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Making New Friends As An Adult

Making new friends as an adult is hard. I’m just about 27 at this point and I’m not the kind of person who goes to seek out friendships due to social anxiety, which I’ve been working on. But, I’m happy to report that I have in fact been making friends!

In a previous post, I had talked about finding community on social media through my travel blog accounts. Well not only have I used it to build an online community, but I’ve actually made a real life friend. I had mentioned in my post that I made some online friends, but one of them has recently become a real life friend.

This particular friend is into wildlife photography and she was mentioning that she was planning to go birding at a state park that’s pretty much up the road from my house. I told her to let me know if she goes and when she’ll get there so I could meet her there. The plans were made and it was both really exciting to meet someone I talk to regularly and really nerve-wracking.

I was excited to meet someone who’s local to Connecticut that’s also super nice. But, I was also nervous because meeting someone in real life can be stressful. I feel like you can be a lot smoother when talking to someone on the internet because it’s written. I had thoughts of what if I’m not how she expects me to be? What if she thinks I don’t look like I do in my pictures and Reels? What if she thinks I have a weird voice? (I have a bit of a lisp). I did actually get physical symptoms of anxiety too.

Despite all of the anxiety, I pushed through the discomfort and met her and her husband at the state park and we had such a fun time photographing Ospreys and a Belted Kingfisher. It was great getting to talk about wildlife, photography, and make a new friend.

As of today, we’ve now hung out twice to go birding. Today, it was not nerve-wracking to make the plans, it was just like me making plans with any of my other friends. The first place we went to was a bust with no birds, but we still walked and talked. The second spot we had a blast watching so many ospreys flying around.

I’ve never really thought of myself as someone who’s good at making friends because of my anxiety. It’s not that I’m not social. I love to talk to people, but prior to knowing someone I tend to overthink things. Once I get past that and get comfortable, I do great. I’m glad I’ve been working on putting myself out there a bit more and making connections with people who have similar interests to me.

If you’re looking to make friends, local or not, I’d definitely recommend joining some groups on social media or following some people who seem to have similar interests to you. Of course, you can also join in-person groups as well. They’re just not my thing.

What are some ways that you’ve found to make friends as an adult?

-Kailey