How to Find Good Friends as an Adult

What was once easy as children is now more complicated as adults. Although making good friends is more challenging without the benefit of a classroom, cafeteria and playground, there are still activities and strategies to help you to form and maintain new friendships.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Sign up for classes (like photography, pottery, or music) through a recreation center or local community college. Seek out and make small talk with other adults that are there alone.
2. Volunteer at a local library, at a hospital or for the local branch of a charity. Find a friend from a field of people who share similar values and viewpoints.
3. Talk to and offer to help your child's teacher in the classroom. Discover her outside interests and get to know her better while sitting on the bus on the way to a field trip. You may remain friends long after your children have gone onto another grade level.
4. Foster friendships by asking new acquaintances out for coffee or lunch to bond and learn more about them. Be approachable at all times. You never know when someone at a coffee bar, bookstore or supermarket will strike up a conversation with you.

Tips & Warnings

• Once you make a good friend, keep up with the relationship despite how busy you are. Meet for a quick cup of coffee, chat on the cell phone on the way to your child's soccer game or send a couple of emails in the course of the day. Friendships will be unsuccessful if they're lost in the shuffle.