Adult Friendships & Autumnal Vibes
A sentiment I’ve heard a lot as I’ve hit my thirties is that it’s hard to make new friends as an adult. Everyone is reaching new milestones in adult life and every day is a bustling mess of appointments, meetings, trying to keep up with exercise, meal prepping, etc - and then for some people, you add children to the mix. It’s really easy to let life get away and to forget the game of catching up with old friends, let alone trying to form budding relationships with new ones. I can very much understand the sentiment that making friends is hard but I actually cannot really relate to it! For me, making friends has always been easy because I’m what I like to call an “inviter”. And I have been my whole life. I will invite you to any event or include you even if we just met. But the challenge no matter how easy or hard making friends might be, is creating long-lasting, fulfilling friendships. And for that, it takes consistent effort.
Effort is one of those things that looks different for everyone and that’s what makes it hard to sustain friendships and relationships in general. Life gets so busy. Partners and kids take priority. Wedding and baby season comes into full swing and people forget how to show up for themselves and their friendships. I won’t argue that sometimes you just can’t make it all work, especially with jobs being longer hours and more exhausting, people making less money than ever before, and potentially even needing multiple jobs - it’s hard out there for sure. But if you are someone who is longing for a “girl gang” or looking around wishing you had more friends to turn to when things do wind down - stop right now and go ask a friend to grab some coffee!
Practice the art of invitation. When I listen to people talk about friendships and relationships, it always sounds like people are too afraid to be more invested than the other person. The idea of “reaching out more than them” is high on everyone’s mind and I get that. If it’s always you, then they aren’t showing effort and that’s an imbalance. But is it actually always you? Are either of you really doing the inviting? Have you even hung out recently? Or are days, months, or years passing by because you just don’t want to look more interested? I challenge you to take on the role of being more invested. Make a plan. Throw a dinner party. Find a cool restaurant you want to try. And then just invite people. Reach out, send the details, and go for it. It’s ok to be the friend with the plan who does the inviting. The important thing is to ask yourself if you enjoy the connection and the time spent once the plan comes together. It’s not a bad thing to be the glue that gets everyone together!
In my mind - the only downside to not getting reciprocation is that you’re in the same place you were before. Nobody is sitting there saying “Ugh she always invites me to things and I don’t want to go”. Believe me. It’s just people prioritizing other things, which is fine. And that’s life. But it’s always worth trying.
Autumn hit me a bit hard this year. It’s been so busy and now we’re heading right into the holiday season with seemingly no breaks in sight but I’ve also been doing so much in the friendship department. Dinners, group chats, cookbook clubs - give me all of it. I’m a fall girl completely at heart so as the leaves changed this year, it brought me back to when I first moved to Providence in Sept 2019. It was such a new beginning for me and I approached it with the biggest open heart that I could. When I started to see the pops of gold in the trees in that first month of being up here in New England, I started making connections that have fully changed my life, including meeting my now fiancé. I leaned into all of it so hard because I wanted to make roots here and I was excited to meet new people and try all the new things. Autumn is such a special time of year for me.
Utilize social media. The biggest factor for making friends in a new city as I approached my thirties was using Instagram to my full advantage. I looked for people with active accounts, nice photos, lovers of food or travel, with interesting things to say, and I followed them. It unfolded over a couple of years but it’s been a rolling ball ever since. I found people by seeing them in restaurant reposts or tagged in photos of food or snapshots of New England foliage. I looked for people to follow intentionally because I like to follow others who make content I enjoy but also because it’s a social platform. I wanted to eventually chat with these people and hopefully become friends! And from there, I just genuinely reached out over time. I would reply to stories or comment with my actual thoughts and just offer a branch of connection. If it ever became mutual, with them following back and also making comments and replies - I would just ask them out! Ha! It’s honestly like dating. I’d offer a cool new restaurant or grab coffee at a spot we’ve mutually posted about. Whatever it was. But I made my move! And I’d say 85% of the time, it worked out well. Sometimes I would meet someone and we would never hang out again because it was not mutual enough aka they never put in the effort or it would be an endless chat of “we should totally get together!” with that person never making time for it. And that’s all good. I never take that personally (which is key) and it just means they’re not my people. No harm, no foul.
For most of my life, I’ve been someone who brings others together. I have multiple friend groups now that are made up of friends from all different directions, who have now become friends as well. I think sometimes people get upset when they bring friends together and they hang out “without you”, but I love it! It’s so nice to be able to introduce people to new friends and give them more connections, especially as women. For years I had wanted a dinner party club or some type of supper club but getting people together regularly is pretty difficult at this age so I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to do something like that. Earlier this year, my friend Kim brought up the idea of a cookbook club and I was fully on board. We’re now about to have our sixth session this month and I’m ecstatic we’ve been able to keep it up every month. I think it’s a true testament to finding friends who believe it’s an important thing to get together and also who enjoy each other. It is a priority for the group to make time for this each month by changing things around or chatting to find the best date for everyone’s schedule. I’m really grateful for these experiences and these gals. I hope we can make it happen for many years to come.
Now that we’re moving into the holiday season and things are going to be soo busy for most people - I urge you to do something cozy with a friend during that downtime of winter after Christmas and New Year’s. It could be as much as renting a lil’ cabin with some friends in another state or as small as finding a cute café with great hot chocolate and chatting about the holidays with a friend right in town. Invest in creating a community around you because as the world changes, we’re all less and less connected. Keeping up on socials isn’t enough interaction to be fulfilled (for most people) and it’s not going to provide the support we all need as life gets harder and we get older. The emphasis on individualism, especially in the US, doesn’t do any of us any favors, so we should all take the time - as little or as much as we can give - to really put effort into the people we want in our lives for the long term. It’s okay, and normal, if friendships don’t last forever as people and priorities change over time but all you can do is try your hardest to keep those connections alive in your life. Thanks for reading and now go make a plan with a friend, new or old. It could even be me :-)