In case you haven’t been following along.  Here’s the lowdown on my current situation:  My store closed so I was unemployed for like 8 months then I found a job but it’s far away from where I was living and in a completely different field from the job I was working for 12 years.

New job.  New city.  New friends?

I was lucky to transplant into a new city with my best friend 30 minutes away (she’s been urging me to migrate this way for years) and several aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, basically more family than I realize.  I’m not totally alone but I don’t really know anyone in my city except for one person.

I met her at orientation and we just clicked.  Once I realized we clicked I began to ponder how to take that step toward possible hanging out sometime.  Thankfully she was the brave one who simply asked if I wanted to hang out and it was such a relief.

Making friends is like dating in some ways.
I didn’t want to make a move in case she wasn’t really interested….no one likes rejection.

I remembered rejecting a woman who tried to befriend me at my old apartment complex and declining her was awkward but I had legitimate reasons.  She was a retail customer at my store before it closed and we had fought about an issue with her business cards on a previous occasion plus she had all her clothes thrown on the floor of the laundry room when I saw her 😮  Nope, just not someone I wanted to spend time with so I worried this new potential friendship could find me on the receiving end of an awkward interaction.

Thankfully it all worked out.  We had coffee weekend before last and I’m going to call her this week to see if she wants to get dinner or coffee or something.  It made me realize how challenging it is to make friends as an adult.

When we’re younger school forces us together and many of us form friendships that way all the way up through college. Many enter into the professional world with an already established circle of friends then we might add in some work colleagues but there’s also the challenge of friendship versus professionalism, especially if you’re the boss.

I struggled with that scenario but still made some friends along the way during my career in retail.  Other than those few people and my best friend I don’t have a wide circle of close friends so I’m left trying to expand my social circle within my city.  I know this is another part of moving that will take time and I’m lucky to have the friends I do have here plus I’m working on establishing relationships with my work colleagues.

Again, it’s only been a month so I think it’s understandable that I’m not going out every night or having people over all the time.  I’m kind of amazed I’ve even managed to stay busy every weekend.  I think this weekend is the first weekend since I’ve moved in that I don’t have any plans…yet.

Anyone else out there run into the struggle of making friends as an adult?  Any tips? or tricks?  Not that I want to trick people into being my friend XD ha ha but hopefully you guys know what I mean….