How on earth do you make friends with men as an adult?

28 comments

1. You don’t.

2. It’s all on you. The best thing to do is to go someplace where people are doing things you enjoy doing, and strike up a conversation with people there. If you’re really lucky, a social butterfly will adopt you into their circle.

3. I don’t. The ones I have now are people I met during school and college days.

4. Easy. Be friendly say hi and smile. Why is making friends and being just a chill person so difficult? It’s not if you are a chill person.

5. Find something you like doing. Go to meetings for that thing. Get to know people. As a generalization though, men end up with a bunch of acquaintances over the years. Not a ton of close friends, but a lot of people you can meet up with for a drink or something

6. Find a difficult hobby. Running, jiu jitsu, climbing, etc. Work hard, join a training group, and make connections.

7. It’s hard out there, brother.

8. Yeah it kinda sucks. Especially if you are over 30 and literally only one left who doesn’t have girlfriend, wife/kids. I don’t want wife or kids and having some friends who are single and prefer bachelor life would be nice.

9. Church. A couple of Christian friends and I meet at least once a month and are in constant communication via chat apps.

10. Graduate school.

11. I have honestly made friends just by going to pop up concerts and meetups with the radio station I listen to. My advice would be to just strike up a conversation with a person you’d like to be friends with and see where it goes from there.

12. You have to be extremely intentional. If you wait around for people to initiate hangouts, it will never happen. That’s true of making friends in general but especially adult dude friends once you get past the age of like 28.

13. You have to go to places where people hangout and socialize. It’s extremely hard to make friends if all you do is sit in your house. I’ve made more friends as an adult than college or high school just forcing myself to do things outside the house.

14. Most of my really good friends were neighbors as kids and through high school, and also racing and riding motorcycles (on an amateur level) was where I met my oldest friends, which was 30+ years ago. Very few of those guys are around now, moved, different interests, old ladies that didn’t want them hanging around with their old buddies, dying, the usual reasons people stop hanging around. Or at work, that’s about it for exposure to new people.

15. It’s tough as you get older especially in 30s when everyone is paired up. I’m married and busy but realized pretty much all friends dropped off as I focused on family. Just now starting to reconnect. It takes effort and my advice is to keep pushing old friends to reconnect and keep putting yourself out there to make new ones. I made friends with my dentist in my 30s and now play golf regularly with him! It can happen. If you feel the way you do, chances are others do too.

16. Mainly at work, just having a sense of humor and being able to laugh at yourself as openly as you laugh at others.

17. Why tf do you want friends. I ignore friends on purpose because we have no common interests. I rather spend my time in the gym and working on my future. I don’t even feel the need to have friends

18. Adults make their friends at school and work. You might have a cool neighbor or maybe meet someone at some event, but for the most part its school and work.

19. Join groups on social media, volunteer work if you’re engaged with nature stuff like conservation programs, nature centers, trail programs. Post in the Reddit for your city you’re looking for groups to join.
    Go to concerts, bars, random events in town and if you spark a conversation with someone ask their name and remember it. Maybe get their number and ask to hangout again.
    Bumble has a find a friend feature to where you can match with guys with common interests and just hangout.
    I found going to the gym is great for beating loneliness cause im around other people, interact a little bit but there’s no expectations for me to be anxious about. The gym has been a game changer for my mental health and loneliness as a late twenties man.
    Biggest thing is to just engage with people, everyone is stuck in their phone or head nowadays if you can break through that and share some interests with someone most people appreciate it.

20. You don’t. You get married.

21. Find an activity you enjoy, meet the other dudes doing that activity, then just add beer!

22. [deleted]

23. Volunteering organizations, meetup groups, sports leagues, etc.

24. Being constantly meeting new friends…. I sociallize and reach out. Does a friend of a friend play the same game as we do, invite them over.

    Does a night of drinking with friends introduce a new person. Hey, you… we have a thing coming up next Thursday, if your free and willing. Join us.

    Does a friend not make it in because they had to drive 40 minutes and had a thing just before.
    No worries, we either meet you at your place, make other plans together next time or compromise as a unit.

    Having multiple hobbies is a benefit in thise regards and referring friends between hobbies gets the group bigger.

25. I recently made one at work. Its not something I ever planned on, it just sort of happened.

26. I’ve learned that you usually need to be the one who breaks the ice 🤷

27. Nobody on reddit knows this mystery.

28. forced, repeated proximity. there is no other way.