Making Friends

Since leaving secondary school there is one thing I seem to struggle with the most, making friends.

Making friends as an adult is difficult. At school, you have the people you grew up with and moved up with each school year, if they made a new friend so did you. You might have had a group, or you just had those two loyal friends that you had since you were young.

I have found different ways to make friends since leaving school…

Work

One is at your place of work, the place you spend more than half your time in the week, and the people you’re around the most, work friends are great as you don’t have to find time to meet up because you’re around them for several hours in the day. You can catch up while working and if your shifts end at the same time you can plan to go out afterwards.

Clubs or Community Groups

Next is joining a community group, something that you find enjoyment in, it could be your hobbies, like a book club, knitting club, or netball. These groups are great as you already have a common ground with them as you both enjoy similar activities.

School

Then you have your higher education, whether that’s college, university, or night classes. The people with who you spend time within the classroom are always a great place to look for friends because as time goes on most of the time you start to learn more about the people, their lives outside of the classroom, and their hobbies.

In my university there are things called societies, they are run and set up by students. Each society has its own theme, from art to football. This way people who join the society know that the people who attend that society have a similar interest as them.

It's okay to be scared 

Social anxiety is difficult when making friends, building up the nerve to have an actual conversation with a human being is scary and that’s okay, you’re opening yourself up to a stranger. Once you’ve got all the awkward questions out of the way and have found some common ground it will start to feel less scary, and the conversations will come more naturally!

Finding common ground seems to be the thing that comes up most when I speak about this subject. This is because you won’t find friends just sitting around at home watching TV, trust me I’ve tried.

At the end of the day, it’s okay to be scared and anxious, just remind yourself that that person you’re trying to befriend properly feels the same way you do. I hope this has helped in some way.