Making friends as an adult. Such a fun experience that we all love to have. Not. I’m so jealous of everyone that found their tribe in secondary school or uni or any organised space where you meet and are forced to share a space with a large group of people. When you start really adulting, it becomes harder and harder to make new friends. There’s even a BFF feature on Bumble! Making friends is almost as hard as making new romantic connections and sometimes even more daunting.
I’ve written about shooting friendship shots and I’ve also had people ask if we can be friends and with that long list of credentials, here is my guide to getting the best results.
Try and establish a connection first
Whether you meet IRL or online, try and establish a mutual connection before any further steps. If you follow someone on socials, try and engage with their content first and build up a rapport before you ask to be friends. It sounds straightforward but I’ve people I’ve never talked to, ask to be friends. It’s cute, but it’s way less pressure to interact with someone’s content first.
If your first meeting is in real life, make sure you had a good conversation first before you ask for a number or their socials.
This is probably the most important thing and where I’ve made the most mistakes in trying to be friends. I haven’t always had the patience to try and work towards something organic and truthfully, most of the shots I’ve taken by coming in too hot have had the worst outcomes.
Don’t try and do too much too soon
Even though the nervousness and trepidation might mirror the start of a romantic relationship, you’re trying to build a completely different kind of relationship with completely different dynamics. You’ll get better results out of growing the connection that you have wherever you have it, before moving forward to another step.
If it reads like I’m just repeating the first point, it’s because I basically am. It’s that important! Think of shooting your shot as creating an opening for a relationship to develop instead of an outright ask.
Don’t do it if you’re not prepared to do most of the heavy lifting to start
So you’ve said “hey I think you’re cool, let’s be friends” and the other person is like “oh that’s nice, let’s” and then you have nothing to say next. If you’re not prepared to do the heavy lifting to get things going, don’t reach out.
Keep your expectations low
Adulting is adulting and forming new relationships takes time. Just because you’re getting on doesn’t mean that their life will suddenly open up to you. There might still be parties with no invite and parts of their life you have no access to to start with- if the friendship develops, those parts of their life will start to open up to you.
Rejection doesn’t make either of you a bad person
Sometimes, the feeling isn’t mutual and sometimes the chemistry isn’t there. We don’t have the proper language to articulate that we don’t want a friendship with someone in the way we do when we don’t want a romantic relationship, but that doesn’t make it less true. It’s a brave thing to put yourself out there in seeking friendship but that doesn’t mean you’ll get what you want, and the same goes for the other side- you don’t have to be friends with someone just because they want to be friends with you.
I wish you the best in this finding friend journey!