Making Friends & Dealing with Loneliness in our Young Adulthood

Making friends as a young adult is deceivingly tricky. We are moving from a time in our lives where we were in school, surrounded by people our own age and spending up to 7 hours a day with them. Just because we spent all this time with our peers, it didn’t result in friendships for everyone. However, the opportunity for making friends seemed a bit easier. Along with this, we had time, so much time compared to now. We had after school activities where we spent time doing hobbies we liked, hanging out with people who also enjoyed those hobbies. We also had weekends, where some homework took up time, but otherwise, we could do our hobbies, hang out with friends or go to activities where we could meet people.

Now, we exist in this space where opportunities for meeting people of a like mind seems few and far between. We try to make sense of the fact that our friendship groups that may have existed during school seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the year. We have to prebook a meetup with friends weeks, sometimes months in advance as we are too busy with work, family, pets, children, cleaning the house, feeding ourselves three times a day (plus snacks!), exercising, having downtime, reading, writing, playing games, going for walks, everything showers to name just a few of our ‘welcome to adulthood’ tasks. So how do we make friends in young adulthood, how do we deal with the loneliness that comes with this lack of social connection or how do we even know that more friendships is something we actually want?

Loneliness is something that transcends all people and boundaries. It can aJect someone who may look like they have all the friends in the world, is out every weekend going for hikes with friends, brunch dates, clubs or is a social light in the work canteen. It also aJects the person who sits alone at lunch at work, doesn’t seem to go out much and has not many friends in their life. Loneliness is a feeling, you can be surrounded by people every day, and still feel lonely, it is as if the connection you once were able to have with people is dwindling away. Hanging out with friends doesn’t feel the same that it used to when you were a teenager. Or maybe the feeling of loneliness is all you have known, you never got to experience genuine human connection that feels light and fun. Feeling lonely can also feel like nobody understands you or things you have experienced, feels like you don’t want to change anything or try new things but wish things were different to how they are now. It can feel very deep and overwhelming, quite all encompassing.

So, how do you know if you are feeling lonely? Sometime loneliness can come with feeling sad or down. It can be a part of feeling low self-esteem, you don’t feel good enough to make social connections or you worry how others might perceive you. It can feel like you are a burden to others, that by simply existing with other people or sharing any small piece of yourself burdens other people. It can feel difficult to share things about yourself, a fear of not being understood or stigma might prevent you from opening up to others. It could maybe feel very overwhelming, social events such as parties, work meetings or public places may feel to overbearing to be a part of. The thing about loneliness is you may feel it sporadically, it might come and go at different times in your life. It may even crop up one week, and be gone by the next. It can be circumstantial, after a bereavement, holidays such as a birthday or Christmas or moving to a new area for the first time and not knowing many people. Sometimes, people experience loneliness often and it can bring a dark cloud around you in everyday life.

How do we deal with loneliness? Firstly, as with every feeling, accepting that loneliness is around can be helpful. Denying the feeling of loneliness may push it down, letting it fester and grow and be expressed in different ways such as outbursts of crying, anger or shutting off from people. To accept the feeling of loneliness, is giving it air to breath, allowing the feeling to co-exist with you and pass over time. Sometime writing the feeling out on a piece of paper, and placing it next to you can help with giving the feeling of loneliness space to process. Acknowledging that the feeling of loneliness is normal, that in this moment in time, this feeling is normal and it is okay. You may be experiencing a stressful life event, or maybe you find social settings difficult to be in, this feeling of loneliness is okay, and we welcome it to exist in our space while it needs to.

Build your self-esteem. Sometimes with loneliness, we don’t feel worthy of other people’s time and attention, building your own self-esteem can help with diminishing those views of yourself. This can include working on tuning down the inner self-critic by counteracting that voice with neutral thoughts and words. For example, your inner critic might state “I have nothing exciting to add to conversations with people”. Try saying something like “In this group, I have nothing new to say but we are all enjoying each other’s company” instead. Bringing more neutral thoughts into your mind can help with building your own confidence, recognising that you are not what your inner-critic says you are. Talk it out with someone you trust, this can be a family member, a friend or even a pet. Now, I know this is ironic because here we are talking about loneliness and I am telling you to talk to someone. But hear me out, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a person. It can be a journal you write it down in, it can be your fluffy dog you chat to, but if you do have one person, your one good person, talk to them about it.

Now those are ways to deal with the feeling internally, now let’s look at how to practically change things. Explore how to change your circumstances and invite new people into your world. Start with figuring our your own interests and hobbies. What do you enjoy doing? Do you like sports, music, online games, fantasy novels, creativity, painting, hiking or are you a foodie? Once you explore and discover your own hobbies and interests, you can begin to understand what you like and who you are as a person. I love writing about mental health, it brings me a great sense of purpose and relaxation. So I know this is a big part of my identity and personality and I would talk until the cows come home with someone about mental health research, articles and popular authors. Let’s say you love cooking, and it brings you joy and relaxation. You could meet with people and discuss how to not burn caramel, how carmelising onions takes much longer than twenty minutes and that cast iron pans need to be treated like a newborn magical creature. Find your tribe. Start small, you could join a cooking class, sign up for an evening class once a week with the same group. You could got to a foodie festival, but see if there are small group meetups you can join. There are apps, websites and social media groups that are always organising meetups, it is about finding one that suits you. By starting small with a group that has a common interest, you can equate some of the anxiety around the actual social interaction by assuring yourself worse case scenario, you can just talk about the common topic you share with them. Let the conversation go from there. Volunteer or do something good for others can help with loneliness. For example you could join the Civil Defense, a group of people always helping others, forming strong bonds with each other. You could volunteer at an animal shelter if you are an animal lover, one or two days a week, meeting others who love animals and being around dogs, cats or bunnies can boost your own mood.

Look at your situation for what it is now. Is there someone already in your life you feel you could connect with more? Is there a small group of friends you miss spending time with? Sometime, there are people right there in front of us, but we don’t realise that until we work on our own diJiculties with the feelings of loneliness that we can properly connect with those feelings and enjoy the social interactions we are already having. To work on feeling lonely, therapy is always a helpful support. You might notice a trend with these articles, therapy will be brought up! Therapy can help with navigating the feelings of loneliness, finding ways to deal with it that are catered to you, your interests, your life circumstances and your needs. It can also be a safe space to explore social connection, work on handling new social settings and practice uncomfortable situations you may be avoiding.

In Summary:

• Loneliness can hit anyone, at any time. You can help with doing some of the things listed above to reduce the feeling of loneliness.

• Feeling lonely is normal, just like happiness and sadness, loneliness can come into our space. Accept and allow it to exist with you. - Finding your own interests and hobbies can be foundational to taking the next step to getting out there and meeting new people.

• Therapy is a great resource to explore the feelings of loneliness, connect with someone and explore social interactions in your everyday life.

Written by Siobhan McCarthy