Lifestyle Relationships Wellness

How to Make Friends as an Adult

Making friends as an adult can feel difficult, and with loneliness a growing social problem across all age groups, finding ways to connect and engage with a community is important for our health and happiness. We chat to KRUNK founder Tobias Quinn and ask him for his best tips to help us make friends an an adult.

41% of the world’s population is aged between 18-34. This is the age where people travel, move abroad for work, settle down to have kids and start families which can get in the way of social time and make it harder for friendship groups to spend as much time together.

Making friends as an adult can be harder than making friends when you were younger because you don’t have school classes, sport and activities pushing you into interactions. Here are a few tips to break the ice is you are looking to connect with new people.

Find friends with similar interests

There is a new social media app called KRUNK which allows you to find and connect with like minded people by location, activity and interests. It is not a dating app, instead when you sign up you can choose at least 5 things you are interested in such as hiking, yoga, mountain biking, surfing and KRUNK will show you all of the people near you who like those activities.

From there you can reach out to whoever you like to tee something up. They also allow you to make “KRUNKS” which are essentially events, so if you were going hiking, you could create a KRUNK and everyone in your area who likes hiking would be able to see it and sign up if they wish to.

You can also find local businesses such as gyms and yoga studios which are great places to meet people.

Join a local gym that has a social community

On the gym note, the best thing about a gym trial or gym trial offer is that you get a chance to go in and see the community before you sign up. If you join a fitness studio such as BFT or Flow Athletic, you may find that the people who participate tend to connect and socialise because again, they have common interest and those fitness studios also set challenges which people like to bond over.

Joining a local fitness or yoga studio again is a good way to bond with people who live near you and have a common interest or goal. Also the studio will often organise the occasional social activity which will help you further those friendships. 

Initiate friendships

Get out of your comfort zone. Once you have noted some places where you may meet people with a common interest both online and offline, you need to take the initiative and take the next steps to becoming friends. 

Initiate a conversation with the people around you. Find out about them, what are their interests, who are they, remember that people like to talk about themselves, and asking questions is a good way to discover if you will get along or not. Once you are comfortable and if you choose to make the friendship work, invite them out for a coffee, walk or wine. Someone always has to initiate and it may as well be you.

Alternatively, an app like KRUNK removes the awkwardness and pressure of the face to face meet up. You may see each other at the gym, out on a run or at a cafe, and then if you both happen to be on KRUNK, it is a good entry point for you to hit them up and see if you can tag along on their next adventure.

Don’t let your new friends down

I know we are talking about making new friends here, but when it comes to building rapport with someone and a connection, it is important that you don’t let them down. Make sure you turn up to plans, be engaging, ask questions. Most adults won’t make time for people who constantly cancel on them for long so even though this is a new friendship, show up and make an effort.

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