The Struggle Of Finding Friends After College
One of the biggest complaints I have heard from my friends who have graduated from college is that they are finding it hard to find meaningful friendships or relationships with people on a daily basis. Most of the people they interact with will usually be from their work or friends of friends they made during high school or college, but the pool is so limited that finding people with your own interests and hobbies can be hard.
In college meeting people was easy, especially when you lived in dormitories your freshman and sophomore year like many did at my school. When no one had any friends, everyone was willing to befriend each other and went back to those days of preschool where becoming friends with someone was as easy as saying “hey that’s a cool toy you have there”. Most people’s friend groups that they will end up having for life were literally placed across the hall from them on day one. College in general is a great place to find friends, especially in classes because you are with people of similar intellect and interests, working towards the same goals.
College was a time of literally meeting thousands of people a year by going to parties or just meeting friends of friends who lived in another building. However even in college you start to see the amount of people you meet drop off every year. Once you move off campus you really have your set friend groups and people are far less likely to bring you in after that point, but you still meet people by chance. Almost everyone I have become friends with in college was through mutual friends. It was a great time and now that I am leaving it, I am scared of what is to come.
The biggest problem after college is that the primary source of interactions you are going to be having on a daily basis come within your job. The demographic of your office is very different from your university where everyone was the same age and working towards getting a degree. In the work force people are in vastly different stages of their life, pursuing different goals and having completely different experiences than your own. So finding someone who is like minded and around your age can often be a daunting task, especially if you go to work in a new state where you have zero connections to any social circles. For example my friend went to go work in Nebraska while he has lived in New York his entire life and struggled finding people of age that he related to.
Having no one and being on your own is one of the worst things in this world, so having a friend is essential in life. We are social creatures after all and almost all of us needs someone that we can at least talk to. Had this been 50 years ago, life might have been much harder, but with the internet and smart phone apps, came the ability to find friends in areas that you are new to. In an age where a large percentage of people are finding their romantic partners online, it is no wonder that finding friends can be done the same way as well. I want to talk about a few ways of meeting new people that I have heard work for some of my friends.
The one I have heard people having the most amount of success with is meetup.com. It is essentially a site where groups can post ads looking for people to join in your area. If you are in a city there are such a large amount of groups that there is usually everything from a hiking group to a group of people looking for more dungeons and dragon players. They literally have almost every group you could imagine on meetup.com. My friend who is an avid hiker, ended up going to an indoor rock climbing event they were holding and now is good friends with two of the people he met there.
The hardest part about becoming friends with new people is sometimes just being in a social situation with them that isn’t weird or uncomfortable. Going might be uncomfortable at first, but just like that first college day, everyone is there looking to make friends with similar interests. I know I personally will be trying out the site when I graduate because even if I still have many of my friends from college, they are busy during the week and unable to hang out at night. If you have any other suggestions on how to meet more people, I would love to hear it as I think it is important for not only happiness but also mental wellbeing.
-Calaber24p
I'm actually gonna write a post about this as I thought a lot about this, I had different experiences with this as I "start over" quite often and tried different approaches and I'll also try to find a new one again or at least make the current one better.
And as of tomorrow I'm moving to a new city and new country again starting over and I kind of want to have some friends for Christmas or NY. Not that I care about them that much (those days of the year) but the loneliness might hit at that time and I'm not in the best state of mind I've ever been in.
Anyway, if you want I can link it to you afterwards as you'll find some interesting approaches there I'm sure. Especially for places where Meetup.com doesn't work, as is most places I've been to and lived in :).
Cool send me a link I'm very interested to read it !
Its way more stressful time then I thought so it'll take a few days more to finish it. Hopefully I'll have a place to stay at so I can focus on solving other problems that are popping up :). But by the end of this week I'll finish it for sure, that's my promise to you :).
Finally I did it :)
Traveler Trying To Fit Back In How Do You Meet New People And Make Make New Friends Efficiently Without Much Of An Effort --- by @joewantsfreedom
Let me know what you think
Very interesting post. Thanks for the sharing of your thoughts and heart with us all.
I have purposefully moved from one area of the world to another in order to train myself in learning to let go. In the process, one can't help but to start over every time. One thing that really struck me, is how from one location to the other, some areas were really in synch with me and, therefore, easy to relate to the people whereas in other locations, the pendulum vacillate exactly the other way.
Like musical note on a keyboards, some people are more like A-tone with a C-tone, they harmonically fit together. Meanwhile, as much as there is willingness in socializing, some people fit with each other in the exact opposite fashion. I came to realize that people and locations have a lot in common and that I relate to some areas, including its people, more like an A-tone and a B-tone would fit together, not too aesthetically pleasing...
In itself, it is good training to feel this effect and learn to live within such environments as it strengthens us, if it doesn't break us. Being aware of such energies, it feels more and more easy to know where I should stop to hang out and meet people or simply go on and walk by like a silent ghost to them all.
Namaste :)
I noticed that when we form our opinion about what's important, and the world around us, it separates us from those who think differently (in some cases). At a young age, our minds were simpler, but then they get jammed up with philosophy, world issues, politics, religion. I have trouble being around the people who drink obsessively. We just don't have anything in common. I also gave up hunting and religion. That really puts me out there on a limb, away from my old crowd.
Thanks, life is hard after colledge
My closest friends today - people I truly trust - are people I went to high school and college with. I have learned the hard way not to be too trusting at work. Especially when people are juggling for political position to influence outcomes. Their ulterior motives mean they need ammunition - even something trite that could just be mentioned on the down low as a bullet for your back.
Keep your worlds compartmentalized.