We all have been told that we make all or most of our lifetime friends during the school or college years, which is bizarre as we barely know how to intentionally make friends in that age when things just happen haphazardly and suddenly two people start being friends.
Real friends can be made in our adulthood if we choose to. We should realize that having a good friend is probably the best thing in the world. A lifetime friend can make us happier, smarter and kinder. Friendships make good times better, and bad times not that bad.

The Great Friendship Myth

Most childhood friends are made accidentally. Adults can act maturely and find out certain acquaintances that they would want to be friends with. Once they identify a ‘friend’ candidate, they would need to do something called a ‘small leap’.
A small leap is a step where we ask an acquaintance to join us for a small activity, which may be a common interest. It could be a morning jog or just going to the market for some impulsive shopping. This small step is a tiny risk and carries an awkwardness(on both sides), so not many people are comfortable with it.

Making Friends: The Small Leap

If we take small leaps on a regular basis, we can kick start a compounding effect where each new friend can push other acquaintances who are highly-qualified friend candidates, as they already have good references.
The small risk of asking to do something carries with it an aversion (due to the uncertainty) resulting in avoidance. If it is practised on a regular basis, no one will remain a stranger to us, and one can enrich their world with beautiful friendships.

A Small Step For Us, A Giant Leap For Friendship

<img src="https://www.raptitude.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/kevin-curtis-QlnUpMED6Qs-unsplash-550.jpg" width="550" height="363" alt="Post image for How to Make Friends as an Adult">I have two aims for this post: to dispel one of our most harmful cultural myths, and to help make you at least one lifelong friend.It’s worth <a href="https://www.raptitude.com/2020/11/three-recession-proof-investments-for-2020/" dir="ltr">saying again</a> that good friends are the best thing in the world. They make the good times great and the bad times not so bad. They make you wiser, kinder, smarter, and more interesting. They help you develop your strengths and survive your weaknesses. Nothing else I know of does all of those things. &nbsp;Friendship is precious, but it doesn’t have to be rare or elusive. You may have been told, like I was, that it is “very difficult” or even “virtually impossible” to make friends once you’re done school. After a few decades of heeding this warning, I now recognize it as a self-fulfilling nonsense belief we should all ignore. Since abandoning this myth, I’ve had a steady stream of new friends and friend circles, and it is probably the most fulfilled area of my life.Before we continue, a crucial point: I am not especially talented at friend-making. I have a history of social anxiety and general awkwardness, and I possess correspondingly underdeveloped small-talk skills. I miss obvious cues and say things at the wrong moment. I’m definitely in a lower bracket of the natural friend-making ability scale.And that’s a very good reason to listen to my advice, rather than that of a networking expert who worked in real estate for thirty years. If I’m able to make friends as an adult, chances are excellent that you can too. &nbsp;<h3>Why people say it’s hard</h3>So why do people say it’s so hard to make friends as an adult? Aside from “because everyone else says so,” I believe it’s because people have no idea how they made friends as a kid or a teenager either.My guess is that for most people, childhood friendships just sort of happened, because the school years come with an almost perfectly fertile environment for accidental friend-making. You’re put in a room for ten months with thirty other kids your age, then encouraged (sometimes forced) to work and play with them. This regimen is repeated for twelve to fifteen straight years.If you made friends this way, and that led to even a few adult friendships, you might never have needed to make friends on purpose. So you don’t know how, and never did.In adulthood, friend-making needs to become intentional if it’s going to happen, and intentional friend-making looks quite different from the haphazard method that sufficed earlier in life. Once an adult accepts this need for intention, and rejects the Great Friendship Myth, they can make friends on purpose. It comes down to doing one particular thing most people avoid.<h3>How to do it</h3>Basically, you make friends out of acquaintances — people you know but are not friends with — and the crucial friend-making act is this: you have to ask a not-quite-friend if they want to do something. This proposal doesn’t have to be anything date-like, just an invitation to do something that does not involve the buffer of a mutual friend.I call this act the Small Leap. It’s so simple, but it’s all you need to grow a few friends from a batch of acquaintances. It is a leap, because there’s some uncertainty involved. But it is also small. Leaping over a puddle small. Getting a cookbook down from the top shelf small.The Small Leap is usually a single question, asked in person or via message, referring to something you have in common. Something like, “I’m going to a flea market Saturday, if you want to come” or “Hey, you were talking about Scrabble the other day, want to have a game?” The smaller and easier it is, the better. Saying yes is a leap for them too.It is never completely comfortable to do this. But if you don’t do it, all you can do is hope someone else does, and directs their leaps your way. Wherever there is a friendship, someone made a Small Leap.As I put it in a <a href="https://www.raptitude.com/2020/11/three-recession-proof-investments-for-2020/" data-type="post" data-id="10622" dir="ltr">recent post</a>:<BLOCKQUOTE>Friendships are born only when one acquaintance takes a certain kind of risk, which is to invite the other person to something. It could be anything – a walk, a poker game, an exchange of soup recipes, whatever. If you both enjoyed it, the precedent for such invitations has been set, and you’ve graduated from acquaintancehood.</BLOCKQUOTE>Some people do a lot of this, and most people probably never do it. You might have noticed that people with tons of friends don’t necessarily have irresistible personalities. They just make Small Leaps on a regular basis.Leaping your way to even one new friend kicks off a wonderful compounding effect. Each friend tends to come with more acquaintances, and usually they’re highly qualified friend candidates.* Thus, a few leaps can change your life.The cost of making the Small Leap is that sometimes people say they’re busy, or they don’t get back to you, and that might feel momentarily bad. (And I mean might – often it feels like nothing.)As far as I can tell, that’s it. Our aversion to that little risk costs the world millions of friendships a year. Imagine the great friendships — your great friendships — that never happened just because it seems more important to proof ourselves against small pangs of rejection or awkwardness.This aversion is so low-key that you barely feel it, and that makes it insidious. It feels natural not to make these leaps, so it’s easy avoid them altogether — even though you’re risking basically nothing, and the eventual reward can be pretty much the best thing in the world. &nbsp;***Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@kcurtis113" dir="ltr">Kevin Curtis</a>*If you’re starting from zero acquaintances, then that is your first step, but the principle is the same. If your workplace, family ties, and day-to-day interactions haven’t yielded any acquaintances, you can make some by doing the things people usually recommend for making friends: clubs, classes, group activities, and events. The Small Leap between stranger and acquaintance is only to talk to a person to the point where you know each other’s names and one mutual interest, and usually those activities provide a context for doing exactly that.<h3>
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I have two aims for this post: to dispel one of our most harmful cultural myths, and to help make you at least one lifelong friend. It’s worth saying again that good friends are the best thing in the world. […]

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I have two aims for this post: to dispel one of our most harmful cultural myths, and to help make you at least one lifelong friend.

It’s worth <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.raptitude.com/2020/11/three-recession-proof-investments-for-2020/">saying again </a>that good friends are the best thing in the world. They make the good times great and the bad times not so bad. They make you wiser, kinder, smarter, and more interesting. They help you develop your strengths and survive your weaknesses. Nothing else I know of does all of those things.

Friendship is precious, but it doesn’t have to be rare or elusive. You may have been told, like I was, that it is “very difficult” or even “virtually impossible” to make friends once you’re done school. After a few decades of heeding this warning, I now recognize it as a self-fulfilling nonsense belief we should all ignore. Since abandoning this myth, I’ve had a steady stream of new friends and friend circles, and it is probably the most fulfilled area of my life.

Before we continue, a crucial point: I am not especially talented at friend-making. I have a history of social anxiety and general awkwardness, and I possess correspondingly underdeveloped small-talk skills. I miss obvious cues and say things at the wrong moment. I’m definitely in a lower bracket of the natural friend-making ability scale.

And that’s a very good reason to listen to my advice, rather than that of a networking expert who worked in real estate for thirty years. If I’m able to make friends as an adult, chances are excellent that you can too.

So why do people say it’s so hard to make friends as an adult? Aside from “because everyone else says so,” I believe it’s because people have no idea how they made friends as a kid or a teenager either.

My guess is that for most people, childhood friendships just sort of happened, because the school years come with an almost perfectly fertile environment for accidental friend-making. You’re put in a room for ten months with thirty other kids your age, then encouraged (sometimes forced) to work and play with them. This regimen is repeated for twelve to fifteen straight years.

If you made friends this way, and that led to even a few adult friendships, you might never have needed to make friends on purpose. So you don’t know how, and never did.

In adulthood, friend-making needs to become intentional if it’s going to happen, and intentional friend-making looks quite different from the haphazard method that sufficed earlier in life. Once an adult accepts this need for intention, and rejects the Great Friendship Myth, they can make friends on purpose. It comes down to doing one particular thing most people avoid.

Basically, you make friends out of acquaintances — people you know but are not friends with — and the crucial friend-making act is this: you have to ask a not-quite-friend if they want to do something. This proposal doesn’t have to be anything date-like, just an invitation to do something that does not involve the buffer of a mutual friend.

I call this act the Small Leap. It’s so simple, but it’s all you need to grow a few friends from a batch of acquaintances. It is a leap, because there’s some uncertainty involved. But it is also small. Leaping over a puddle small. Getting a cookbook down from the top shelf small.

The Small Leap is usually a single question, asked in person or via message, referring to something you have in common. Something like, “I’m going to a flea market Saturday, if you want to come” or “Hey, you were talking about Scrabble the other day, want to have a game?” The smaller and easier it is, the better. Saying yes is a leap for them too.

It is never completely comfortable to do this. But if you don’t do it, all you can do is hope someone else does, and directs their leaps your way. Wherever there is a friendship, someone made a Small Leap.

As I put it in a <a data-id="10622" data-type="post" dir="ltr" href="https://www.raptitude.com/2020/11/three-recession-proof-investments-for-2020/">recent post </a>:

Friendships are born only when one acquaintance takes a certain kind of risk, which is to invite the other person to something. It could be anything – a walk, a poker game, an exchange of soup recipes, whatever. If you both enjoyed it, the precedent for such invitations has been set, and you’ve graduated from acquaintancehood.

Some people do a lot of this, and most people probably never do it. You might have noticed that people with tons of friends don’t necessarily have irresistible personalities. They just make Small Leaps on a regular basis.

Leaping your way to even one new friend kicks off a wonderful compounding effect. Each friend tends to come with more acquaintances, and usually they’re highly qualified friend candidates.* Thus, a few leaps can change your life.

The cost of making the Small Leap is that sometimes people say they’re busy, or they don’t get back to you, and that might feel momentarily bad. (And I mean might – often it feels like nothing.)

As far as I can tell, that’s it. Our aversion to that little risk costs the world millions of friendships a year. Imagine the great friendships — your great friendships — that never happened just because it seems more important to proof ourselves against small pangs of rejection or awkwardness.

This aversion is so low-key that you barely feel it, and that makes it insidious. It feels natural not to make these leaps, so it’s easy avoid them altogether — even though you’re risking basically nothing, and the eventual reward can be pretty much the best thing in the world.

Photo by <a dir="ltr" href="https://unsplash.com/@kcurtis113">Kevin Curtis </a>

*If you’re starting from zero acquaintances, then that is your first step, but the principle is the same. If your workplace, family ties, and day-to-day interactions haven’t yielded any acquaintances, you can make some by doing the things people usually recommend for making friends: clubs, classes, group activities, and events. The Small Leap between stranger and acquaintance is only to talk to a person to the point where you know each other’s names and one mutual interest, and usually those activities provide a context for doing exactly that.

Finally! Raptitude is now on Patreon. It's an easy way to help keep Raptitude ad-free. In exchange you get access to extra posts and other goodies. Join a growing community of patrons. <a dir="ltr" href="https://patreon.com/raptitude">[See what it's all about] </a>

If you liked this post, get Raptitude sent to you. (It's free.)

How to Make Friends as an Adult

The Great Friendship Myth

Making Friends: The Small Leap

A Small Step For Us, A Giant Leap For Friendship

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