fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4118 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4118 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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06. [SPOILERS for Avengers Infinity War]

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07. [SPOILERS for Star Trek Discovery]

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08. [SPOILERS for Soul Sacrifice]

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09. [WARNING for possible discussion of torture and stuff]

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10. [WARNING for non-con, possible underage]

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11. [WARNING for rape/sexual assault]

[Shetland]

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How the hell do you make friends as an adult?

Good question. I don't have a magical answer.

What worked for me was finding a writer's group on Meetup. It was like instafriends from there. The thing is that it was still a slower process than childhood friendships - I feel like those tended to happen faster? You meet, do a project together or walk from the bus together, and it happens quickly. It took me about a year before I really felt like I was friends with them. I mean, I liked them a lot and I cared about them, but we met up at writing group and that was it. Then we gradually started seeing one another outside group, and now we're close because we made an effort to be involved in one another's lives.

tl;dr it's a lot more work and more of a slog. But it is doable.

I guess just like, put yourself out there and talk to people?

If you've got some sort of interest/hobby that would help you meet friends, do that. (Like, a gaming group, or M:tG tournaments, or a book club I guess?) Other than that, you just have to talk to people and keep talking to them until they become a friend.

Like, most of my work friends are people I worked on a job with once. And then a year later we worked on a job together again. And then the next year I invited them out for lunch or whatever. And then the year after that we went out to lunch a few times and kept in touch by texting. And then now we're friends. It's definitely more of a longterm process as an adult than as a kid, when you could just walk up to whoever and be like "wanna be friends?"

But besides meeting people at work or through a hobby, I guess you just have to put on your Outgoing Pants and strike up conversations with whoever. I can't help too much with that bc it's something I'm still working on myself. But I've started picking one person a day to interact with when I'm out doing whatever, like the cashier or barista or whatever, and I'll try to give them a compliment or keep the small talk going.

Write lots and lots of truly kinky porn and become life-long platonic soulmates.

*shrug*

It's what i did. Having a meetup in a few weeks, one of many over the years.

the only friends I've made as an adult who've stuck have been through clubs dedicated to a mutual interest. in my case it's cosplay, in other cases it can be anything from a knitting group to book club to...idk beer-making club?

even then you still find people who you click with at first but eventually grow to realize you're not going to stick with long-term. or, people who make better acquaintances you see two-three times a year and not weekly. it takes all kinds.

I'm old enough now that people irl exhaust me, I'd rather hang online with my internet friends who I've never met in person.

... you talk to people you meet? You talk and you find out whether or not you have enough in common to want to keep talking. If not, no big deal, you can just be casual acquaintances or even never talk again. If you do, then you talk more and maybe do stuff like get coffee/lunch/drinks together. And after you've done that a few times, hey, you've got the start of a friendship there.

I got you covered!

Go do things that you like and connect with like minded people. Sounds difficult, but it works, and the less mainstream your interests are, the better.

When I moved away for my job, I first only had contact with colleagues, and that really wasn't enough. So I looked around what activities etc were offered, and decided to take language classes - Japanese, because that's the easiest way to connect to local anime/manga/cosplay fans. Worked like a charm, and through the people I met there I found the LARP and Pen & Paper RPG groups, and because there's a huge overlap I also found the local goths.

Within a couple of months I had met about 200 new people, and I had closer relationships with ca. 25 of them, and of those two have stayed my closest and dearest friends for almost twenty years now.

What also helped was pinning nerdy patches to my bag and letting other people approach me. About twelve years ago I had the Slytherin badge on my bag, and one day two of the new/younger colleagues asked me if I liked the books and if I knew about fanfiction. That's how I got introduced to their circle of friends and met the local slash community.

So, go do things you like and talk to other people. And even if the first person is not your BFF right away, let them take you to meet their friends, and maybe someone of those will connect more with you. Good luck!

Edited (typo) 2018-04-14 10:49 (UTC)

[ SECRET POST #4118 ]

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