loneliness

and making friends as an adult

Ian Bent, Figures in the Park

I love New York summers as much as I dread the winters. A big reason is because I have an extreme sensitivity to the cold.

Maybe the reason feeling cold is worse than feeling hot (for some of us) is because it reminds us of our essential loneliness. If you’re surrounded by people, their body heat keeps you warm.

I think what differentiates feeling lonely from the simple state of being alone is that there is a desire to connect with other people, but that connection is missing and somehow feels unattainable. Whether you’re introverted or extraverted, we all feel lonely from time to time because we all experience the desire to connect.

Earlier this year, I decided to take an indefinite break from the dating apps in order to have the time and mental space to revise my novel. At first, it was refreshing to focus on the book. But with the arrival of warm weather season—and seemingly everyone in New York out and about having a great time—that old, aching loneliness sank in, and I realized just how much joy and energy I get from being around people. As jaded as I am with dating apps, that was one way I was meeting people.

In order to keep loneliness at bay, I need to have at least 2-3 meaningful conversations in a given week, preferably in person or on the phone. Some people feel a genuine sense of connection from online communities. I love turning internet acquaintances into offline friendships, but I’m not one who can fill my social cup with purely online interactions. Call me old school, but to feel truly, personally connected with someone, I have to see and hear them in the flesh at least once.

My new approach to dating is to make lots of friends. The idea is, if you can’t be friends with someone, why would you want to date them? So much pressure is put on people going into the “dating trenches” i.e. the apps. Instead of having the singleminded goal of I must find a boyfriend asap, I’m thinking, how do I maximize my chances of making new friends? It’s a common experience to meet people through the apps that you wish you could just be friends with. Imagine how much disappointment could be avoided on both sides if it were reversed: meet as friends first, then decide if you want to date each other.

Unfortunately, making friends in adulthood can feel very daunting. The best time to make friends is when you first start working (I honestly wish someone had told me this). All those new hire happy hours and socials are swarming with people your age who share the same goal: find my tribe. But there comes a point in your late twenties and early thirties when everyone you know starts to pair off and move to their version of the suburbs, and suddenly, you might find yourself poor in friends, or at least the type of intensely intimate friendship that defined your early twenties. What’s crazy is you might not even notice your loss because social media tricks our brains into thinking we’re not alone, all the while leaving us feeling lonelier than ever.

There’s also the problem of opportunity cost: the older you get, the more expensive your time becomes. Instead of having that coffee with a new acquaintance, you could be getting more work done or running an errand or taking care of whatever adult responsibility you’re shouldering.

Sometimes I’m hesitant to make plans with someone I don’t know very well because of this nagging doubt: will it be worth their time and mine? Meeting in the context of a potential friendship rather than work or dating is especially challenging because of how nebulous “friendship” is. Unlike a work dinner, you can’t justify the time spent with some variation of “I need this for my career/livelihood.” And with dating, it’s pretty clear what the end goal is, so the choice to invest time in someone is a bit more straightforward. But when meeting a potential new friend, it’s easy to slip into the mindset that you both have busy lives. Why should you invest time if you don’t know where it will lead?

Therein lies the paradox: you can’t know if someone you’ve just met will become a good friend without investing a lot of time. Friendships don’t just happen. They grow over time, nurtured by care, attention, and mutual interests. I love watching friend groups at outdoor gatherings like Smorgasburg or a music festival. It’s fun to observe them interact and guess what shared qualities bring them together.

There’s a countervailing school of thought that you can and should choose your friends. I think you can choose which relationships to invest in, and you can have a good idea who you’ll get along well with, but you can’t decide who you’ll become good friends with because it takes both people to make that happen.

The best friendships are serendipitous. They evolve in ways neither person could have foreseen. So if the goal is to make new friends in adulthood, we need to maximize serendipity, which means we should probably say “yes” more often than we say “no.”