For many adults, making new friends isn’t easy and stops being a priority. Busy schedules, work demands, and family obligations often leave little time for building friendships.

And yet, it’s still worth the extra effort. Research shows that friendship quality, time spent socializing, and even the number of friends you have are all linked to overall well-being.¹

Why making friends feels harder after childhood

The structures that likely helped you make friends as a child simply don’t exist in adulthood. School, extracurricular activities, and recurring social events provided built-in proximity and repeated contact with the same people.

While you might still experience this to some degree in your career or personal life, it’s often in ways that feel more obligatory. Research shows that time spent together in these settings was associated with lower friendship closeness compared to leisure-based time.²

As an adult, you have to actively create opportunities for regular interaction while also managing work and family obligations. And the numbers say that doesn’t often happen: The average American adult spends only about 35 minutes per day socializing.³

Adulthood also contains major life transitions, like moving or starting new jobs as you grow in your career. These transitions disrupt established social networks and require building friendships from scratch.

How to cultivate new friendships in adulthood

Six components can determine a friendship’s quality: companionship, intimacy, support, security, validation, and loyalty.⁴ With these components in mind, you can focus your efforts on the specific actions that build the kind of friendships you want.

Start by doing what you like

Think about the activities you genuinely enjoy, then find ways to do them with others. Participating in joint activities that you both find exciting is one of the friendship features most strongly associated with well-being.⁵ These shared experiences also increase friendship closeness.⁶

Consider joining a running club, taking a cooking class, or starting a book group. Beyond giving you the opportunity to meet new people, the activity itself gives you something to bond over while you get to know each other.

Share what’s real

Vulnerability often opens the door to friendship. Start small with sharing details about your day, then gradually open up more as trust builds. Challenge yourself to talk about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts—not just surface-level topics.

It’s been proposed that self-disclosure creates a “virtuous cycle” in friendships. ⁷ Being in higher-quality friendships encouraged more sharing, and those who shared more reported greater friendship quality over time.

Be supportive

If you want to build quality friendships, showing up consistently is crucial. Friends become primary sources of social support during young adulthood. In fact, in young adults support from friends is more strongly linked to well-being than support from family.⁸

Social support from friends comes in three forms:⁹

• Emotional support: Acceptance, sympathy, and encouragement
• Instrumental support: Tangible help like moving boxes or lending tools
• Informational support: Advice and guidance when facing decisions

Look for ways you can offer support, even if it seems like a small gesture. Offer help when someone needs it, and don’t be afraid to ask for help yourself.

Offer a safe place to land

When a friend faces a challenge, your consistency and presence can create a sense of safety. Whether it’s a job loss, relationship problem, or health scare, you can be there for them even when you don’t have answers.

Simply being someone they can reach out to without judgment creates emotional security. Research shows that friends can significantly reduce stress caused by negative life events.¹⁰

Affirm their worth

Friends who provide encouragement and affirmation help each other maintain a positive self-image.¹¹ This might look like celebrating accomplishments, affirming decisions, or helping someone see their positive qualities when they’re being hard on themselves.

Validation goes beyond compliments. It’s about genuinely recognizing a person’s strengths and reminding them of their worth, especially when they doubt themselves. So if there’s a trait you admire in a potential friend, tell them.

Show up consistently

Being a loyal friend means following through on your commitments and being available when your friend needs you. This doesn’t mean you’re available 24/7, but rather that your friend knows they can count on you to show up for the things that matter.

Research shows that trust and loyalty are integral to lasting friendships.¹² Close friends are more capable of meeting expectations than casual friends and tend to invest more time in the relationship.¹³ Remember to prioritize friendship even when life gets busy. Even if you can’t commit much time to new friends, try to follow through on whatever you commit to.

How long does it take to make new friends?

It takes approximately 40 to 60 hours together, within the first few weeks of knowing someone, to move from acquaintance to casual friend.¹⁴ You’ll need 80 to 100 hours to become friends, and 200+ hours over several months to develop a close friendship.

The sheer quantity of time spent together remains one of the most significant predictors of friendship development. Be patient and consistent; friendships don’t develop overnight. Keep showing up and prioritize spending time with potential friends outside of work or other day-to-day obligations.

How to make friends as an adult with social anxiety or as an introvert

Both introverts and people with social anxiety face certain barriers that can make it harder to connect, but they don’t need friendship any less. Social support from friends was actually more strongly correlated with happiness for people with low extraversion.¹⁵ And socially anxious people reported larger reductions in negative feelings when with close companions compared to less socially anxious people.¹⁶

In general, people often overestimate social costs and underestimate benefits, avoiding friendship opportunities out of fear that others aren’t interested.¹⁷ This can be especially true for introverts and socially anxious people.

Structured approaches can help. For example, Groups 4 Health (G4H) is a program that teaches people the knowledge and skills they need to manage their social group connections.¹⁸ It goes beyond encouraging people to “get out there,” and provides a framework for understanding how group memberships support well-being and practical strategies for building them. This structured approach targets the identity-belonging link at the heart of loneliness.

In a study on its impacts, the results were significant. G4H reduced loneliness and social anxiety while helping participants develop a stronger sense of belonging to multiple groups.

If you’re struggling, consider working with a therapist who can help you develop the right social skills and manage anxiety around making friends. Therapy can provide personalized strategies for your specific situation.

Where to actually meet people as an adult

Knowing where to look makes a big difference in how to make new friends as an adult. Research on social connections points to several effective approaches.

One of the most important moves you can make is seeking out settings with built-in repeated contact.  Research shows that even a single structured group activity can spark friendships that last months—but the key to deepening those connections is seeing the same people regularly.¹⁹ When you show up to the same place at the same time, you’re more likely to create the conditions for the number of hours together needed to build real friendship.

Try these options:

Recurring classes or clubs: Sign up for a weekly yoga class, join a recreational sports league, or take a multi-week course in something you want to learn. The regular schedule means you’ll see the same faces week after week, making it natural to start conversations and gradually build familiarity.

Shared spaces: Co-working spaces, apartment buildings with common areas, or community gardens create natural opportunities for repeated, low-pressure interactions. The key is choosing spaces where you’ll cross paths with the same people regularly.

Volunteer commitments: Choose a cause you care about and commit to a regular schedule. This may look like weekly meal prep at a food bank, monthly trail maintenance, or regular tutoring sessions. Working toward a shared goal alongside the same people builds camaraderie naturally.

Interest-based groups: Look for groups that meet regularly, not one-off events. A weekly board game night, monthly book club, or standing hiking group gives friendships time to develop through repeated exposure.

Don’t overlook online communities. Online spaces serve as legitimate pathways for friendship, particularly during life transitions like moving or changing jobs.²⁰ Some online friendships eventually move offline, and some remain primarily online while still providing meaningful connection.

If you’re struggling to make new friendships or maintain existing ones, mental health professional can help you identify barriers to making friends and develop an action plan tailored to your lifestyle and personality. They can also help you work through past friendship difficulties that might be holding you back.

Visit our directory to connect with a therapist online or in your area.