I'm not sure what your expectations growing up were but I remember always hearing "making friends as adults is hard". This might be somewhat alleviated by having kids as a forcing function (becoming friends with your kid's friend's parents because of the amount of time they spend together) but it's pretty much been proven true. Making friends is a huge time investment, especially as an adult when you have more responsibilities that take up that time.
> I'm not sure what your expectations growing up were but I remember always hearing "making friends as adults is hard".
What's weird to me is... does it have to be?
For example, I've been in plenty of situations where all it would take is somebody to turn to me and say "so... tell me about yourself. blah blah blah, wow, me too! here's my number, we should hang out sometime".
I can't even get people to do that lol
People just seem preoccupied with themselves/don't seem to care. But then I turn it into something against myself. Why do these people have other friends/care about others but don't want to extend their circle to include me? Is it something about me? Then you start thinking "wow... this person is rude, we've been around each other for 3+ years and they've never once asked me my name/anything about me" lol
I feel like you tried to explain this to a high schooler as "something that may happen later in your adult life" they would say... "there's no way/I don't believe you"
> For example, I've been in plenty of situations where all it would take is somebody to turn to me and say...
Do you turn to them and say that?
In my experience, coming up with the opening line is the hardest part. Once you've determined some common ground to start off on, it's easy to keep going. Meeting at some sort of shared interest environment alleviates this.
Without that, it's basically the same as going to an LLM and saying "Hello, how are you?"
1. Once you've tried a few times and failed at almost 100% to have anything fruitful come from it, it's easy to blame yourself/want to stop trying
2. If you are going to be near me for 3 years+ on and off at a soccer game + post game drinks or whatever and not even put the effort in to know my name, I can't help but feel I would come off as the young kids say as "thirsty" and "unable to read the room" asking somebody uninterested to be a friend "hey... please be my friend!"
I remember telling my oldest kid that it was highly unlikely she would still be friends with her best friend in high school after high school. She didn’t believe me. About five years later she asked me if I remembered that conversation and said that I was right.
