Why Making Friends as an Adult Feels Impossible & What to Do About It

There is a massive shift that happens in adult friendship when you hit 20, and no one sees this coming.

I didn't see it coming.

You didn't see it coming.

See, the rules of friendship completely change when your 20s hit, and so I'm gonna explain what the rules of friendship were when you were little, and then we're gonna talk about the rules of adult friendship that hit when you turn 20.

So when you were little, all the conditions for meeting friends, creating friendships, having friends in your life, they were all handled for you.

I mean, just think about life when you were a little kid.

You were around people your age all the time.

Your entire childhood set up the structures and conditions that made friendship possible.

I mean, just think about it.

When you went to school, you sat in classrooms with kids your age.

On the weekends, you were playing town sports.

You were riding the bus.

You were constantly around kids who were the same age as you, going through the same things.

And just think about it.

You're learning the same subjects in school.

You ha- have the same schedule during the day.

You are celebrating the same milestones.

You're reaching 14, 15, 16.

You're going to prom.

You're going to homecoming.

You're graduating.

All of these things that were happening in your life where you were little, the play dates that your parents set up, the team dinners before the big games, all of these things created this environment where you just expected friendship to happen.

You just expected that you'd be around people your age all the time, because you were.

That's why friendship was so easy when you were little, because the conditions for it were set.

And then when you graduate from high school, what happens? Oh, you typically go on to college, or you go into the military, and again, you're now not just with people your age all the time, you're living with them, you're eating with them, you're going through the semesters with them, and you're on the same breaks during the summer.