Many people feel that it becomes harder to make friends once they reach college age and beyond.
But that does not mean your personality got worse, that you somehow failed as a person, or that there are no good people left to meet.
In many cases, the automatic supply of new connections simply ended.
Elementary school, middle school, high school, college, clubs, part-time jobs, and the group of people who joined a company at the same time as you.
When you are young, people are placed around you even if you do nothing to make it happen.
You are surrounded by people in the same age group, at the same school, following the same schedule, joining the same club, or working at the same part-time job.
That kind of environment is an extremely powerful automatic friend-generation system.
So the reason it was easier to make friends when you were younger was not just your social skills. Your environment was doing a lot of the work for you.
Once you enter working life, that automatic supply gets cut off.
You commute between home and work.
Workplace relationships come with competing interests and responsibilities.
You are tired on your days off.
Friends move into different circles because of marriage, parenting, transfers, or work.
There are also fewer chances to naturally enter a new group.
As a result, it can feel as though your friendships are disappearing.
But that does not mean you lost the ability to make friends.
It simply means that you have moved from friendships that happen naturally to friendships that require you to create a route for meeting people.
The important thing about making friends as an adult is not to try to create a best friend immediately.
At first, it is enough to have someone you can say hello to.
Then someone you can chat with casually.
Someone you can talk to about a shared hobby.
Someone you see repeatedly in the same place.
Someone you feel a little more at ease around.
Someone who keeps their promises.
Someone who respects your boundaries.
Relationships can grow in stages like this.
Trust does not have to be granted all at once. It can be unlocked step by step.
There is no need to hand someone administrator privileges from the beginning.
Guest access is enough at first.
Making friends after college becomes harder if you stay completely passive.
But your chances increase when you deliberately create routes for meeting people.
Hobby communities, sports, study groups, social media, online games, local events, volunteering, adult clubs, matching apps, and introductions through friends are all possible routes.
The problem may not be that you cannot make friends. It may simply be that you have not yet built a route through which friendships can form.
Making friends as an adult is less likely to work if you use exactly the same approach you used when you were younger.
But the possibility is not gone.
What you need is not to wait for friendships to appear on their own, but to create routes for meeting people, adjust the distance between you, and build trust gradually.
