As someone who turned 30 recently (Gemini season, baby!), I am a full adult. I’m very lucky to have close friends who I have known for a long time. But I don’t live near most of them, and would love to make new ones who I do live near (at least those who live in the same state as me). But making friends as an adult is SUPER hard! 

It’s also hard to make friends when you have a chronic illness or chronic health issues in general. Which is why, in addition to sharing tips for how to make friends as an adult, I’m also going to talk about how to make friends with a chronic illness. 

Let’s get into it! 

Why Is Making Friends as an Adult So Hard? 

One reason is that we’re not forced together as adults in the same way we are as kids and teenagers. 

In college, many schools require you to live on campus in the dorms. Even if you don’t get along with your roommate, you’ll live in the same hallway with tons of other people. You might have an orientation group. (I mean, one of my friends from my 2009 Vanderbilt orientation group just helped organize a birthday Zoom call for my 30th birthday over the weekend.) Maybe you meet them the first week of college, maybe you meet them your senior year. But there are years where you are surrounded by people who are approximately your age.

And we’re not spending 5 days a week together like in high school and as kids. We’re not all taking the same classes, going to the same dances, playing on the same teams, or experiencing the same histories. We’re (probably) not spending 2-8 weeks at summer camp.

You get the idea.

And yeah, kids can be mean and plenty of people had miserable experiences growing up. (I really don’t know many people who liked high school.) But it’s way easier to make friends when you are required to spend so much time together. 

Another reason is that, with the Internet, we’re able to stay in contact with our friends across the country and world. It’s hard to push yourself to make new friends when you can keep in contact with your old friends! 

This is such a good problem to have! But since it’s something that everyone with cell phone reception and the Internet has, there are fewer people who are actively looking for new friends. So if you want new friends, you have to go out there and find them!

How To Make Friends as an Adult 

Ready to make new friends? Here are 5 great ways to make new friends in general. But some key principles are the same for most of these: do them with the mindset of making friends and remember to put yourself out there. 

Try new things – This works best a) if you’re vaccinated and b) you go out to places in general. But you can sign up for a class of some kind to learn a new skill! Pottery, flower arranging, wine tasting, writing fiction, you get the idea. Especially beginner classes! Mess up while you try things and laugh at yourself. You can try new things, meet new people, and have experiences that will help you bond with others.

Go places to do things you already like – This is great because you’ll find people that you’ll already have something in common with. Play a sport? Join a local team! Like yoga or a similar activity? Get a pass for a certain number of classes and try to go to the same class so you’ll meet people over the course of several days, weeks, months (so intermediate yoga on Mondays at 4 every week). 

Sign up for a club – Meetup is a website/app that helps users make, find, and join clubs in their area. Some examples of Meetups are: book clubs, knitting, female programmers, nature photography, and outdoor adventure. Find a local group doing an activity you like here.

Join an app – Yup, dating apps aren’t just for romantic dating any more! Bumble BFF helps friend dating. According to their website, “once you register an account, you’ll be taken to a home screen where you can choose one of the three modes,” one of which is Bumble BFF (x). Just like Bumble Date, you match, you chat, you take it off the app.

Ask a current friend to be a friend wing-person (aka wingman) – Let’s say you moved to a new city where you have 2 college friends, and you want to make more friends. Ask one of them if they know anyone who they think you would be friends with. See if they can connect you! Is your other college friend planning a post-vaccination party that all 3 of you will be at? Ask one or both of them to be your friend wingperson.

How Do I Make Friends with a Chronic Illness? 

Making friends as an adult is hard enough. But it’s even harder if you have a chronic illness. 

Wondering what exactly “making friends with a chronic illness” means? I know that it can mean making friends when you have a chronic illness or making friends with other people with chronic illness. Well, I’m addressing both of these. Let’s get into 3 ways to make friends with a chronic illness. 

Join Facebook groups – There are SO many Facebook groups out there! You can find them for things you like (like fans of a TV show) or for things you have (other people with your condition, for example). 

If you have a chronic illness and you’re specifically looking for other people with chronic illness, there are so many groups out there! Whatever you’re looking for, you can generally find a group for.

Building Self Confidence When Chronically Ill

Use social media in general – Social media is a godsend if you have a chronic illness. You can get social interaction online in a way that’s hard for us to do in person. On a lot of sites, you can search #chronicillness or # your specific chronic illness (like #rheumatoidarthritis) to search for users talking about that. 

The one real exception is Facebook, which doesn’t use hashtags the same way. It’s best to use the Facebook groups page and search for terms like chronic illness support, chronic illness memes, women with rheumatoid arthritis, or something else. 

Use one of the sites in the previous section – If you have a chronic illness and you’re looking to make friends in general, then definitely use the above resources. Especially sites like Meetup and Bumble BFF! That way you can peruse friends while you feel bad. Plus, Bumble BFF enables you to connect your Spotify and Instagram, so you can a) see if you have things in common and b) see if they like problematic things or use super ableist language. 

Mental Health and Chronic Disease Management: What You Should Know

How To Be a Friend To Someone with a Chronic Illness 

Are you healthy, or healthier than a friend with a chronic illness? Here are 4 ways to support your friend with chronic illness. Whether they’re a new friend or someone you’ve known for a bit, these things are key to how to be a friend to someone with a chronic illness.

Don’t ask common annoying questions – When you have a chronic illness, you’re asked some questions that are … not awesome. I know that it generally comes from a place of love or wanting to know more about our lives, but that doesn’t change how frustrating or even hurtful these questions can be. And we’re often asked these question soooooo many times over the course of our lives. This post shares 5 questions you SHOULDN’T ask people with a chronic illness as well as the 5 questions you SHOULD ask instead.

Non-harmful questions to ask someone with a chronic illness

Learn more (on your own time)  – It is exhausting to have to educate people all. the. time. I’ve been diagnosed with arthritis for almost 11 years and been living in pain for 20, and I still get comments like, “But you’re too young for arthritis!” and “How could you be in pain so early in life?” Not only is it tiring explaining how they’re wrong on a regular basis, but it’s emotionally painful to have to explain the truth about rheumatoid arthritis all the time. 

On the one hand, I want my loved ones to understand what’s happening to me. On the other hand, I don’t want to spend all my energy educating people. It means a lot to me when people have looked for information on my conditions on their own and makes me feel relieved. And in this day and age, there are so many wonderful online resources!  

What Is a Chronic Illness? And Other Frequently Asked Questions

Offer to help, especially in specific ways – It’s always very lovely when someone offers to help me “if I ever need it,” but I rarely take them up on it because I don’t want to impose and I don’t know how much they’re willing to help. I know I’m not alone in that! They’re much more likely to agree to your help if you offer it in specific forms, like cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry, going to the grocery store, carrying a box, etc. 

Additionally, though, if someone says that they’re okay and don’t need your help, let them be. There are plenty of things we can’t do, so we might really want to do something for ourselves, especially if we’ve been through a rough time recently and weren’t able to do it. For example, in 2018 I attended the HealtheVoices conference, and while there I rented a scooter because I was on crutches after having surgery. This meant that I was able to do things for myself for really the first time since my surgery 3 weeks earlier, including get my own meals and refill my own coffee. There were a lot of very kind people at the conference that offered to help, but some insisted on helping even when I told them that I didn’t need it. 

It felt very infantilizing, like what I said didn’t matter and that I couldn’t possibly know what I could and couldn’t do. 

So Someone Healthy Has Given You Health Advice

Adjust your expectations – People with chronic illness often can’t do as much as healthy people. How different they are depends on the individual person and condition, not only because someone might have low disease activity and someone else may have high disease activity, but also because what makes one person feel better can be what makes someone else feel worse. 

Basically, know that we might have to take breaks more often or be unable to attend events based on how we feel. It isn’t a reflection on you or the event. It will help massively if you adjust your expectations of what we can do, as we often don’t have control over how we feel and we feel bad enough for canceling plans. 

Additionally, keep in mind that many factors can affect how we feel, including the weather, traveling, overdoing it, etc. So if we just flew into town and you expect us to immediately do a full day of activities, you’re going to be disappointed. In a personal example, I am always better in the morning and get worse from late afternoon on. My family knows that I am much more likely to be able to attend events in the morning than I am in the evening. We therefore try to schedule family activities earlier rather than later so there is less of a chance that I’ll have to cancel. 

To learn more about how our energy and pain affect the day-to-day, check out the spoon theory.

Helping someone with RA 

What are your tips for making friends as an adult?

Like this post? Share it! Then check out these posts: 

The Impact of Chronic Illness on an Individual, How Chronic Illness Affects Relationships, Advice Books To Read (That Aren’t Cheesy!), How To Actually Rest When You Take Breaks