3 important pieces of advice to help you make friends after 30

Finding a friend now is way harder than in my 20s or my teens. I wonder why?

When we were children we were always making friends. We would go into a playground, find someone on the same jigsaw we would want to play with, ask them “Do you wanna be friends?”, they would answer “yes!”, and that would be it. We’ve just made a friend.

In the teens was a bit harder, but we would have the colleagues from the school, or the neighbors, or a mix of them and we would create a gang. With the gang, we would have enough courage to take other people and create new friends.

In our early 20s, it was also easy. Parties, explorations, and openness. Always meeting new people and always getting into situations when we would interact with people and we would just create bonds. Bonds would lead to friendships.

It got harder after the second half of our 20’. Maybe after we are 28.

We finished college, we found a job, we, maybe, started a family. We have chores, children, plans, and bills. We don’t have time for friends. If we are lucky, we ended up with a couple of them from our early years. We use them to hang out for board games on some of the weekends. But that is it.

We don’t invest time into friendship, we don’t prioritize it. The thing is, friendship is very important. Our friends listen to us, help us feel important, make us feel needed and that we belong. These feelings are essential for us. Their absence, for hundreds of thousands of years, would mean that we do not have the protection of a tribe. Would mean certain death.

This association makes us depressed when we are alone and friends are the ones that can save us from it.

How to make friends after 30?

Making friends after you are 30 can be hard. It might require you to change your priorities and the way you think. The thing is that it is worth it. Like everything that makes us feel better, it requires energy.

First, get out of your comfort zone. Be brave, engage, talk with people. I know it is hard. It is hard to get out when it is easier to stay home and watch Netflix. But this is healthier, and you know it.

Make making friends a priority.

Yes, a priority. The key here is to find people with similar preferences as close to you as possible. Look for groups that like the same things that you like and engage. Subscribe to them, send them messages, see them in real life, show them what you like, ask about them in return.

A lot of these groups do life meetings, where they go out for a drink or a hike or something similar. This is why it’s important to have them close to you. This way you can join their gatherings and make physical connections with them. these connections are the most important. Offer them your energy and show them that you are interested in their energy. Ask, be curious, listen. And this can be easy because you are in a group that likes something that you like, right?

Second, share. Share and be vulnerable. Open up, have faith. The first way you gain someone’s trust is if you show you trust them.

Be brave and open up.

People love to help so offer them the possibility to help you. And accept their help. That makes you stronger. By opening up, you show the other person that you are trustworthy, and do not have anything to hide. People don’t want to hurt you. If you open up, the worst thing that can happen is that the other person would not open back to you. That is ok. It means that they did not read this article and you can point them here 😅. Next time they’re gonna open like a book 📖.

Thirdly, don’t take it personally. If you don’t get along with someone, it’s ok. Friends need to match with each other. Seek similar stories, support similar superstars, say similar sentences.

If that doesn't happen it’s ok.

There is nothing wrong with you and there is nothing wrong with the other person.

Talk with someone else. People are different and that is beautiful. You are different and that makes you beautiful. It is ok and you can keep searching. Friends shouldn’t change for you and you shouldn’t change for them. That is the beauty of friendship. You accept and are accepted.

If you want to learn what is it that is important to you, so you know what to look for in friends check out this article:

If you feel afraid to try any of the steps maybe this article will help you get past your fear.

If you are curious about how can a friend help you then read this article. It will show you how you can always learn from friends.

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