How to make friends as an adult
What I learned about friendship from moving to a new country with zero connections
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
I was fed up with feeling lonely. Six months earlier, I had moved to Portugal with no plan and no connections. For the first time in my life, I was faced with the question: how do I make friends?
I remember in kindergarten, where I made most of my friends in Brazil, that I would just walk up to another kid and say: "Do you want to be my friend?" and with a simple "yes" from the other child, friendships of a lifetime started unfolding.
I come from a big city, Fortaleza has around 4 million people, but it just so happens that we don't live in cities, we live in bubbles. And in my bubble we used to say "Fortaleza is an egg," because everyone knows everyone.
When I left Brazil, at the age of 27, I had around 5 friends in the 'ride and die' category, 20 really close friends, and many acquaintances with whom I could enjoy familiar conversation if I crossed paths with them in the streets.
What I didn't realize until moving abroad is how little effort we have to put into forming bonds while growing up in our hometown. Back home, friendships happened automatically. My parents knew other parents, we kids played together, went to the same schools. Trust came built-in.
This was not the case when I was living in Lisbon in 2018. Lisbon is kind of a small city, with half million people, but I had no bubble, which made it feel huge. I was 6 months in, and despite having made a few acquaintances, I had no friends.
When I first arrived there, I met a girl who lived in the shared apartment I moved to. She cracked jokes, asked thoughtful questions, and made me feel welcome. So, I thought “I think we can be friends.” What I didn’t realize is that as I was moving in, she was moving out.
The story we tell ourselves about other people
As winter approached, my feelings of loneliness intensified. Multiple times I thought of reaching out to that girl and what stopped me from doing so was the story I had in my mind:
“She must be busy with her life or having the best time with her friends. Who has the time or interest to hang with someone like me who has no friends. What a loser I am.” I thought this regarding anyone whom I found remotely interesting.
But one thing I also knew: so far, I had no proof to support this story in the real world.
At some point I had to decide what I wanted for myself. Do nothing and keep going with how things were, or try something out of my comfort zone to assess my assumptions. So, I texted her:
"Hey, I've been thinking about you. I saw there's a new movie in the cinema. Would you like to go together this weekend?"
And to my surprise, her response was:
“Yes, I would love to!”
While we waited in the ticket line, she asked, "So, how are you? How have you been?".
And in that moment, I had to make a choice: Do I say the truth? Or should I try to look cool and maybe increase my chances of a friendship?
But friendships are built on truth, not on "coolness." So, I said:
“yeh.. all good. But to be honest, I’ve been feeling quite lonely lately. I miss having friends around.”
And as I braced myself for her pity response, she said:
"Oh, no way! Me too! I've also been feeling alone. I was so happy when you invited me to the movie."
My jaw dropped. She had been lonely too? All those months I'd avoided reaching out because I assumed everyone else had perfect social lives based on a few Instagram photos?
And that day transformed how I make friends as an adult
I love what Alain de Botton says about impostor syndrome, which can also be applied to any negative story we tell about ourselves in comparison to others:
“We feel like impostors not because we are uniquely flawed, but because we fail to imagine how deeply flawed everyone else must necessarily also be beneath a more or less polished surface. We know ourselves from the inside, but others only from the outside.”
Stop waiting for the other person to make the first move
One of the reasons why we don't make as many friends as we want to is because we're all waiting for the other person to make the first move.
After that, I started reaching out more. Turns out, many people I knew were also looking for connections but scared to make the first move—or it didn't even cross their minds, but they were happy to accept the invite.
If you're an introvert like me, I know how hard it is to make this move because small talk used to terrify me, the fear of not knowing what to say and the awkward silence. That's why I wrote this piece on how I moved from hating small talk to embracing it.
Friendship coffee strategy
Today, having lived in a different city in Portugal for 6 years, I can say that many of my friendships began simply because I invited someone I thought was cool for coffee.
I go about living my life, and every time I cross paths with someone whom I like the energy or the vibe, I say: “Hey, you seem like a real cool person. Would you like to grab a coffee? I’d love to learn more about you.”
Coffee is a great way to chat with someone you're not yet familiar with. You can make it as short or as long as you want depending on how you're enjoying the other person's vibe.
If you already know someone who you'd like to get closer to, inviting them for activities like movies, workshops, or sports is a nice way to create shared experiences and memories together — and have something new and in common to talk about.
Also, there’s an app for that
If you want to meet people and maybe make more friends, but you're not sure who to invite for a coffee chat, there's an app called The Breakfast App.
I used it for almost a year, and I loved it! I met people with fascinating stories through this app.
The cool thing about the app is that there’s no swipe — it introduces you to one person a day. And you can arrange breakfast or coffee with them. This not for dating nor networking. Just a cool way to meet new interesting people.
If you want an invite code, here’s mine: MOIT (I have no affiliation).
How to turn people you meet into friends — Here comes the hard part
Meeting people is not the same as making friends. Meeting people is quick, friendships take time. I know people who know lots of people but are constantly complaining that they don't have friends-friends. At some point, this was also me in the past, and looking back now I see two main reasons why friendships were not formed: unrealistic expectations and lack of effort.
There was a time that I expected friendship at first sight. My benchmark was the friendships I had back home (that took me a lifetime to form), and any encounter that didn’t resemble the quality of those connections was dismissed. A coffee or a shared activity won’t turn someone instantly into a ride or die friend. No matter how good the conversation was.
Wanting to become besties with someone without going through the fire together is not realistic. You need to be willing to hang with the same person many times, and sometimes, it won’t feel exciting, or novel, but you’ll get a glimpse further into the inner world of that person, while building trust, familiarity, and consistency. The foundation of strong friendships.
The main reason why adult people struggle with making new friends, is because friendships requires effort, time, and energy. Things that are mostly scarce in adult lives.
If you want to make new friends, you need to be intentional in picking the people who you will invest time on, check-in, and show up again and again.
One of my friends, took me about a year and a half of regular coffee meetups, shared activities, and consistently showing up for each other before I could say we are truly friends.
The advice I received from a monk
Once I went to the Buddhist temple and asked to speak to the monk. I told him how I was feeling lonely and if there was any advice he could give me. Instead of advice, he asked me a question:
"Have you tried helping other people feel less alone?"
Warmly,
Nat
I’d love to know: If you’ve tried to make new friends as an adult, what worked for you? Or what other challenges have you faced? What advice would give to others wanting to find their people?
I write another newsletter called Diary of a Brand Therapist, where I share the messy stuff behind building a brand and business as yourself.
If you're building something of your own and prefer real experiences over polished business advice, you'll probably love it there too.
My latest piece was “How I’m building my brand with multiple interests”.
I so needed this. I’ve spent way too much time assuming people don’t want to hang out, when really… we’re probably all just sitting at home watching TikToks hoping someone texts us first 😅. Gonna go send a “coffee?” text to someone now. Thanks for the nudge 💛
I love everything about this! Making friends as an adult is super hard, and takes so much effort — that we are often not ready to make.
And it's so funny what you said that everyone is basically scared to make the first move, because, I've recently experienced that. I was interested in meeting up with a girl I met briefly at an Artist Collective in my town. But I was for a while too shy to do it. So I invited her to my exhibition opening and once she was there she said she has been meaning to talk to me this whole time as well.
Now we have coffee dates every week. :D Last time, I told her how happy I was to have met her, because I felt lonely and didn't have any friends in town, to what she responded: me too! I was so surprised, because like you, I thought she had plenty of friends and wouldn't feel the need to have one more haha