Here is the full transcript of Dr. Mark Shapiro’s talk titled “Why Is It So Hard To Make Friends As An Adult?” at TEDxSonomaCounty 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult
Making friends as an adult is hard. Have you ever heard this before? Have you ever felt this before? This idea that making friends as an adult is hard? I have been hearing this for years. I have been feeling this for years. This idea that making friends as an adult is hard. And it begs the question, why?
Why is this dynamic that is so important to us, that is so much fun, that generates so many wonderful experiences, become so difficult? I’m 47 years old. I like to think that I’m an affable guy and a good hang. Obviously, I’m a bit of an extrovert.
And yet we have this feeling that making friends as an adult is difficult. There’s a powerful juxtaposition here as well. We’ve got to remember we’re on the grounds of a primary school. And this might take at least some of us back to a time and a place where all that we may have needed for friendship formation was some time on the playground at recess, maybe a little bit of sunshine, and walking up to someone else and saying, “Do you want to play?”
The Pillars of Friendship Formation
And it’s with that same freedom of spirit and that unencumbered approach that we can think about the dynamics through which we can make friends. There are several pillars that we can kind of work through as we think about making friends as an adult and friendship formation.
First off, there’s the desire. You have to want to do this. You have to be in a place where you want to be making new friends. Then we need to establish proximity. We need to be near or around other people with whom we may find some sort of a connection. From there we want to establish continuity, maintaining some voltage in a world that is filled with distractions.
Then from there we want to reinforce this. We want to take this new connection, build it out so that there’s the opportunity for it to turn into a friendship. Let’s start with this first one.
Let’s start with this question of desire. Do you want to make friends right now? It’s an important question, and it merits some consideration. We know feelings of loneliness have evolved to the point where in the United States the Surgeon General describes an epidemic of loneliness. We know that in the U.K. postal workers will make specific calls on people who’ve said they are experiencing feelings of isolation just to spend time with them.
We also know that doing the work of friendship creation as an individual takes tremendous courage. It’s hard work. There is much vulnerability there. We’re going to ride some ups and downs. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take some time, some persistence. It may be a muscle that you haven’t exercised for a while and needs a chance to wake up.
But we know in parallel with that that the benefits of doing this work, the benefits of building new friendships are myriad. Self-esteem, mood, overall health, all of these domains improve as we build new friendships, and it’s fun. It’s supposed to be fun.
So if you’re in a place, though, where making new friends is not where you are, that is totally fine. You want to own that and move forward only when you’re ready. But acknowledging that tide of restlessness, those feelings of isolation and loneliness, let’s move forward and see if we can think about how we can continue on the journey with a spirit of creativity and energy.
Finding Proximity in a Changing World
We come to this idea of proximity. How do we form proximate relationships with new people? The ways that we have previously done this have been completely overturned over the last few years, where you may have been working in an office with lots of people or at least even with some people. Now you’re working from home.
Your kids may have grown up, or relationships you formed through your kids’ friends may have changed, where those are no longer the same. You may have picked up and moved and are having a hard time building new relationships in your new community.
Businesses you may have liked may no longer be in business. Your physical abilities may have evolved where certain things aren’t as accessible as they used to be. These all feel sometimes like they might be insurmountable, but there’s a real opportunity there.
When we step back and think to ourselves with full authenticity of ourselves as whole people, what feels exciting? What feels motivating? What feels stimulating? Where do I want to put myself? Where I may also be next to people with whom I can form an attachment.
Exploring Authentic Interests
That’s how we can move forward through that disruption. We can think about athletic activities, right, whether it’s hiking, biking, playing tennis. The list is endless. Book clubs, dining clubs, a TEDx discussion group perhaps.
If you have a technical interest, right, come and talk podcasting with me afterwards for sure. If there’s things that you like otherwise, maybe it’s something that’s civic-minded, right? A vision of the future is an amazing way to form new attachments.
Your authenticity will help put you in those positions where that proximity can start to happen. When we’ve done that work, when we’ve let our authentic self be our guide, we come to a really important pivot point, and that’s around this idea of maintaining some continuity.
We have to think very carefully about the self-talk that we’re going to use when it comes to how do I maintain this voltage with this person that I may have just met. It is very easy, and I speak through hard-learned experience, to internally say things like, “They’ve already got lots of friends. There’s no way they’re interested in making friends with me.”
Overcoming Self-Doubt
They are not as interested in new friendship creation as I might be. I’m just going to hang back. That may very well be the path of least resistance as you’re thinking about the next steps. It will stop your progress in its tracks.
The moment of inertia when you start to do that becomes very difficult to overcome. And I would submit, actually, it’s the opposite that’s true. Your new connection very much wants to hear from you. Now, I could go full motivational speaker here, right, get you fired up about the idea of reaching out to your new connection. I could do that.
But I’m also a doctor, and I would propose that we use the scientific method. To see if there might be some evidence to support our hypothesis. And there is. A paper published in 2022, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, entitled, “The Surprise of Reaching Out: More appreciated than we think.” This is perfect. In this paper, the authors describe what they called, “a robust underestimation of the degree to which our new connections want to hear from us.”
The Green Light to Reach Out
They went on to write, quote, “For those treading back into the social milieu with caution and trepidation,” my goodness, how they see us. They described a robust green light to reach out to your new connection. A robust green light. That is the self-talk we want to internalize as we are thinking about how do we maintain some continuity with this new connection.
So what are we going to say? What are we actually going to do? We’re going to do this. We’re saying the right things. We’re motivated. What are we actually going to say? Well, we want something that’s reproducible. We want something sustainable, quick, easy, accessible, and something people are used to, text messaging.
It’s become such a widely used and widely accessible platform. It’s an amazing place to reach out. And for me being up here, it’s actually really fun and exciting to think about people in the audience with whom I have had text exchanges with that mindset of friendship creation. It’s very effective.
So as we’re doing this, as we’re thinking about the text messages that we’re going to send to these new connections, what are we going to say? Keep it simple. Simplicity always works. Start with a compliment.
A personalized compliment sent with context to your new connection demonstrates to them that they are valued. It shows a level of empathy. It shows a level of energy and excitement. It builds that connection with your new person, and it’s fun to do.
It is a way of saying, “Do you want to play?” And when we do this work, we know from the Broaden and Build school of relationships, of interpersonal relationships, when we do this, we are creating a positive cycle of reinforcement. We are building a positive feedback loop.
This is the reinforcement that we are looking for as we think about how we’re going to take this connection and have it really build out into something that can be a common new friendship.
So as we think about all of these different moves that we’re going to take, as we’re going to move through our pillars of the desire to want to create a new friendship, finding proximity through our authenticity, maintaining that continuity and then reinforcing it, it’s essential that we remember that it will take a tremendous amount of vulnerability.
Embracing Vulnerability and Courage
It’s okay to acknowledge that. In fact, it’s critically important to acknowledge it, because when we own that, when we acknowledge it, we can bring our courage, we can bring our authenticity forward to keep us rooted on that pathway for those domains that we so want in our lives, those friendships and relationships that give us so much benefit. We will be rooted on that pathway towards making that progress.
So just as my seven-year-old son will walk up to someone on the playground and say, “Hey, do you want to play?” We as adults can do that exact same work as we think about creating new friends, and we can start right now. Thank you.
