You can still make new friends in your twenties.
What a ridiculous statement, I know. You’re probably thinking, “Of course, you can still make new friends in your twenties. Isn’t that what your twenties are all about? Like, did you even watch Friends?” But if you had asked me a few months ago if I thought this was true, I’d have said that I thought making friends in your twenties was exceptionally hard.
Here was my logic.
By the time you reach your last year of undergrad, the people around you aren’t really looking for friends. They’ve already made their connections, deepened their relationships and found the people they hope to still be spending time with in 20 years from now. In high school, I learned the hard way that it is incredibly difficult to work your way into a pre-existing friend group, especially one that has existed for an extended period of time. I suffered enough of that heartbreak in my teens to ever want to put myself through it again. It has made me an incredibly anxious and introverted extrovert.
But as all my friends left me behind, moving onto bigger and better things after graduation, I was struggling. Sure, I still had friends who lived in the area, but they were busy. I couldn’t monopolize all of their time. It’s hard to go from being surrounded by so many people who love and care about you to having very few people in your life that you can confide in. It was a big change.
Last summer, I began to realize just how lonely I was. I disappeared into working, picking up any shift my job offered me, but it didn’t change how quiet my nights were or how little socialization I was getting outside of my workplace.
There are only so many middle-aged women you can try to befriend before you start to feel a little ridiculous.
While there was a small population of people my age who also worked at the store, they had already formed what appeared to be a tight-knit, completely impenetrable friend group that I was never going to squeak my way into.
There was no point in even trying.
It went on like this for a while, busy days having surface-level conversations with coworkers who were simply putting up with my chatter as a nicety and lonely nights, quietly sequestered away in my childhood bedroom. I watched as the friend group I so desperately wanted to join as they posted photos of their outings: dinners, barbecues, bowling. I wanted so badly to be included, but I couldn’t bring myself to try. It was a miserable existence. I was devastatingly lonely.
When school started again, I began to see some of the people I cared about, but it was like we were on completely different schedules, never being able to find time to hang out. It didn’t help that I was still working all the time. The loneliness could only persist.
Then, something changed.
I woke up one day and realized I was tired of being lonely. I decided that when I was working, I was going to try to put myself out there and be more sociable. Outside of work, I tried to make more plans with old friends and then actually follow through on them. Instead of hiding inside my loneliness, I was going to break out of it. I would push through my fear of rejection and redefine what my social life looked like.
So yeah, if you asked me last August if I thought it was possible to make new friends in your twenties, I would have said no. How silly that is. How completely unreasonable.
These days, I’m rarely very lonely. I no longer let my anxiety surrounding friendships rule my life.
While there are still some days that I struggle with imposter syndrome or the occasional unfounded worry that these new friends don’t really want me around, I’m trying my best not to succumb to it. Instead, in moments where I feel unsure, I force myself to be even more social to prove to myself that these insecurities simply aren’t true.
Life isn’t perfect and friendships aren’t ever going to be easy. But no matter how old you are, your age doesn’t define your ability to make new connections. No matter how scary it is, you’ve got to put yourself out there. You’ve got to try.
You’d be amazed at all the things that will come your way when you allow yourself to at least give it a shot.