Ppl underestimate how proactive you need to be to make friends as an adult For most of human history, adult friendship was a side effect of contexts where repeated casual interaction was ensured: neighborhoods, church, associations, etc These contexts have largely disintegrated, but adults have not adapted. We’re still implicitly *waiting for friendship to happen to us* and it just doesn’t Now the alternative to being lonely is to be weird: to be a proactive friender. This looks like being the one to initiate the first hangout, and also the second and the third. It looks like hosting your own dinners, game nights, etc, which create the repeated context that older generations would have counted on from, eg, church. It means following up on your last text message if they don’t respond (rather than automatically assuming that they’re rejecting you). It also means calibrating when you’re coming on too strong for certain people and friending them more gradually. It’s work! In my experience, people are very confused by proactive friending behavior. The only social categories in which we proactively reach out are dating or evangelism. I can tell that, when I’m friending someone in this way, they’re like “what is this?” because they’re used to friendship just happening automagically (except it’s not anymore for them) I used to feel bitter that I always needed to be the guy to make things happen (esp bc I’m a natural introvert), but that’s just the role that universe assigned me, as someone who’s seen the situation and who can do something about it. Maybe that can be true for you too So you just gotta persevere – take one for the team as humanity goes through this painful transition from atomized loneliness to new types of togetherness 🚀