Why Making New Friends Feels Exhausting As An Adult (And How to Make It Easier)

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yours today. When you become an adult, you maybe see your friends once a week if you're lucky, for an hour or two, so it's much harder to build that depth and because of this, we often find it more comfortable to be around old friends, even if we don't connect and don't resonate, compared to new friends who we may have to make more effort with the number one health and well Inness podcast, Jay Setty, Jay Chetty, Hey, everyone, Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn,

and grow. My name's Jay Chetty, and I am grateful as ever that you decided to tune in, whether you're driving to work, driving back, walking, walking your dog, working out, cooking, whatever you're up to. Thank you for being here right now now. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a TikTok Instagram reel and I was talking about the difference between real friends and fake friends. And it was something I was thinking about for a while now because I started to find that as we get older, we start

to think different about friendships. I remember seeing this quote years ago and it was on a meme and it said my circle has gone smaller but grown in value, and it showed a large coin that was thinner moving into a smaller coin that was thicker and worth more. And it's just interesting how I think so many of us think about our relationships that way. So in this TikTok and in this real I said, real friends clap the loudest when you win, even if they're still waiting

for their turn. Think about that for a minute. Real friends don't get jealous, they don't get envious. That's one of the core traits of a real friend. When they see you win, they see what's possible. When they see you win, they want to know how they can join in and celebrate, how they can make you feel happy, how they can honor what you've achieved. I then went on to say, real friend lift you up even when they're carrying their own weight. I think so many of

us have been this friend. So many of us have these friends that show up for us even when we know it isn't easy for them. I then said, real friends know your success is a reflection of hard work, not luck. When you start to become successful, when you start to make moves, when you start to see some progress, people around you will start to say you're lucky, You're fortunate. You should be grateful. Now here's the thing. You should feel that way. It's great to feel grateful, fortunate, and

lucky when it's for yourself. But your real friends see and remind you that it was your hard work that paid off. It was your hustle, it was your commitment, it was your dedication, it was the hours that you put in. They saw that, They know that, and they remind you of that. I then went on to say, real friends are happy to see you shine because your light doesn't dim theirs, and real friends do the same back.

But something I've heard from so many of you recently is that making new friends as an adult is exhausting, and we want it to be easier. Right. We all want to have meaningful relationships. We keep hearing about it in every podcast, in every episode, that the quality of your relationships defines the quality of your life. It's the thing that we hold as the highest metric in what makes us feel like we had a good life at

the end of our life. Yet as we grow older, we change jobs, we move countries, we move cities, and it feels as though we don't have the same friends around us, or some of us may have the same friends around us and we haven't moved, but we've grown. Right, You may not have moved city or moved country, but you've moved on and so that group of friends that you up around doesn't feel like your people anymore. For me, I've moved so much right in my years of being

an adult. I've lived in India, I've lived in New York, I've lived in la I have moved around a lot. And one thing that I knew I had to do as I was moving, was prioritize building community, building friendships as much as I focused on building my career. Wherever I went, I made it a priority to build community. And the reason was because I didn't want to be lonely. I didn't want to end up feeling like I'd achieved all my goals but that I didn't have anyone to

share it with. I didn't want to feel like I'd achieved what I wanted to do, but I didn't have people that I had memories with. And so today's episode is for anyone who's thinking about making friends as an adult but finds it exhausting and wants it to be easier. So I want to start with this. First of all, if you feel like it's exhausting to make friends as you get older, you're not imagining it. It's true. It's

actually harder. Researchers have actually studied this. A massive twenty twenty meta analysis found that friendship networks start shrinking after your mid twenties, not because you're doing anything wrong, but because life just changes. Work ramps up, people move, Family becomes more central. You have kids to think about, right,

you have family members to worry about. Social psychologist Robin Dunbar says we can only maintain about one hundred and fifty meaningful relationships, and to be honest, that sounds exhausting in and of itself. But they go on to say, we can only have five close friends, and in our thirties, sometimes those five people just become our partner, her kids, and one of our parents or maybe two of our parents, And so that number five is so limited. By the way,

this is natural. Your social energy gets stretched dinner, you got to think about work, you got to think about responsibilities. So first of all, it's really natural. It's not because there's something wrong with you. It's not because you made a mistake. It's not because you're weak. Right, So here's a mini experiment that I want to share with you. For this one, ask yourself this question who do I miss? I call this the who do I Miss? Test? Ask yourself?

Who have I thought about lately and wished I saw more of? Who's that person in our life that we actually have a lot of good memories with And maybe they've moved, maybe we've moved, maybe we don't see each other as much, Maybe they got a new job, maybe you had a kid. Who's that person you genuinely miss. Who's that person that you have so many good memories with but it's just been a while. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to text them, text that person and say, hey, I miss seeing you.

Should we grab a quick coffee? Should we go for a walk? Or if you live far away, do we need to arrange something? You know, it doesn't need to be a huge plan. You can start small, even with a zoom or a FaceTime. But reconnect with the one person who already gets you. I think so often we think we have to have new friends, We think we have to move on. But there's someone in your life who deeply gets you, who already knows your heart, who

can already read in between the lines. I reconnected with some of my high school friends, and it's really interesting because when you went to high school with someone, you just have a shorthand. And I think there's a mistake we make with this mindset as well. We think that our old friends were our real friends and our new friends are not real friends. The difference is time when you were young, you spend every hour at school with

the friend. You then probably came home and spoke to them on the phone or texted the message that maybe even went out with them. We were spending around nine hours a day minimum with someone, and that's how we became friends over three, five, seven, eight years of our life. When you become an adult, you maybe see your friends once a week, if you're lucky, for an hour or two.

So it's much harder to build that depth. And because of this, we often find it more comfortable to be around old friends, even if we don't connect and don't resonate, compared to new friends who we may have to make more effort with. I think that's part of where the exhausting thing comes from. Right. It's like with new friends, you got to show up, you got to make plans. You feel like you can't just be on your phone, you can't just lay back. It actually requires something of you.

And I think this is principle number two. I want you to recognize that your brain has become more guarded. Now. See, when you're younger, your brain's more plastic, more open to novelty. But by your thirties, your brain actually becomes more risk averse. According to neuroscience research, you're a migdaler, the part of your brain that handles. Fear lights up more when meeting new people. As you age, we become more cynical, more skeptical,

more doubtful. Why because you now have more experiences of rejection, of awkwardness, maybe people stabbing you in the back, mistreating you, people not being loyal. So your brain tries to protect you by making you avoid potential discomfort. So it's not just you being antisocial. Right. You might be thinking, Hey, I just feel like I'm becoming more an introvert. I feel like I'm being more antisocial. No, it's your brain plain defense, right, that's what's happening. You're being more defensive

and this is natural. Again, but what does that do? It means we spend less time and more skeptical time with new people, and we assume that we can't make good friends anymore. I want you to try something out. Here's a mini experiment. I call it the two minute rule. Next time you're in a new space, like an event, a workout, class, a friend's dinner, friend's birthday, just make a two minute connection. Compliment someone, ask a question, say

one friendly sentence. No pressure to make a new bestie. Write, You're just training your brain to stop seeing socializing as a threat, smile it someone in the line, start a conversation with someone while you're waiting in line, whatever it may be. And by the way, it may feel weird at first, but you start to realize how everyone's craving it. Everyone is craving connection. Everyone around you wants to connect with someone, wants to break out their mold. Is looking

for friends. That's what I've realized as adults, more of us are looking for friends than we believe. It's just that everyone's acting too cool. Everyone's acting like they don't need it. Everyone's acting like, you know, it's just not what they're looking for. And because of that, we start to think, oh, well, you know, why am I the one putting in effort. So it's just something to think about.

I want you to pause for a second and ask yourself, when have you actually had someone in your life that you drifted away from, someone that you may not even have a reason, and maybe there was a hidden reason. Sometimes we've disconnected from someone because of a hidden reason. You didn't really have a falling out, you didn't really stop talking, but you stop talking, if you know what

I mean. And it's so important to figure out what The root of that was because sometimes it's harder to make new friends and it's exhausting, and it can be easier to reconnect with an old friend. So this may not be someone you miss, it may not be something you think about, but it's someone you drifted away from, but you I really don't know why. Now. Something that happens with new friends as we get older is you're

more selective now. And that's not a bad thing. In your thirties, you care more about alignment than abundance of friends. Right in your thirties, as you get older, in your forties, as an adult, you focus on alignment more than abundance. You've been burned. You're tired of fake friends, flaky plans, and emotional one way streets, and psychologists call this motivated selectivity.

You start prioritizing depth over breadth. Now that's not a weakness, but it's a surprise because when you were younger, you maybe didn't do that, and maybe that was the reason you got burned. Right, how many of you had friends when you were younger and you almost just were best friends overnight, and then you realize that that person you know was trying to get with your boyfriend was needy, was exploiting you in some way, whatever it may have been.

So we become more selective as we get older, which there's nothing wrong with, but it can feel lonelier at first because you're waiting for deeper connections while only shallow ones seem easy to find. See, the interesting thing is we want a deep connection, but every deep connection started off shallow. Think about that for a second. Every deep connection started off shallow. Now, sometimes you have this instant chemistry, instant spark with someone. Now that's beautiful when you have that.

I someone has had that with someone on the podcast. That doesn't mean it needs to turn into a full blown best friend situation. But it's important to realize that you can't build a deep connection without walking through the shallow. So you have to ask yourself, who have you met recently? Who have you connected with recently that you haven't put enough effort in with? You know, you need to put

an effort. Yes, it's going to be exhausting, maybe the first time, maybe the second time, I promise you, by the third time, it's not that exhausting. Right By the third time, it's you feel natural. The first time it

might be exhausting. Second time, it might be exhausting. We have to push through that because imagine if one of your greatest friends is three hangouts away, right, We're so scared of the exhausting three hangouts that we don't realize that by the fourth time, I'm going to be able to connect with this person and actually that person becomes someone easy for life, That person becomes someone natural for

life that I can go to. It's good enough. It's worth it to sit through the three awkward, exhausting, tiring times to break through that barrier and give it a go. So give it a go. That person that you've connected with recently, reach out to them, set up on one on one hang out, check in, work out, what, whatever it is. I couldn't be more excited to share something

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call it the friction rule. Research and behavioral science shows we do things more when there's less friction aka less effort. So don't try to start brand new routines. Instead ask where am I already going that I could add a connection to. If I go to a workout, let me have someone that I go to that workout with. Right. If I go for a walk after work, let me find someone I have that walk with. If I love going out for a bunch on the weekend, let me add someone to that. So it's the tag along invite.

Next time we go into the gym, farmers market, or even errands, text someone, Hey, I'm going here, do you want to come with me? It's low pressure. It adds connection to something you're already doing, so now it's less exhausting. The exhausting part is when you have to create plans, add plans, make plans, make time. This is something you're doing already. It doesn't create friction in your life. That's why it's the no friction rule. Number one. Use the

no friction rule to me. This has become one of my secret weapons. I feel like I'm able to spend so much quality time with people without having to make it crazy and without feeling like I'm having to take more time out of my life. Another thing I love

is creating micro routines. There's a lot of people that I can't see every week, people that I like, people that I actually would like to spend more time with, but I couldn't see them every week because I want to prioritize my time with my wife, I want to prioritize my time on my own, and I want to prioritize my time with my team. So big plans often get canceled, but tiny rituals create consistency, which is what friendships actually need to grow as adults. Right, So when

you were young, you saw someone at school every day. Now, as adults, you're not going to be able to do that. So research shows it takes about ninety hours to form a casual friend and two hundred hours to get close. But that time isn't going to happen very quickly as an adult. It happened like in one year at school, less than right. That's the point. You did that in one semester at school. You're not doing that with your adult friends. So try this. Try the mini experiment of

a ten minute touch point. Pick one person you like and set a calendar reminder to text them once a week. You can say Hey, randomly thought of you, just checking in, how's your week? Do you want to catch up this month? It allowed you to keep someone on your radar, they're on yours, and you keep watering the seed. I do this. Every time I think of someone, I messages them, and nine nine percent of the time I get a message

that says I was just thinking of you too. And I love it when this happens because it makes you realize the people you naturally connect with. Someone may even say, hey, I just thought of you. You're not going to walk tomorrow. Hey, I'm going to this event. You want to join me? Hey, I'm going on a hike. Do you want to join me? Like it becomes this really easy way to connect with people, and it takes away the stress and the pressure that

we add on to friendships. Right. We often think it has to be a big plan, it has to be really interesting. It's the micro routines that win. This is probably my favorite one and one that I've used a lot since moving LA. I call it say the thing. Sometimes the best way to spark connection is to admit you want it. One study found that people consistently underestimate how much others like them after meeting. This is known as the liking gap. We assume we're awkward or annoying,

but we're usually way more appreciated than we think. Think about this for a second. When was the last time you connected with someone and you walked away thinking, Oh, they probably think I'm not that interesting. Guess what? That person walked away feeling the exact same thing, unless you're both narcissists, and in that case, you walked away thinking that you're the best thing they ever happened to them.

But most of us we doubt ourselves right. We doubt whether we were interesting enough, whether we were friendly enough, whether we were nice enough, and we overthink that and then we don't know how we feel about it. So here's what I want you to try out. I want you to try out the honest message. Send this to someone you kind of know but want to know better. Hey, I loved our conversation lately. Let's grab some lunch. Right. It feels awkward for ten seconds, but it opens a door,

and I promise you people are looking for this. I originally had an I was at an event. Someone came up to me. They were saying to me how much they liked my work. I realized I knew of their work. They're behind the scenes and they do amazing stuff too. Then we connected on a zoom call, and for me, it was just so easy, like I just vibed with this person, and I realized it's so important to wear

your heart on your sleeve. Right. I wear my heart on my sleeve because I'd rather someone know where I stand with them than keep them guessing and keep myself distant from a great relationship. So a lot of this is hard, it does feel weird, but I want you to focus on the one you miss, the one you drifted from, the one you haven't invested in yet, and overall, it's about recognizing that the reason why it's harder to make friends as an adult is because it almost takes

longer for that person to get caught up. It's almost like they're meeting you at chapter third and you're like, wow, now they need to understand chapter one to thirty to understand me. And it's a really tough pressure to put on to someone you just met. Right, even if you told that person your whole life story, they'll never get caught up in one swoop. But guess what when your parents in town get everyone together when your friends are

in town. Get everyone together. When you can start to do that, the person gets an opportunity to piece your story together over time. Now you're not trying to play catch up, and you're also not putting the pressure of saying hey, only if you understand the first nineteen chapters of my life? Do you understand the twentieth Some people walked into our life in the twentieth chapter, and guess what they're going to be here till our fortieth chapter.

They're gonna understand us. Give them some grace. Stop putting so much pressure on the new people in your life. The last thing I want to talk about is the need to connect with colleagues. We spend so much time at work. We spend so much time with the people around us at work, but often they're the last people we want to be friends with. Yes it could be hard, Yes it could be difficult. Yes you may not trust them, but if you can, it's worth investing in one good

friend at work. We're going to spend a third of our lifetimes at work. It's important that we feel like we can be comfortable and genuinely ourselves with at least one person and I promise you people at work are looking for the same thing. They may want to rush and get home. They may have someone at home that understands them better. Of course, they have their own friends. You're not trying to compete, You're not trying to get

in the way of another relationship in their life. But if we're going to spend so much time at work, it's important to try and find someone there and that makes it less exhausting. You're seeing this person anyway, you connect to do with this person anyway, make an extra bit of effort and it will go a long way. Thank you so much for listening to today. I hope this helps you reconnect with some people in your life and I can't wait for you to listen to the

next episode. I am always in your corner and I'm rooting for you. Thanks for listening. Hey everyone, if you love that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist Lourie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't want to miss this conversation. If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands.

It's really hard to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.