What’s it like to have friends as adult?

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All my friends abandoned me so I’ve never had friends as an adult.

Why can't you make any? Surely you could join an interest group or even just a social group, right? Gotta put yourself out there if you want to meet people. You're not going to make real-life friends sitting in your room playing video games all day.

It's difficult. Most people are either preoccupied with their spouse/kids/significant other, or they already have strong established friendships and aren't really looking for new relationships.

I find that acquaintances can be obtainable, but it's near impossible to advance the relationship further so that we do things together, or they invite me to things, or they accept my invites, or we talk on the phone or text to tell each other things.

I'm fortunate to have a few lasting friends, but they live far away and don't talk to me during the year or care to have us keep up with each other's lives. If I wanted to know anything about them, I'd have to look on facebook. I do see them once a year at the holidays and we always have a lovely time.

So yeah.

It's not like having friends as a kid. Everyone is so busy they need to check their diaries to find a times when you can meet up. You can't just knock on their door and say, "do you want to go to the park."

I find this difficult because my diary is mostly empty, but it's hard to pin anyone down to do something with me.

Rare meetups involve going for coffee when you finally find a day you are all free.

I feel like I'm always the person organising things. Once in a blue moon I'll get invited somewhere, but it's usually me doing the organising.

I have people over to my house, or organise a meal out, or meet up to goo to an exhibition or gallery tour.

I don't understand people in the 21st century. They're just so insular and antisocial. Especially my old friends who are now partnered up or who have families. They have time for their other married friends, but not for me. I don't bother inviting them anywhere anymore. They're always "too busy"... for me.

All I've had is superficial friendships based on things like playing games together.

The few times I've been invited farther into someone's life, it's quickly become very boring. I have interests I'd rather be pursuing than hearing all about somebody's family and friends, or what they ate today and yesterday, or things they did in the past and brag about repeatedly. Or complaints; I hear a LOT of complaining about everything from the way the country is going to what somebody across the street did.

I got so tired of it I'm currently backing out of most of my "relationships" to go do my own thing. It's been mostly good and I may back out of them all, except for my HFA son who lives several states away. That relationship is awkward, but it's never boring. And it's the one that may have something deep in it, on both sides.

Since he's been diagnosed, I figure I probably have some of the traits too, especially since I first thought to ask him when I connected some things my father was doing to something I'd read about HFA. If my father had it, and my son has it.... So maybe that's why my "friendships" have seemed so unrewarding.

Edited to add that I used to post on here but it's been a few years. I've been out trying to be "normal". It hasn't worked out well.

It's hard as an adult. It depends on your country and culture too.
I'm in Minnesota, where we tend to be very friendly on the surface, but most people are hard to "really" get to know, and usually have for closest friends people they met in youth.
I have a couple very close friends, but one lives 2 1/2 hours away and the other is married with kids and very busy. My other acquaintances are all very busy too with wives and kids.
So as the single male aspie, it gets rather lonely sometimes.
I had gotten close to a couple people 10 years younger than me (I'm 34, they in their early 20s), and had fun, but in the end our expectations and maturity levels just kept clashing.
So, I try to just make sure to have regular meetups with the friends I do have, going for at least one meetup per week with someone, and use the me-time to focus on hobbies, interests, etc.

I definitely agree with this. I suspect that we have so many ways to entertain ourselves without directly interacting that we might all just tacitly agree that it is not worth the effort or risk to build face-to-face relationships anymore. I also have married friends who are usually busy. I also think we are all quite busy these days; maybe technology is partly to blame there too.


I actually hope to make more of these kinds of friends. I think of them as "social" friends vs. "personal" friends. My mom actually uses that term "social friends" to describe such friends also. The problem with me is that most of the things I am interested in are solitary, and few group activities seem to hold my interest so far.


This is me too, also 34, single, male, aspie-ish if not officially in my case. I have also had some friends around ten years younger that I met through a graduate program I was in. Though they were cool people, I found it a little hard to relate across the age gap.

I tend to be a bit like a social camel. One good meetup per week for a few hours with someone I enjoy talking to is enough to recharge my batteries 'till the next week. Trouble is, in my current situation I haven't met anyone I can meet up and chat with yet. Usually I meet such folks through work or if I am taking classes.

I actually have this funny dream of being able to go to a local bar and just chat people up over a beer. I am way to shy and have too much trouble with conversations to actually accomplish this right now. Or it might be cool to become a local at a bar if I could find a place where I could get comfortable and get to know people.

I've learned I need to take the initiative if I want to have friends.

Inviting a mixed group out for coffee seems to work quite well or organising a walk somewhere nice.

Showing an interest in other people makes them aware that you want to spend time with them and that you like them.

It's even harder than acquiring a romantic relationship for the stated reasons above.

Basically what banana247 said, no one seems interested to acquire new friends no matter the effort you make, it takes two to tango after all.

My new friends are all younger than me.

Don't have any and I do just fine.

^ The Filipinos would call their older female friend 'Ate <name>' , it literally means Sister but in this context it is as 'Big Sister'.

So you're an Ate Hurtloam.