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Making Friends as an Adult

Paraducks

This is, perhaps, not the best place to ask this question but maybe if we bang rocks together we can make sparks.

It feels like when you're an adult, your opportunities for socialising in general begin to fall off a cliff-edge. I was having a chat with my parents about it recently, and they expressed a similar sentiment: "Most of my friends are from work. I don't really have the time to look for new ones anymore." It feels like that's where I am at right now, twenty odd years earlier than them in the timeline. 

I was curious if that is the experience many of our older folks on this forum experienced as well? Obviously the struggles of being Autistic doesn't help our case in any way, but I can't help but think this might be a universal issue among people just in general now that so many of our relationships are conducted through the screen. (Heck, i'm even asking for help online right now!)

I'm happy to bring up where I think Autism plays a role in this in replies, but i'm curious on how people try to make friends once they have left higher education. (College/Uni)

Parents

  • I agree with the advice of others about hobby groups. Of the two active friendships I think I have, one I regularly invite around my home to play video games, the other I try to watch movies with. I also have a group of people I play board games with. Having the activity as well means I don't have to focus solely on talking, something else can help drive the conversation if I get stuck.

    I'm actually going to try something new tomorrow, going to a meetup around films and will (hopefully) talk to some new people. I'm very nervous about it because I've never met this group before, going on my own and won't be familiar with anyone. I've been writing down in my journal notes to remind me of things I could say. But I've also tried to focus on the positive things too - like I said, it's a group around a common theme/activity, so that should help me with conversation starters. I also found I just had to say I'd do it and then worry about how it was going to work later, otherwise I would have just dithered forever about it and not done anything. Sometimes you just need to take a deep breath and go for it.

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  • I agree with the advice of others about hobby groups. Of the two active friendships I think I have, one I regularly invite around my home to play video games, the other I try to watch movies with. I also have a group of people I play board games with. Having the activity as well means I don't have to focus solely on talking, something else can help drive the conversation if I get stuck.

    I'm actually going to try something new tomorrow, going to a meetup around films and will (hopefully) talk to some new people. I'm very nervous about it because I've never met this group before, going on my own and won't be familiar with anyone. I've been writing down in my journal notes to remind me of things I could say. But I've also tried to focus on the positive things too - like I said, it's a group around a common theme/activity, so that should help me with conversation starters. I also found I just had to say I'd do it and then worry about how it was going to work later, otherwise I would have just dithered forever about it and not done anything. Sometimes you just need to take a deep breath and go for it.

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