Making New Friends as a Grown Man

Time to go Dudeing

Making friends as an adult is challenging and nuanced. I’ve made four life-changing moves in the past sixteen years, involving three states and two foreign countries. At each stop, once I no longer felt like a tourist, loneliness set in, requiring me to find new friends. At each stop, I had to go dudeing.

Dudeing is simple, in theory. One dude meets another dude and they magically become friends. In the second grade, I turned to the red-headed boy next to me at lunch and said, “Do you want to be my friend?” He nodded, quite nonchalantly for an eight-year-old, and presto! We were friends. Making friends back then wasn’t always that easy but school was full of kids.

Low-Hanging Fruit

The direct approach worked in 1982 but it would be weird if I trotted it out today. However, I’ve used the low-hanging fruit tactic in each move, from Texas to Romania. Begin in the workplace, that stable environment of mature adults harmoniously coordinating their efforts toward a common goal while respecting one another’s unique talents. Yes, it’s a crapshoot but the workplace is the lowest hanging fruit at your disposal and offers several different friend types.

First is a guy you mesh with who likes you. You have chemistry and neither of you report directly to the other. Maybe you both golf or discover you’re Whovians. This is Target Dude.

The second is the Unhappy Soldier. He feels wronged by the company, his obvious gifts being ignored. He’s jaded, looking for fellow mutineers so he’s easy to befriend. He’s also toxic and you might dampen your career prospects by palling around with him.

The third is Agenda Man. He cozies up to see how you can benefit him. Perhaps he wants to pick your brain or size you up. After a few conversations, his agenda becomes apparent. He will spend time with you but this isn’t likely a long-term friendship because he disappears when you’re no longer useful to him.

You’ll find guys who are a mix of the three. Consider your possible friends before hitching up buddy wagons. Also, sometimes your new friend will only be a work-friend. Hyphenated friends are fine. Moreover, a compatriot in the trenches is helpful, even if you’re not invited to his at Christmas.

So, how do you make friends at work? First, do not skulk through the building like a hungry wolf, peering into cubicles and doorways for a new amigo. Be normal and don’t look desperate. If this sounds like dating advice, it is, because they are similar in theory.

It’s simple to ask a co-worker to coffee or lunch. Drinks after hours is a bigger ask, but lunch dudeing can lead to drinks dudeing. My most foolproof tactic has been to swing by the guy’s desk and say, “It would be a huge help if you would give me some insight on (blank). Do you have time to grab lunch this week? My treat.” I’ve put the guy in a position of bestowing his knowledge on me and I’ve offered him a free lunch. People enjoy feeling helpful and knowledgeable. The (blank) can be anything job-related that isn’t a simple fix. Bring up a topic from a meeting or a comment from your interview: ‘Last week Cynthia said she wants ingenuity to be a guiding principle in every department. So, how do we do this in accounting?’

Being friendly might not be your thing, but grin and bear it, literally, because people who smile are perceived as less hostile and we also find them more attractive. If you’re new to walking around happy, practice your smile in the mirror a few times so you don’t amble through the office grinning like a psychopath.

Nervous about being rejected? Try reverse-engineering an invite by asking for lunch spot recommendations. Your colleague may offer to take you to a place. People are naturally curious if you’re the new guy. You can use curiosity to your advantage. If you’re not new but haven’t made many friends, then co-workers may be pleasantly surprised you’re engaging with them.

Compound your success by maintaining your affable demeanor outside the office. When I see colleagues in the wild, I always greet them. It’s Saturday morning and you spot Ryan from HR at the hardware store, go make small talk. Say, ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ and you’re in the friend zone.

All of this applies to your neighbors as well. Keep an open mind.

Of course, it is a truism to say being friendly will help you make friends but it does. That’s the thing about truisms, they are true.

Common Interests

Dudeing requires you to proactively network beyond the confines of your 9-to-5. When I first moved to LA, my sole friend asked if I wanted to join his flag football game the following Saturday. I went and met over a dozen new people. Several became casual friends, all because of football.

It is far easier to make casual friends than best buddies. Close friends take substantial investments of time. A 2018 study at the University of Kansas concluded it takes “about 50 hours” to become casual friends with someone and “at least 200 hours of quality time” to become good friends.

However, casual friends are a start and you will often find them through groups or activities. Seek out activities that interest you and you will find people who interest you. In the past, I’ve made friends by attending:

• Beach or community clean-ups
• Group hikes
• Wine or beer tastings
• Political meetings
• Professional organizations
• Sports clubs
• Museum events, art gallery expos, academic lectures
• Charity events

I’ve flown solo to all these events. The hardest part is convincing yourself to walk out the door. Once you arrive, you’re not as conspicuously alone as you think. They design these events for people to meet and mingle but the onus will be on you to introduce yourself.

You may meet a guy who isn’t your immediate friend. Place them into your future friendships pipeline. Cultivate new friendships by planning something and extending invites. This is important when you’re the new dude because the other guys already have friends. If you’re lucky, your new acquaintance may invite you to a group outing because he’s a connector.

Meeting Connectors

Malcolm Gladwell introduced the term connectors in his 2000 work, The Tipping Point. These guys are golden because they vouch for you.

I moved to London in 2011 and the only people I knew were through work. I was too busy and exhausted to take in many social events but occasionally would walk down to my local pub with a book and read for an hour.

After two or three times, I began a casual banter with the barman, Jonas. He introduced me to people who came to the pub and also invited me to other events. He was a connector. We would become good friends but he also connected me to a varied group of people. I made some of my best friendships through him.

Notice the connectors around you and introduce yourself. They are at the center of social activity. By their very nature, they will be open to meeting you and seeing how you might fit in.

Be Open

Likewise, you need to be open to straying outside your comfort zone, trying new experiences, and saying yes at times when you want to say no.

This may be my most important piece of advice because you will not make new friends by saying ‘no.’

Maybe you’ve had a long week and want a quiet night in or you don’t think a taxidermy class sounds fun? Some invites will not gibe with your current mood but be prepared to put on your big boy pants and expand your boundaries, within limits. A recently-met couple once invited me to join them for a vampire LARP that sounded suspiciously like a threesome. I declined and they never invited me to anything again.

Also, you will probably make new friends who aren’t like your old friends. Be open to new kinds of people. I once made a new friend who was into motocross. I knew it only as something I flipped past on the TV. He invited me to a race and I loved it.

Making friends will feel awkward at times but you have to persist. One dudeing mistake I made was not asking a guy for his contact info. I had just moved to Utah and sat next to him on a flight from LA to Salt Lake. We began talking and discovered we both liked mountain biking, snowboarding, craft beer, and Texas BBQ.

After landing, I had a clumsy moment at Gate 7 in which I started to ask for his Facebook or his phone number but then chickened out. I worried he might think me weird, or perhaps forward. The normal follow-up to an enjoyable two-hour conversation is saying, “We should hang out sometime.” I wasn’t open to it so the opportunity passed me by.

This brings up a predictable speed bump in the man-sphere. Sometimes when you’re trying to make friends a guy will think you’re hitting on him. Be honest and tell him you are trying to make new friends. If he still seems uneasy, he may have deep-seated issues you do not want in a friend.

Show an Interest

Earlier I mentioned the Agenda Guy at work. It feels oddly unsatisfying to hang out with him because he’s only interested in what you can give him. When meeting possible friends, demonstrate curiosity about their lives. Ask questions in a relaxed, non-police interrogation way. Humans are vain little creatures and when we feel someone is interested in us, we are likely to be more interested in them.

Be Yourself

It pains me to say Be yourself because there is so much self-improvement banality online and yet here I am advising you to be you. It works when making friends. We’re suspicious of insincerity. Thus, the more honest you are about who you are, the more people will positively respond to you.

Be the best version of yourself. If you love brightly flowered luau shirts, then rock that fashion statement, but show up to the invite on time. A man invites you to his house to watch the game, don’t show up drunk and empty-handed. Even if this is the real you, try harder. Be yourself but put in the effort at a good impression

As we age, lives become busier and meeting new people becomes more difficult. Dudeing requires effort and initiative. I know if I am friendly, open, and involve myself in the community I will meet some new people. As long as they aren’t into vampire LARPing threesomes, there is a chance we become friends.