What to do if you suddenly realize: you have no friends

Suspects: work, family, "little time"

Many people guess why friendship recedes into the background with age. We build our careers 40 hours a week, we have a family and children, and there is no time left for the rest.

A study by the Real Simple and the Families and Work Institute found that 52% of women aged 25 to 54 have less than 90 minutes a day, and 29% of women have less than 45 minutes. It's not even enough to watch the Game of Thrones episode, let alone build friendships.

It is unlikely that these indicators are very different for men.

When a person reaches the middle of life, his youthful impulses to explore everything in a row are irrevocably gone. Priorities change and people often become picky about their friends.

Alex Williams reporter for The New York Times

No matter how wide your immediate circle is, fatalism spares no one. Adolescence and college years are over. Now the time has come for "friends in the situation" or just good acquaintances.

When people become adults, an invisible barrier appears between them. They get to know each other, have fun talking, but they don't spend as much time together as they used to.

As people age, they are less likely to form friendships. At the same time, they become closer to those friends who already exist.

Laura L. Carstensen Professor of Psychology, Stanford University

She suggested that the human psyche reacts to significant life events, this includes the date of 30 years. The realization comes that life is shrinking. It's time to finish learning new things, you need to pay more attention to what is here and now.

Friends are no longer needed to survive

Another reason we find it difficult to expand our close circle at a later age is that it is no longer a necessity. In adolescence, friendship is an important part of personal and social development. We need friends to understand who we really are and how to solve problems in society.

Of course, no one thinks about it when they make friends at school. We are not particularly picky and we start to be friends just like that. Do you sit with me at the same desk and also hate the teacher? High five!

Once the personality is formed, we need something more in order to become friends. Circumstances alone are no longer enough. You may have the same problems and views with a person, you share them, and then disperse and you will only politely greet.

What can be done about it

It would seem, well, okay, why new friends, because there are old ones. But if an adult loses his former connections, what then?

Three things are missing in many of us’s lives: closeness, repeated unplanned interactions, and trust. You can't build strong relationships without them. So if you're in your 30s, you won't be able to make real friends anymore? Not at all.

Tracey Moore, author of Jezebel, suggests that you just need to change your attitude: “Let's say you moved to a new city and you don't have any acquaintances there. Or old friends now seem so impudent that you wonder how you have interacted with them for the past 10 years. In any case, you should take finding friends as a fun quest."

Of course, you need to leave the house and communicate with people with similar interests.

Here are some examples:

look for thematic meetings in your city, for example, through communities of interest to you on social networks;
sign up for courses: dance, yoga, master classes in decorating art, wrestling;
get a dog and walk with other owners and their pets;
travel, come up with a new hobby, sign up as a volunteer.

Strive where life is in full swing. Chat with different people. It is possible that you will find a friend when you least expect it.

There are also advantages

As difficult as it may be to expand your inner circle as an adult, the game is worth the candle. In a mature friendship, there are many advantages over a nursery:

your relationship will be tied to common interests that might not have existed during school or university;
no restrictions: make friends with a large age difference or on the Internet;
friendship will be more relaxed: it is unlikely that an adult will be offended by a canceled meeting, because he knows that everyone has things to do;
you will begin to value more time with loved ones.

When you know yourself, new friendships can become deeper than those left from school years. And like any good relationship, it will grow deeper and stronger over time.