Making friends in your twenties is SO. INCREDIBLY. HARD.
You have your high school friends, your real day #1’s… but as time goes on you grow apart. Then you have your friends you make in college, these are your REAL friends right? After all, you spent so much time together in such formative years of your life… but you grow apart. You make friends from work! You get along great. Bonus points, y’all work the same schedule and see each other all the time! Then you switch jobs or move away… suddenly you never speak again.
In October of 2025, my boyfriend and I packed up our belongings and moved east.
I didn’t have any expectations for this move aside from “I hope it is for the best.” All things considered, I am pretty comfortable spending time with myself. I also felt like this move would be a great opportunity to spend time with my boyfriend. He had been moving often for work over the last year while I stayed in Seattle. However, I was nervous about making new friends in a new city.
You probably ALWAYS hear about how hard it is to make friends in your twenties, I certainly do. Even knowing that, this is the first time I feel like I’ve really experienced the meaning of the words. I hoped to make new friends at work! But it was harder to find a full time job than I expected (huh, weird right?), so I worked part time. As you can imagine, it’s hard to get to know people when you’re only working with them once or twice a week.
If you ask me, it’s hard to make friends because everyone is in VASTLY different places in their lives by 25.
Some people are getting married, starting to have kids, some are already done having kids. People are single and traveling, going out to the bars, some are done with the partying and stay home most of the time now. Part of me wonders if that’s just part of growing up.
I recognize not everyone wants to be my friend. Trust me, nobody knows a colder group than Seattleites when it comes to making friends lol, but are people just generally not friendly anymore? I have neighbors who just moved in next door. To my delight, they are also in their twenties! We have tried to make conversation when we see them, but when we say “Hi” we usually just get a “Hi” back as they rush into their house or we just get straight up ignored. That doesn’t give me much to work with in the “getting to know you” department.
I have made SOME friends since moving, not all is lost.
I’ve made friends at work, and they’re fun to hang out with, but I’m definitely on the outer ring of the friendship circle, and I think that just comes with time spent. They’re all better friends with each other than they are with me, and that’s okay, I just like to be included.
Maybe it’s selfish, but I always feel like the friend that is making the effort to make plans and do things when others do not. Am I wrong to be upset by that? If I’m not the one planning it, then a hang out is NOT happening?
To their credit, I have noticed that I’ve become less social as time has gone on, and it’s hard to say why. I know I feel more comfortable by myself and less comfortable when I am out of the house around people I don’t know. I do have a fair amount of social anxiety, but I try not to let it affect me (key word there being “try”). So maybe the problem really is me? Maybe I’m the reason I’m not making friends in my twenties?
I have met such amazing people in my life that I will cherish endlessly.
I know they will always be a part of my life. Unfortunately, I was the one that moved away and made all those friendships long distance and that makes me sad to think about. It’s hard to feel like I am missing out on their lives, and in a way, growing apart from them.
I’ve seen people talk about this topic all the time, mostly on social media. They say that people have protected their peace so hard sometimes they forget that the price of a village is being a villager, and that includes doing things that inconvenience you. Hearing that hit me like a ton of bricks, because I have felt like that is where I struggle the most with friendships. I am always the villager but I don’t have a village. I will bend over backwards for the people I love, but I can’t count on most of my “friends” to do the same.
To reference an earlier portion of this post,
I said that I think it’s hard to make friends because everyone’s lives are so different at 25. This is sometimes something that I have a hard time recognizing. My priorities these days are still very much to myself and my significant other, outside of the two of us, I don’t have much else to worry about.
On the other hand, I have friends with young children, and no, their priority is absolutely not hanging out with me on a Thursday night.
*sigh*… As if being 25 years old isn’t hard enough (oh the dramatics).
– Hay
