How to Build Deeper Adult Friendships Without Feeling Awkward
adulthood and loneliness do not have to go hand in hand
Did you turn around recently and realize you’ve firmly landed in adulthood? In addition to bills and eating dinner straight from the pan (or, in my case, pomegranates without a plate), loneliness can arise with adulthood.
The loneliness epidemic is real and has economic, cultural, and social roots. It’s great to understand these problems intellectually, but our hearts still need friendship! At Skip the Small Talk, we hear all the time that trying to make friends as an adult can feel like a two hour loop of “so, what do you do?”
Once the spontaneous and consistent (and mandatory) connections of school and life with our family of origin are behind us, it can feel hard to even find footing to go deeper.
At the same time, no one wants to be the weirdly too earnest, too odd, too boring, too whatever person that makes Napoleon Dynamite look like Hollywood socialite. It can be tempting to dive in too fast or in too niche a way, and leave an interaction feeling more awkward and alone than you did before.
As ever, the key here is balance, persistence, and being true to what you actually want! These are skills learned and re-learned over and over again in life.
top 3 tips
This week I am offering 3 tips for going deeper with new or existing friendships as an adult:
Share a purpose - look for activities where you share a goal, purpose, or activity beyond just talking to each other. Everything from community clean up days with your local charity to a darts competition at your favorite watering hole to book club. Doing something purposeful together fosters an environment of collaboration, problem solving, and creates natural space to talk without the conversation being in the spotlight.
Have fun, don’t perform - even as adults, wanting to appear “cool” can plague us and lead us to choose activities that meet some imaginary standard of coolness. Here’s the thing: if you don’t actually like what the activity is, you won’t be any fun to be around! Pick something you actually like to do, or want to try - this will bring out the best in you and you’ll feel more comfortable in your own skin.
Keep showing up - you won’t nail it every time. We all flub conversations - I can think of two times this week a joke fell entirely flat with new friends - or have off days. Friendship is about continuing to show up. It’s in showing up over and over that we lay the foundations of deeper connection.
You can always practice these skills at the Skip the Small Talks near you (including online!)
Folks at an actual Skip the Small Talk event