Welcome to the Living with Empathy Podcast: a podcast that gets us thinking about how we feel towards others and ourselves. I’m your host, Miriam Otero.

 

















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Hello dear listeners. Thanks for tuning in to another episode. I’m so grateful to have you here with me today.

Whether you’d like to admit it or not, making friends as an adult is a lot harder than it was in high school. You may disagree with me on this one, because maybe for you it was super difficult making friends at that age.

What I really mean by that is that when you’re in high school, you’re constantly surrounded by people. Monday through Friday, your job is to learn alongside your peers. Whether you’re grouped up for projects, seated next to one another for the school year, playing sports together or doing a play, you end up finding people to talk to and hang out with for the school year and possibly much longer. 

As a former middle school teacher, I’ll say that I’ve given a lot of thought to groupings and seating arrangements in the past, hoping that a bit of planning on my part would create a great learning environment for my students AND that some friendships would form along the way. 

The thing is, when we get older it’s MUCH more difficult to just find people to talk to. When you’re a teenager, your whole life is your friends, with school coming in at second (sorry parents). As an adult, we have competing priorities: work, school, romantic partners, sleep, exercise, family, friends, and ourselves. It’s a constant juggling act. 

And as I mentioned in earlier episodes, there comes a time when you go through a major shift in your life that often causes you to pause. If not, it usually hits you in the face. 

Either way, one day you end up looking around and realizing that your circle of friends has diminished or possibly disappeared and you’re wondering how to make more.

And that’s usually when the confusion starts.

As adults we tend to think about things a LOT more seriously than we did as kids. I had a student whose parents were concerned that he wouldn’t have any friends that year because his couple of close friends had moved away. Introverted and with slightly more unique interests, it had been hard for him up until that point to make new friends. I worked my seating arrangement magic and within a week, he was just as distracted by his friends as the other middle schoolers who already had friends on the first day of school. 

Yay for him, boo for my classroom management.  

A few years ago after moving back to the states, I went through this change myself. I was back in LA to teach after living abroad, I’d turned 30, and many of my college friends had had major life changes too, like engagements, marriages, and children. They’d also solidified their new lives during the time I had been gone. While I reconnected with some over coffees and lunches, there were others whose priorities didn’t leave room for old friends. And honestly, I found myself struggling to find my place in the whole thing. 

I’m not ashamed to say I Googled how to make friends as an adult; it autocompleted before I could even finish. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one wondering. My search resulted in a plethora of articles with that very title, but I was disappointed when most of them just talked about joining meetups and taking a spin class. That’s gonna be a no from me dawg. This awkward ambivert doesn’t do meetups. And I sure as hell don’t do spin classes.

I closed my computer that night determined to figure this out. It was only a month later that I began to find my footing and by the end of the school year, I was looking around just feeling super grateful to be part of a community again. So this episode is a breakdown of what I’ve learned these last few years in regards to making friends and the framework I use to build community.

Step #1: Identify what you’re looking for

If you’ve listened to the last episode on evaluating your friendships, you’re probably clear already on what’s missing in your life. Are you looking for casual day-to-day friendships? People to have lunch with at work or go to happy hour with after? Or are you lacking deeper connections with people? People who can tell you’re having an off day before you even say one word. Either way, taking a good look at what you’ve got and what you need is the best start.

At the time, I had a solid group of close friends sprinkled around the world and a few at home, but my day-to-day interactions with adults boiled down to asking someone to fix the jammed copy machine. Or smiling and saying good morning, only to realize they’re probably nocturnal creatures who don’t like people talking to them before 8am and coffee. 

Ok... I guess I’ll go hide now. 

I knew that I wanted more meaningful interactions during the week and people to make plans with every other weekend. Step one was clear.

Step #2: How did you make friends as a kid?

Despite being awkward AF in middle school and high school, I had no problem making friends and that’s that I moved cities right as I started middle school and then after spending two years making friends there, the school boundaries changed. I ended up having to go to a completely different high school from where my closest friends went. But it wasn’t long before I had friends there too. 

So how is it that a gawky, insecure middle school/high school girl was able to make friends so easily?

Well, it helps that I look super approachable for one. In fact, it’s the one thing I got 100% on in my teaching surveys. The second thing is that because I was shy, I got really good at listening and asking questions so that the other person would talk more. These days, I know that it’s one of the main tips people give for how to approach networking events or going somewhere alone. I did it as a coping mechanism for discomfort and awkwardness, but have gotten really good at it over time. Eventually, I got over my shyness too. 

It’s no surprise then that on my first day of work in LA, I started just saying hi to people and asking questions. 

I cornered my first victim around the breakfast snacks. Just kidding. Though it is something we talk about now when we look back on that time. She was like, “I just thought you were so nice and were great at making conversation with strangers.” Yep, that’s me? 

That teacher became my first friend at that school and has now been a close friend of mine for the last five years. Which leads me to step three.

Step #3: Start Where You Are

You have to start by being a bit courageous and consistent. For me, it was initiating that first conversation and then continuing to say hi and strike up a conversation every day after that. It was the small gestures like asking if she wanted anything if I was heading across the street for a coffee. It was texting each other if there was left over food up for grabs in the faculty lounge. This is all inside scoop into teaching life, by the way, so you’re welcome. 

I took what was at first a shallow connection and elevated it into a friendship. 

When I coach clients, I often ask, “What’s the simplest step you can take towards your goal?”

When it comes to making friends, you have to take some initiative. This doesn’t mean that if you are a shy, introverted artsy person, that you have to start going to sports meetups every day. It means taking intentional action by identifying what small step you can take that aligns with who you are. 

So, if you are a more introverted and artsy, maybe it’s asking someone to go to an art walk with you or grab coffee together. Keep it simple.

So, now I’m going to suggest three ideas. These align with the start where you are principal that I talked about in step three. 

Download my free friendship guide!

Three Ways to Make New Friends As An Adult

New Friends in Old Spaces

Maybe you’re new to a city, so alumni groups or organizations associated with things you used to be a part of are a great place to start since you already have one thing in common. A coworker of mine told me that when he moved out to LA, he started going to watch