How to Make Friends as an Adult: The Ultimate Guide
Here are 11 unique methods I used to make friends while traveling solo around the world.
Making friends is a lot harder once you graduate from further education. You’re no longer surrounded by peers with similar interests. You’re no longer being invited to dorm parties on a Wednesday evening. Soon enough, your college buddies will be too busy with their careers and families.
I’ve been travelling the world solo for five years. During this time, I tested some unconventional methods for making new friends and a lot of them were very effective. Below, I’ve listed 11 of these methods and how I utilized them to make amazing new friends.
This guide assumes you’re already a likeable person with good social skills. It focuses purely on how to meet new people and make them want to hang out with you.
1. Have a regular event to invite people to
This is the MOST IMPORTANT tip. Making friends becomes so much easier when you can invite people to a fun regular event.
When I lived in Lima, I found an Airbnb apartment where I could throw house parties. While living in Jakarta, I befriended a DJ who hosted weekly pool parties. In Playa Del Carmen, I would invite all my friends and everyone I met to the same bar every Friday.
When you do something similar, you’re no longer just a friendly person. Now, you’re a friendly person with some value to offer. Suddenly, you have a valid reason to swap social media details with people you just met. You can use social media to show off your events and send invitations. It’s the most effective way to stay connected and build friendships.
2. Have something to offer
If you don’t have a regular event, it’s more difficult to find reasons to hang out with people several times. However, it becomes easier if you have something valuable to offer. Maybe you have a DSLR camera and half-decent photography skills. Perhaps you have access to one-off events or other scarce resources. Something that other people might want!
Perhaps you don’t want to have to offer anything or arrange an event. Maybe you just want to make friends because you’re a nice person. That’s possible, of course. The thing is: a lot of people already have nice friends. These people will be less motivated to invest in a friendship with a complete stranger.
When you have something to offer, it gives others an incentive to make that initial investment in you. From there, they’ll (hopefully) enjoy your company and become your friend because you’re a cool person. If you don’t have anything to offer, perhaps it’s time you learned a new skill.
3. Join a sports team
As soon as I knew I was moving to London, I searched online for a football team to join. Upon finding one, I knew I could tick the ‘make new friends’ box on my to-do list.
As a team, you quickly bond over shared struggles and accomplishments. Plus, in the UK, there’s an established culture of drinking with your teammates after the game.
If team sports aren’t your thing, you can always meet people at group classes. Yoga classes tend to have a friendly atmosphere and a lot of regulars. Boxing or martial arts classes are great too. For whatever reason, men tend to want to bond after a heavy sparring session.
4. Join a club or a regular event
If you live in a big city, it’s likely there are plenty of regular social events being staged near you all the time. You can find these by checking websites like MeetUp, Eventbrite or Facebook Events. Type your hobby into the search bar and these websites will load a list of related events in your home city.
The great thing about these types of events is that most people are actively looking to make new friends. Plus, you’ll have at least one shared interest to help start your conversation.
I’ve used these websites to find language exchange events across the world. These are particularly good for making new friends. Some attendees only want to practice their speaking, but most go to have a good time and meet new people.
5. Use the Couchsurfing app
Couchsurfing is an online community for budget-conscious travellers and homeowners willing to host them for free. However, its app also has a feature called ‘Hangouts’, for users who want to make new friends. To use this feature, post an advert suggesting what you want to do, or respond to someone else’s ad saying you want to join them.
Couchsurfing recently introduced a monthly subscription, but I met a few people using this app when it was free. I’d still recommend it over other apps like Bumble BFF, which has been widely ridiculed for being so ineffective.
6. Use online groups to find friends in the real world
There was a time when meeting someone you met on the internet was weird. Now, it’s the number one way to find a date.
You can easily find friends using online groups too. Type your city’s name into the search bar of Facebook’s ‘Groups’ tab and you’re likely to find plenty of options. Expat and digital nomad groups are normally packed with people looking for friends to join them in certain activities.
Game Global is an online network for single men to make friends and discuss the wider aspects of dating in their city. It has Facebook and Telegram groups for 300+ cities across the globe, and guys use them to find friends to go out with all the time.
7. Leverage your friends to make more friends
Encourage your existing friends to invite other people when you hang out together. When you meet these new people, swap social media details and build a stronger friendship from there.
If you have a friend who’s no longer available to hang out, ask if they have any other buddies they can introduce. When my friends know someone who lives in a city I’m travelling to, they often offer to make an introduction. Perhaps yours can do the same thing.
8. Use dating apps to find friends
No, it’s not recommended to tell your Tinder and Hinge matches that you’re only looking for friends. I’ve found two far more effective ways to make friends using dating apps.
The first way is to attract matches who love to party, and have your date at the bar with their friends. This makes it more difficult to hook up, so we’re assuming new friends are your priority here. Befriend those friends, add them on social media and invite them to the next party you’re attending.
The second way is to invite all your online dating matches to your weekly event, instead of one-on-one dates. Let them know that it’s a party and ask them to bring their friends. This makes it harder to hook up with all your matches, but once again we’re assuming making friends is your priority.
9. Keep going to the same venue
When you go to the same venue many times, it becomes easy to build real friendships with other regulars. Start a conversation about your shared love of the venue. Discover other things you have in common. Swap contact details under the premise that you’ll invite these people the next time you go there.
Provided you’re a cool and respectful person, it should be possible to make connections with the owners too. Perhaps they’ll eventually grant some sort of VIP access for you and your friends. In that case, you’d have an event and something to offer the new people you meet.
10. Run Instagram ads
Instagram is an amazing tool to connect you with people in your city who have similar interests to you. Back in the day, you could make posts with relevant hashtags and people would find you. That’s rarely the case now. However, you can reach thousands of people by converting your profile into a business account and posting adverts.
Instagram ads can target people with specific interests in specific areas. I wouldn’t recommend posting an ad asking people to follow you or be your friend. Instead, make a fun post asking a question related to the interest you’re targeting. Hopefully, people will DM you the answer and you can build the conversation from there.
This can work no matter who you are and what you have to offer. If you’re an introvert looking for a new regular chess opponent, you can use Instagram ads to find people who love board games!
For the best results, build a profile that showcases your life and everything you have to offer as a friend. The cooler your profile, the more likely other people will want to hang out with you.
11. Stay present
So many people navigate the modern world with their faces buried in a smartphone and ears blocked by headphones. If you want to make more friends, a better idea would be to remain alert to the world around you. You’ll see more opportunities to make smalltalk, and who knows what that could blossom into? I met my ex-girlfriend in a queue for ramen noodles. My coaching partner met his ex at a pet store. This gave us months of happiness, and we’re both still friends with people we met through these women.
Although society is more anti-social than ever, most people are still open to conversations when you approach them respectfully. Using the power of a strong Instagram and a fun event, it’s possible to turn these short conversations into lasting friendships.
My articles teach young men how to escape their comfort zones, improve their mental health and make better dating decisions. Follow me on Medium for more useful advice.