person is the gateway.

Not great: bars by yourself. I tried this. I sat at a bar alone and tried to strike up conversations with strangers. It went poorly. Not because people were rude, but because a bar is loud, everyone is already in their groups, and approaching a group of strangers at a bar as a solo dude gives off energy that makes people clutch their drinks a little tighter. I'm not saying it can't work. I'm saying the success rate is about 5%, and the other 95% is you sitting alone pretending to be fascinated by the TV above the bar.

The Follow-Up Is Everything

Meeting someone is step one. The follow-up is where most adult friendships die. You meet a cool person at an event, you exchange numbers, you say "we should hang out sometime," and then neither of you texts because you're both waiting for the other person to go first, and three weeks later the window has closed and the contact sits in your phone forever, a digital ghost of a friendship that never was.

Don't let this happen. Text within 48 hours. Not a week later. Not "sometime." Within 48 hours, while the interaction is still fresh and neither of you has had time to overthink it.

And be specific. Don't say "we should hang out sometime." Say "there's a new brewery opening on Saturday, want to check it out?" Give them a plan to say yes to, not a vague concept to eventually forget about.

The second hangout is the real test. The first time you hang out, the novelty carries the conversation. The second time, you find out if you actually enjoy each other's company or if you were both just performing social pleasantness. If the second hangout goes well, you're on track. If it's forced, that's fine too -- not every person you meet is going to become a close friend, and that's normal.

The Friendship Maintenance Problem

Making friends is hard. Keeping them is harder. Adult friendships require maintenance, which sounds unromantic but is the truth. You have to actively keep in touch, suggest plans, and show up when plans are made.

I have a recurring reminder on my phone -- every Sunday night, it says "text someone you haven't talked to in a while." It takes thirty seconds. I send a text like "hey man, how's it going?" or "saw this thing and thought of you" or just a funny meme. It's small. It matters. It keeps the connection warm so that when I do want to make plans, it's not coming out of nowhere after three months of silence.

The other thing I've learned: be the friend who shows up. If someone invites you to something, go. Even if you're tired. Even if it's not exactly your thing. The act of showing up consistently is what separates acquaintances from friends. People remember who was there, and they invite those people back.

What Not to Do

A few mistakes I made that you don't have to.

Don't dump your entire life story on the first hangout. Keep it light. You're getting a beer, not going to couples therapy. The deep conversations come later, after trust is built. If you tell someone about your childhood trauma during a casual happy hour, you're going to see them find a reason to leave early.

Don't keep score. "I texted last time, so it's their turn." This mentality kills friendships. Some people are bad texters. Some people are busy. If you want to see someone, reach out. If they consistently don't reciprocate over time, sure, that's a signal. But tracking whose "turn" it is to text is a recipe for resentment over nothing.

Don't try to force it. Not everyone you meet will become a friend, and that's fine. Some people you'll click with instantly. Others you'll hang out with twice and realize you have nothing in common. Don't take it personally. It's not rejection -- it's just compatibility, same as dating.

Don't wait until you're desperate. The worst time to try to make friends is when you're deeply lonely and looking for someone to fill a void. People can sense that energy, and it makes interactions feel heavy. Build your social network when things are okay, so it's there when things aren't.

Where I Am Now

Two years in, I have a solid group of about four guys I see regularly and another six or so I see occasionally. That might not sound like a lot, but it's honestly perfect. I have people to watch games with, people to grab dinner with, and people who'll help me move a couch on a Saturday without requiring more than a six-pack as payment.

It took effort. It took swallowing my pride and being the one to text first more times than felt comfortable. It took showing up to things I didn't always feel like attending. It took accepting that adult friendship is a slower, more deliberate process than the instant bonds of childhood.

But I'm not lonely anymore. And honestly, the friendships I've built as an adult feel more intentional and meaningful than the ones I fell into by accident when I was younger. These are people I chose, and who chose me back.

Just don't tell them I wrote this article. They'll never let me hear the end of it.