46. Making friends in your 20’s

This week we discuss how to make new friendships in our 20’s. We all can recognise how hard it is to make friends as we enter adulthood but what does psychology actually say about this struggle and why is it so difficult as we move beyond our school years into work and the real world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the
podcast where we talk through some of the big life
changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean
for our psychology. Hello everyone, Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to the podcast. As always, it is so

(00:26):
great to have you here for another week, another episode,
another really really interesting topic that we're covering on the
podcast today. So yeah, welcome, Welcome, new listeners, welcome old.
Before we get into it, I just want to say
a really big thank you. I'm feeling so grateful and

(00:46):
so warm and fuzzy recently that we have so many
new listeners and so many of you have reached out
to me recently to say that you've really been enjoying
the content of the show, and I just cannot even
express to you how joyful and happy and grateful that
makes me. Every message, every like, every comment, every subscriber,

(01:08):
It's just crazy to me how much this has kind
of grown in the last year, in the last few months.
So if you are a new listener, welcome, I hope
you stick around. If you're an old supporter, thank you
for following the journey of this podcast. It just is
in incredible to me that there are so many people
who are interested in these things and want to listen

(01:28):
to some of these explanations and some of the research
that I find on these topics. So a bit of
a sappy moment, but yeah, I just wanted to say
welcome to our new listeners and thank you for joining
us again. This week. We have a really interesting topic.
I'm so sorry. I say that every single time, so
if you are a frequent listener, I feel like I

(01:49):
am just I don't know, on repeat. I say that
every week, but they're all so interesting. But this one
in particular was suggested to me on an Instagram poll
that I put out. I do them every now and again,
just trying to see engage what people want to hear,
and this was by far the most suggested topic, which
I think is really important to call out before we

(02:11):
get into it, and I'll discuss why later on. But
making French friends in your twenties, that's what we're talking
about today, that's we're talking about this week. It is
such a nuanced topic, something that I think we all
probably need to hear, and all probably need some sympathy
and some support around and an understanding that We're probably

(02:34):
not alone. Just from the number of people who suggested this,
I have a feeling that there are probably a lot
of you who are going through this experience of finding
it really difficult to make new friends as we enter adulthood.
A lot of our friends, as you know, as we
grow up, as we enter this new chapter in our lives,
sometimes fall off the bandwagon. We find ourselves perhaps you know,

(02:55):
the most alone we've ever felt in our lives when
we don't have the support of our family immediately around us,
we don't have the structures of high school or primary
school or some of those kind of organized activities and
daily structures of our lives. So it's a really important
thing to talk about. I think it's pretty universally accepted
that as we get older, it's a lot harder to

(03:17):
make friends, and there is a lot of support for
this difficulty, this difficulty of making friends and adulthood, and
I think it's recently been made a lot worse by
this pandemic that we've all gone through. If you started
twenty twenty with a lot of friends and now you're
kind of surveying the friendship landscape and feeling a little

(03:39):
bit lost, I just want to express that you are
not alone. This has been a really common feeling throughout
this period, throughout this weird three years or two years
even that we've gone through since the start of COVID.
And although COVID is obviously still a problem, we have
come out just in the last i don't know, seven

(04:02):
eight months out of an incredibly strange period of isolation
and lockdowns. And although many of us are no longer
experiencing that kind of physical separation and we're no longer
living through lockdowns, COVID has become kind of normalized. The
impact of that experience is really long lasting and likely

(04:24):
still having residual impacts on our ability to socialize, on
our lives, our ability to meet new people, and recover
from what was a period of really intense isolation and
physical separation from others. And I really want to stress
and I will do this again and again throughout this episode,
want to universal experience. This is for people in their twenties,

(04:48):
feeling like you don't have the same friendships that you
had maybe three, four, five years ago, feeling really lonely,
feeling really isolated. I've spoken about this with friends a
lot as well, and I think a lot of them
all say the same thing. And I think part of
the problem with feeling so isolated and lonely in our
twenties and struggling to make new friends is that we

(05:10):
are faced with a whole spectrum and off so many
points and opportunities for comparison, especially through social media. I
know it's been said so many times, but the lives
of others that we see on social media is not
the truth. But so often we see influences or even
people we know posting these highlight reels where they're surrounded

(05:32):
by people, they're surrounded by friends. We might be sitting
alone on our phones, scrolling mindlessly, kind of thinking to ourselves,
why isn't that me? Why isn't that the case for me?
What am I doing wrong? And I guess part of
the point of this podcast is to say that you're
not doing anything wrong. And this is such a universal experience.

(05:54):
So if you're going through this, I promise you there
are so many people out there who are feeling the same.
If that makes you feel better. Obviously, the unique experiences
and the feelings associated with that are in themselves very valid,
even if we feel very alone in that feeling but
I know for me personally, I really struggled with this.
At the start of the year, I really struggled to

(06:17):
make new friends. I think I've mentioned this before, but
I moved to a new city. I'd spent the first,
like the first five years of my adult life in
like a college town, and I started UNI in this
big kind of college community, and it was so easy
to make friends, it was so convenient. And then suddenly

(06:39):
I was this little fish in this huge pond trying
to rebuild a community and rebuild a network, and oh
my goodness, it was really hard. And it's still is
really hard. I still feel like I'm building that community.
And I remember my dad shout out to you. Dad.
He's a big fan of the podcast, so if you're listening,
but hello. But he sent me this article and it

(07:04):
was kind of funny at the time, but about how
hard it is to make new friends in your twenties,
especially in cities like Sydney or in big metropolitan areas
where it just feels like everyone else has already got
their group, everyone else already knows what's going on, they
know the lay of the land, And especially for me
at that time, I had no idea what I was doing.
I felt so isolated and so lonely. And in that

(07:28):
time and since then, I've thought a lot about the
universality of this struggle and have really tried to identify
in my own mind and through my own kind of contemplation,
what it is about this decade that leads to such
sizeable and significant and noticeable shifts and changes in our
friendship dynamics, and not so much the quality but the

(07:49):
quantity of friends we seem to have. Why is it
so difficult to meet people we really relate to? Kind
of the conclusion that I've come to is that as
we enter adulthood, there are some pretty large shifts and
pretty large lifestyle changes that we all seem to experience.

(08:12):
I think that it's pretty normal for, you know, if
you went to UNI or even in high school, for
our friendships to be very convenient and something that is
very easy to fall into. You know, we see the
same people every single day. If you went to school,
if you went to UNI, if you did a trade

(08:33):
or an apprenticeship or a diploma, there are the same
people day in and day out, and it's really easy
to make connections with them. You probably have a very
similar background. You're having these similar experiences, there's often a
large number of people. You have your pick of the bunch.
I found. I don't know if if you've had an
experience of living, you know, in a large dormitory or

(08:54):
a college, but it is like almost just like social steroids.
It's just like socializing on steroids. It's completely unnatural to
have to be surrounded by that many people, and it's
almost like it's just social overload. And if that's your
first experience, straight out of living from home, or straight

(09:15):
out of high school, or kind of straight out of
your teenage years, to be surrounded by all these people,
it's a bit of a rude awakening. When things start
to change. And I guess as we get older, the
places that we grew up or the places we went
to for UNI no longer fit the identities that we
had when we first moved there or when we were
growing up there. People start to move. That was a

(09:39):
huge thing that I noticed and a big reason why
I think we see this decline in the quantity of
friends that we have in this decade. I personally moved
and I, you know, there were so many other people
at the same time as me who got up and
left to all different parts of the country, all different
parts of the world, and it becomes a lot harder
to keep up those connections that we had before then.

(10:02):
But it also means that there are a lot of
people kind in these little satellite camps all over the
world who are probably in the same boat as you,
if you're listening to this, who are starting you, who
are trying to re establish a network for themselves. With
that kind of I don't know, exodus from our hometowns
and our college towns, the dynamic of our pre existing

(10:23):
friendship just innately changes. You no longer see these people
every day, and with that convenient element that I discussed
is kind of removed, it becomes a lot more difficult
to keep everyone updated than to have those bonding shared
experiences that are really the bedrock and the foundation of friendship.

(10:44):
Other things happen as well. People get into relationships. As
we enter our early and mid twenties, it becomes a
lot more normal for people to meet their partners, to
become partnered up and spend more time with them, and
also spend more time at work. And I don't know,
maybe you're lucky enough to be in a work environment
where you're working with your close friends. I'm jealous of

(11:06):
you if that's the case, But it's often the case
that you've maybe you've got this group of friends and
everyone works different places, everyone moves, and you no longer
have those shared experiences that are really fundamental to deep
lasting friendships. And with that shift from you either studying
or being young and having fun and moving into full

(11:27):
time work, there's that element of exhaustion and work schedules
to kind of navigate, and a robust kind of large
social life and social circles that takes a lot of energy,
and that's not something we all have kind of room
to spare at this age. Another thing that I saw
that I thought was really interesting was you become more picky,

(11:47):
especially when your time is already limited, which is why
you might see people starting to drop off. It goes
without saying I think hopefully that people change. We are
not going to stay the same people we were sixteen
seventeen eighteen for our entire lives. Our brains aren't even

(12:10):
like even close to being fully developed at that stage,
and the people we are then it's probably not the
people we are now. And I think This also relates
to my point before about people moving on and getting
into relationships, but our context, our lives change, and more innately,
this decade is incredibly formative in determining who we are,

(12:35):
what our values are, what we love doing, and sometimes
this doesn't always align with who we thought we were
three to four years ago, or even three to four
months before. Our friendships, like I said, they're founded on
shared experiences, but they're also found on founded on I think,
shared values and shared hobbies and shared kind of activities

(12:55):
and enjoyment. So as we kind of start to develop
and branch out even there and discover who we are
in this decade, it really does make a lot of
sense that the people you were friends with perhaps when
you first started union, when you first finished high school,
you probably aren't going to be feeling the same feelings

(13:15):
towards them now. It's really okay to outgrow people, but
what can come with that can be really intense feelings
of isolation and loneliness, and of course the desire to
make new friends who you can relate to and share
memories with. Here's where the psychology comes in. We are
all innately intrinsically social creatures. Social interaction time and time again.

(13:43):
It's shown in so many studies, and a right amount
of proper amount of balanced amount of social interaction is
as fundamental to our well being as things like a
balanced diet or getting sleep or not you know, putting
our bodies under us with alcohol or other substances. Getting
in the right amount of social interaction, Feeling that your

(14:06):
social interactions are also fulfilling and meaningful. That is a
huge contributor to your health and to your lifestyle. So
if you are struggling to make friends at the moment,
or you're feeling like you're just not at a place
in terms of your friendships that feels particularly healthy, you're
probably right. There was this really interesting experiment that they

(14:27):
did where they had these lab rats and these rats
were given water and they were also given this kind
of pipette water bottle that was filled with heroin. Okay,
you're probably like, what the heck, where is this going,
But it was really interesting. What they found was that

(14:47):
when they had rats who were provided with other rats
in their cage that had their little rat friends, and
they had room to socialize and they had the opportunity
to interact and keep themselves entertained with other members of
their species. Those rats had absolutely no reason to touch
the heroine because they were receiving the dopamine that their

(15:09):
brain required to function, and they were feeling I guess
happy or fulfilled enough that they didn't need that external stimulus.
Their brains were healthier, they had more neurons. But the
rats who were isolated and put in a cage themselves,
they abused this drug until they basically diet. Their brains

(15:29):
had less neurons and they were just less developed. Their
brains were less developed, they slept less, but they would
lie around more. They weren't as active, And I think
this really shows although it's, you know, an animal study,
in this all these debates and psychology around whether animal

(15:50):
studies are comparable or comparable to humans, I think it's
a really important and fundamental thing to share here. It's
completely okay if right now you're struggling with friendships and
you're feeling really really shit about it, and you're feeling
really almost probably depressed, or really anxious or really sad.

(16:12):
That experiment proves this. When we don't receive the dopamine
and the stimulation that we need and we require from
our social interactions. The impact of that on our health
and even on our neurons is really profound and can
lead to some pretty long term impacts. And there was
this other study that I found so fascinating, and it

(16:34):
basically concluded that not having enough friends, not feeling like
your social network is expansive enough, feeling isolated, and feeling
lonely can cause the same neural response as being in
physical pain or experiencing extreme grief. So I really do
sympathize with you if you're struggling to make lasting or

(16:54):
good friendships in your twenties. I think this whole first
part of the podcast is just to tell you you're
not alone. There are so many people who are going
through this. It is a universal experience to notice really
significant changes in the dynamics of our lives and of
our friendship circles. But it's definitely something that psychology and

(17:15):
kind of a broader positivist philosophy to life, can you know?
It kind of tells us that it's something that we
can work on, and that our social interactions and our
social lives not only are they fundamental, but there's something
that's within our control. Oh kay, I feel like that

(17:38):
was a little bit of a pity party. I'm so
sorry it's everyone I think I feel like. I feel
like I've spent the first half of this episode kind
of sympathizing and trying to address the stigma and normalize
struggling to make friends in adulthood. But that is not
necessarily the most practical or helpful thing to do. So
what I want to do is spend this next section

(17:59):
really in on tangible things that I think help us
make friends in our twenties. From my experience moving to
a new city, you're trying to re establish community. The
biggest thing I think is fear and insecurity. Of course,
there are obviously physical factors, you know, if you're living

(18:21):
out in a rural community, it might just be there
aren't many people around you. But often the journey to
making friends in our twenties is a psychological one. So
I thought I would kind of do my research and
compile a bit of a list of tips. So if
you are someone who's struggling right now, how can you

(18:44):
perhaps shift the dial and make some new friends in
your life. The first kind of tip or strategy that
I think I really took to heart when I was
in a similar situation and really kind of going through
it and feeling quite lonely. Was to be okay with
being alone. That is a very simple thing to say.

(19:06):
I know, five, five very easy words to come out
of my mouth, be okay with being alone. And I'm
hoping that no one is exiting right now, being like, oh,
this is stupid advice. But as simple and basic as
it may sound, as useless as it may sound, I
think and this is just a personal opinion. Being alone

(19:29):
and being secure in your loneliness is one of the
most important lessons that you need to learn in your twenties.
At the end of the day, you really only have yourself.
Like you might have family, you might have friends, you
might have a partner, you might have work colleagues. I
don't know what's going on in your life, but I'm
hoping that you have a support network. But at the

(19:51):
end of the day, you really are all by yourself,
and your company is the most important company that you
can share, and how you feel about yourself, your opinion
of yourself is the most important one you can have
in your life. No matter how much you love others,
how much you enjoy spending time with them, if you're

(20:12):
not comfortable sitting in your own thoughts, being able to
take yourself out for dinner, being able to do things
by yourself. No relationship is ever going to fulfill you
friendship relationship otherwise because you cannot be surrounded by people
at all times. And the more you try and distract
yourself by making I think, very shallow friendships or going

(20:35):
out or being around people, the more I think you're
going to struggle to make authentic friendships, and the more
that your kind of fear of loneliness is going to accumulate.
So I'd say one of the biggest tips and biggest
things to work towards if you're struggling making friends is
to maybe just prioritize being alone for a while and

(20:57):
see that as an opportunity rather than as a massive
downside or you know, as a massive boma. Like having
an opportunity to be alone with yourself is so rare,
you know, away from your phone, that is actually quite
a blessing in this day and age when we're constantly
connected in the world, as you know, over populating with people.

(21:18):
If you live in a big city, there's always someone around.
So something that I did when I first moved to
this new city. Was like, and I still do this
to this day. Is I make sure i leave an
afternoon or a morning or some part of my week
where it's just me and I'm focused on checking in
with myself and building a relationship with myself as if

(21:39):
I was another person. And I found that when I
got more comfortable with being able to be in my
own company and do the things I wanted to do
even if no one else wanted to come, that's when
I just kind of started meeting people because I was
doing what I wanted to do, which when I was
attracting people who thought the same way in those situations.

(22:03):
But I also think it's really crucial if you if
you're looking around you like I don't have the friendships
that I want, Leverage those casual connections. I cannot stress
this enough. Someone you met at a party once, message them,
do it, like literally, what is the worst that can happen?
They'll say no, like you're back to square one. Like,

(22:23):
leverage those casual connections. Reach out to people you've met
once or twice, reach out to mutual friends. And if
you are in a new city, ask your friends if
they know anyone honestly, I have met one of someone
who I think will be one of my closest best
friends for life through through this method. One of our

(22:45):
friends from we both lived in the same city prior
to moving to Sydney, and one of our fabulous friends, Phoebe,
if you're listening, love it a bits. She literally was like,
this friend, Gracie, my friend Gracie now is moving to Sydney.
I think you guys would get along and put us
in the group chat together and the rest is history.

(23:06):
Now we are like so close, we see each other
all the time. We have these really deep conversations. So
that is an amazing method. Message your friends if they
might no one know someone, if you've got people already
in a city or people who you live in the
same city with who might have a different friendship group
to you, be like, is there someone that I should know?

(23:28):
Do you think there's anyone that like you think I
would really get along with? Like can you invite me
to things with them? Or can you like kind of
set us up? And the chances are if you're really
good friends with that person, you're probably going to get
along with the people they're friends with as well. The
other thing that I think really kind of changed for
me and made me more comfortable in this city, made
me feel like I had community, was work connections. You've

(23:50):
got to make friends at work. You never know what
kind of things you'll have in common just because you
work at the same place or for the same company.
Like it's insane to me how many people I've met
who I worked with, and you know, if they're the
same age as you, you're probably going to have at
least a couple things in common. And even if they're
not the deepest friendships, and you know, you don't know,
maybe you're going to meet your best friend. Even if

(24:12):
they're not the deepest friendships, the deepest connections, it still
feels really nice, I think, to know that there are
people who care about you and people that are around you. Okay,
I'm going to spend a little bit of time on
this next tip because I think that it's probably my
most practical, one most applicable, and what really helped me

(24:34):
from a personal experience. Okay, you need to commit. You
need to commit to something. Pick one two activities or
hobbies you really enjoy, or something that you think you
might enjoy. You don't even have to love it yet,
and I want you to do them every week, three
times a week, once a week minimum, but do it

(24:55):
every single week. Stay committed, and I do want to stipulate.
With any good thing, it's going to take time. So
don't expect to be like making or meeting friendship soul
mates within a day or two. But activities and hobbies
are like gold standard the best way to meet people
because you know how you know how easy it is

(25:15):
to talk to someone if you see them every week,
if you see them three times a week at you know,
your boxing class or at the climbing gym, or at
your marathon training club. I don't know these all sports related.
You can do whatever you want. You know, at your
art class, there you go. I did life drawing, and
I met so many people because once you become, you know,
a regular face, that's when you start kind of like

(25:38):
having conversations with people and discovering the other things that
you have in common. You know, there are some people
that you're just going to click with. But in general,
I really believe that relationships and friendships require steady intent
and commitment and investment, and that's what this tip kind
of does. Like if you pick you know, one thing

(26:02):
for you to do every single week, and you're always there,
chances are those people are going to be there at
the same time as well. And if you keep showing
up and you keep kind of putting yourself out there
and showing your face and being vulnerable, I feel like
sooner or later things start to click. And when you
are in that kind of position, get their contact information,

(26:24):
add them on Instagram right away, Like you've seen someone
at I don't know your pottery class, be like, oh hey,
I see you here a lot. What's your name, blah
blah blah, have a little small talk, have a little chat,
and get their number or get them get their Instagram.
I find that Instagram is really really good. And if
you are someone like one of my friends who I've
done this too, oh my gosh, please don't leave me.

(26:46):
Please don't think this is incredibly awkward. But I've made
friends doing this where I've gone to something week in
week out seeing the same people and just gone up
to them and been like, oh hey, and added them
on Instagram, you know, reacted to their stories a few times,
just like kind of showing that you're there and getting
them to think about you. And bad being bad a

(27:08):
boom you might have a new friend. And I think
the reason that I love this tip, and I love
the idea of committing to an activity, committing to a
hobby and doing it every week, is that friendships don't
just happen. Actually, in the belief that they happen, that
they are this organic miracle, can actually hinder our chances

(27:30):
of making friends. I don't know if you're someone who
thinks this. I used to think this, but I would
just kind of walk through life and being like, the
people who are meant to meet me will meet me.
And in some ways that is really true. But you know,
if you're sitting at home every day being like, oh,
if it's meant to happen, it will happen, chances are
it's probably not because you're not putting yourself out there

(27:50):
enough for those opportunities to come on by. And there
was this really interesting study that I read about when
I was researching this episode, and it found that holding
a belief that friendships happened based on luck and based
on you know, this kind of magic, magical running or destiny,
it actually was related to more loneliness and a greater

(28:13):
sense of isolation, whereas believing that friendships take effort was
actually related to less loneliness in this study. And on
a similar note, I think it's okay if it takes
some time and if you don't have an immediate rushing
connection with someone that you should listen to the Soulmates
episode if you want to hear more about this. But

(28:34):
a friend of mine once said to me when I
first moved here. He was one of the first people
that I really met in this city, and something he
said to me. I think I was complaining to him, like, oh,
I feel really lonely, like I don't have enough friends,
and he was like, you don't want to rush friendships
because the best things in life take time, and the

(28:55):
best relationships take time to grow. And he also mentioned
he also said, I'm trying to remember what he said
because he said it so beautifully, but it was kind
of along the gist of like, you should be deliberate
in deciding the people that you're going to surround yourself with.
It's important to not just rush into that and collect

(29:18):
whoever you want, whoever's available. Real friendships take time, and
it's time that will be worthwhile in the future. It's
an investment because if you just you know, meet who
you meet with some random person, I'm like, Okay, I've
chosen this person. I'm going to commit to them. Like
it's great to have acquaintances and everything like that, but

(29:39):
there is something deeper and more special about friendship that
you've really worked towards, and you've taken time to build
a connection with that person because you because you really
like them, because you notice that there's something quite unique
and special about them, I think. On another note, but
really similar to that idea of being vulnerable, committing and

(30:00):
investing in hobbies and activities, putting yourself out there, don't
be afraid to just go up to people and start talking.
Here's the thing. Most of us have been taught and
learned and trained socially to be polite to strangers and
to be polite to people even if the situation is awkward.

(30:23):
So although there may be like an initial awkward moment
if you go up to someone and start talking, most
of the time that kind of weird social etiquette, to
not be rude and just walk away means that you
will probably end up having a really engaging conversation. And
this doesn't have to lead to a magnificent, long lasting friendship.

(30:43):
Maybe it will, but more importantly, it will allow you
to kind of practice putting yourself out there and being
yourself and having interesting conversations. And in these situations, you
really do have to believe that people will like you back.
This might also be the case if you've rocked up
to a social event and you don't know anyone, but
you have to always expect the best. I think many

(31:05):
of us see ourselves as passive agents of our kind
of social worlds and our social lives, waiting for someone
else to reach out to us and introduce themselves. But
if you're struggling to make friends right now and know
it's really hard, but you have to embrace the idea
that you are in control, and you're in control of

(31:27):
your social world and who you choose to have in
your life more than you think, and the more intentional
you are about connecting with others, the more that you're
going to benefit, the more reward you're going to see.
One study kind of examined this group of students and
they examined classmates perceptions of the social environment that was

(31:49):
their classroom, and people in the class perceived it really differently.
So the researchers asked these kids, was the social environment
did you feel warm in this room? Like? Did you
feel warm and comfortable or did you feel cold? Mostly
the kids who perceived the social environment to be positive,

(32:12):
those who engaged with others, those who introduce themselves to others,
They were the ones who are like, oh, this environment
was really warm and I found it really welcoming, Whereas
those who kind of kept to themselves, they were the
ones who are like, oh, I felt like this class
was really chilly and really clinical and unwelcoming. And it's
normally the people who do take that leap of faith

(32:35):
force themselves to be vulnerable and engage with others that
also believe that others will be just as open to
meeting them as well. And it's that philosophy again. You
have to be intentional about connecting with others, but you
also have to believe that others will want to meet
you and that people will like you back. This is

(32:58):
just such a weird je, but I feel like it's
appropriate here. You know, I'm promoting this idea of you know,
going up and talking to strangers and a little bit
of stranger danger. Obviously not choose your time and your context.
But I remember, I sorry, but I remember I one
time I was like at a I like a chicken shop.

(33:20):
I think I was buying like chips. I've been like
out with my friends and there were these like guys
and this girl sitting at this table, and there was
something that we had in common, and I just went
up and started talking to them, and we ended up
talking for like twenty minutes. Next thing, you know, like
they were inviting me to this party they were having.
And now we're really good friends. And of course there's

(33:42):
been so many instances where that's happened and I've never
heard from them again, or we've added each other on
Instagram and now we just watch each other's stories. But
there are those beautiful kind of diamonds in the ruff,
those beautiful experiences where it's worked out really well, where
everyone was kind of on the same page. And that's

(34:03):
the other thing. If you're really struggling to make friends,
there are other people out there who are feeling the
same way, who probably want social interactions and deep, meaningful
friendships just as much as you, And if you meet them,
it's probably likely that you'll connect and that you'll be
able to kind of form a relationship with them. I
think back to that point that I made right at

(34:24):
the start about social comparison. It's very easy to see
the world and to see other people as having it all,
and everyone you know already has all the friends they need,
and everyone's already super content and you know, very popular
and has everything that they want. They've got the friends
that they want. That's not the case. Like this is

(34:44):
such a universal experience, and I feel like everyone could
do with more friends, Everyone could do with more love
and relationships and connection in their life. So putting yourself
out there like the worst it's going to happen if
someone's going to say no, And if you've got a
fear of retraction, maybe that's really scary for you. But
I would challenge you to do it anyway, because the

(35:06):
reward from that is just so much greater than the risk,
or greater than the cost. I also want to say
and kind of take a moment to really recognize that
I think that this experience of trying to put yourself
out there and make friends is very different for different

(35:28):
types of people. Well obviously all very unique. We have
different personalities, we have different attitudes and ways of seeing
the world, and one of those ways is as an
extrovert or as an introvert, I obviously, you know, run
a podcast where I talk into a microphone for an
hour a week, So I would say I'm pretty extroverted,

(35:52):
and that's where I think my perspective comes from. But
I also understand that there are probably a lot of
people listening to this were quite introverted, and for who
like a lot of these kind of challenges or tips
would be really, really difficult. But I also do believe

(36:12):
that there are so many people in life who will
love us who we haven't met yet. And as challenging
as it might be to really be vulnerable and to
put yourself out there, there are ways to do that
in a way that makes you feel safe and doesn't,
you know, kind of spike your social anxiety or doesn't

(36:33):
exhaust you, even joining things like bumble BFF or online
groups or just committing to something one day a week,
even if it's just for an hour. I feel like
that's why organized sport is so good. You're there for
an hour and then you can opt out or opt
in to further activities. But I do recognize that making

(36:55):
friends can be a lot harder for some rather than others,
and it is like a unique and personal struggle for
each of us and something that we have to kind
of navigate and figure it out for ourselves. But we
live in such a social world and surrounded by so
many people. It's impossible for you to go through life

(37:16):
and go through the next you know, five, ten, thirty
years of your life and not run into someone that
you really like, or run into someone whose company really enjoy.
And something that I was kind of always repeating to
myself was like the people that I knew five years ago,
the people that I know now were not people that
I knew five years ago. Sorry, So you never know

(37:38):
who you're going to meet in these next five years.
There's so many people in the world, so many opportunities
to make exciting, long term, even short term friendships, but
friendships that really fulfill you and contribute to your well being.
So if that's kind of the quest and the personal
journey that you're on, I wish you love and I
wish you luck and strength because I know it can

(37:58):
be quite difficult. But I also challenge you to follow
some of those tips. Go up and talk to people
commit to a hobby, leverage those mutual connections, those casual connections,
like just ask people for their Instagram, just invite people
to do things like worse comes to worst they say no,
and then you know it's not meant to be, or

(38:18):
you try again and you could always have a flourishing,
gorgeous friendship with them. So anyhow, it's kind of turned
into a bit of a pep talk now that I
hope it's helpful for you if you're struggling with this
at the moment, and if you're really finding it quite
difficult to build friendships at this stage in your life.

(38:38):
I've said it before, probably many times in this episode,
but I'll say it once again. This is not an
experience that you're having a loan. It is so universal,
and I think it's important to also recognize that this
decade of our lives is one that is defined by
chaos and change and shifting dynamics, and that compounded with

(39:03):
you know, we just went through a pandemic like pandemic
in which we were forced to be physically separate and isolated.
And you're doing a great job. You're doing such a
great job, whoever you are, with what you've got going on,
so thank you so much for listening, and I really
hope you enjoyed this episode. I've got a bonus paid

(39:24):
content episode coming out this week as well, so if
you want to hear that, you do have to subscribe,
but there is a link in the bio of our
Spotify page just to have a peek and see some
of the exclusive content that you can unlock. And as always,
thank you so much for your support. It's just been
insane recently how many new listeners we have, and as always,

(39:48):
the people who have been supporting this podcast since the beginning.
You guys are wonderful, So thank you so much and
I will speak to you next week.