Tonight, Rachel, Elvira and I will meet for dinner. A year ago, none of us knew the others existed. Six months ago Rachel and Elvira were strangers until I introduced them. But now, here we are, something as close to firm friends as is possible after such a short time.
If you’ve ever consumed any media, you would be forgiven for thinking that life after 35 is a burning wasteland of unimaginable horrors: the beginnings of incessant back pain, an interest in dishwasher loading, the discovery that you’re ineligible for entire industries billed as “a young person’s game”, and, apparently, an inability to make friends.
“It becomes harder to make friends as you get older,” goes the adage, and indeed, 69% of people in a US survey by Talker Research agree that making close friends becomes more difficult as you age. Research shows that it takes about 200 hours of contact to form a close friendship and, according to psychotherapist Kaytee Gillis, that kind of dedicated time evaporates in adulthood. “Unlike in childhood, where free time is abundant and social interactions are woven into the fabric of everyday life,” she writes, “adults often have to actively carve out time for social activities amid their busy schedules.” Add to this the fact that we’re living in an increasingly disconnected age and in a recognised global loneliness epidemic, and it feels as if we are doomed.
Or not necessarily. I’m living proof that making friends doesn’t have to be confined to the school playground, freshers’ week or your first job. Over the past year, I have slowly gathered a small network of new people in whose presence I feel content.
I crashed into my mid-30s unprepared for a dramatic shift in my social life. My social diary contained gaping weekend-sized holes, where once, in my roaring 20s, it had been full to the brim with after-work drinks, brunches, lunches, birthday parties, and nights out for no reason other than it was Saturday (or Friday, or Thursday, or Wednesday …).
The same friends who once stood on pub chairs singing at 2am, suddenly, and in quick succession, moved to suburbia (and other countries), got married and had children. But all of us – the newlyweds and the not-weds – staunchly maintained a delusion that nothing about our friendships would change.
I, in the latter camp, realised my life path was rapidly diverging from that of my nearest and dearest. Those who had started families were now less available or able to be spontaneous. I understood this and I was happy for them in their new lives and roles. But emotionally, it felt like a loss. It wasn’t just their physical presence I missed – I didn’t necessarily need us all to be back together, shrieking in pubs every weekend – but our connection generally. Even phone catchups fell by the wayside; we would spend days, sometimes weeks, circling each other’s calendars like confused birds unable to land a time to just talk.
Then there came the pang of watching friends embark on a life I couldn’t relate to, but society told me I was supposed to be living. Unpicking the expectations for women of marriage and motherhood has taken me years, so tightly woven were they within my being. In the process, I felt like an anomaly – a failure, sometimes – among trusted friends with whom I’d once shared so much.
The desire to fit in is a basic human instinct. And so, as much as I loved these friends and would continue to spend time with them, I also knew I needed to meet people living a similar life to me.
A friend overseas extolled the virtues of Bumble BFF, the platonic version of the popular dating app. This time, you’re not browsing a catalogue of faces to see which you find attractive, but are instead attempting to discern which face suggests friendship material. In a dating culture already warped by swipe-based judgment, it felt wrong – almost antithetical to my feminist values – to be a woman scrutinising other women in this way. But the aforementioned friend insisted Bumble BFF had given her the gift of a new friendship circle, so, reluctantly, I got swiping.
Fun fact: it doesn’t matter whether you’re swiping for friends or lovers, you’re never immune to feelings of rejection and self-doubt. In fact, being ghosted by a potential new pal is, arguably, worse. I can accept that someone might not fancy me, what’s less palatable is someone finding me so completely unfriendable. One woman, with whom I’d exchanged a few lighthearted messages, disappeared from the app two hours before we were due to meet.
But thankfully there were more tangible connections than ghosts. Rachel and I were each other’s first friend date. We met in a cafe and bonded over parallel childhoods spent at swimming practice. It wasn’t without awkwardness; we both acknowledged that the very nature of what we were doing felt bizarre. Plus, we are completely different as people: she is a scientist and avid Spurs fan; I am a creative who doesn’t even really know what “Spurs” is. And yet, somehow it works. Almost a year on, we’ve swum together, eaten together, hung out with her dad, and jointly signed up for swimming events.
Later, I succumbed to some aggressive Instagram marketing and signed up for Timeleft, an app that invites you to dine with six strangers. Through it, you are asked to complete a personality quiz – apparently used to match you with six like-minded friends-to-be. Then you’re briefed on where you need to be for dinner and when. Once again, the unnaturalness of the situation made me slightly uncomfortable. We were one of several groups of strangers, positioned across a restaurant floor, all relying on an algorithm to find new friends – it was like an episode of Black Mirror.
But there was a comfort in learning that these six strangers were in this for similar reasons. Most were at a time in their lives where old friendship trajectories had changed course and there was a desire to seek out new kindred spirits. Elvira turned out to be one such kindred spirit. Seated opposite me but one, she was the quietest of the group and initially I assumed we had nothing in common. Then she made a dry, acerbic comment under her breath, giving me a wry smile, and I realised in that moment that we shared the same sense of humour. That was enough for us to keep in touch and hang out periodically over the next 11 months. In that time, I introduced her to another friend, with whom she has formed a friendship of her own, and now the three of us meet for dinner and join each other’s social events.
Then there have been the semi-accidental friendships (albeit with a gentle helping hand). When I moved earlier this year, I called on SpareRoom – the flatshare platform – to help me find new lodgings. I answered Abi’s ad and after she showed me around her beautiful apartment, we sat chatting on the sofa. We clicked instantly and while I didn’t end up becoming her lodger, I became her friend instead. After the viewing, I asked her if she wanted to meet for a drink, and she did. Several dinners, exchanges of hilarious embarrassing stories and a Fleetwood Mac tribute night later, I count her as a good friend in my new city.
My new friendships aren’t all app-based; I can happily confirm that in 2025 it is still possible to form connections “in real life”. In July, as the Cribs played Brighton’s On the Beach festival, I met Loveday organically and unintentionally. Ticketless locals were watching and dancing on the roadside. I, alone and on my way home, might not have had the nerve to join them but my love for early-2000s indie pop rock is strong. So was the man’s next to me, who knew every word. His girlfriend, who was less of a megafan, struck up a conversation and at the end of the set, we found ourselves chatting like old friends in the local pub. Four months on and I accompany Loveday on weekend walks on the South Downs, where we put the world to rights.
Elsewhere, I’ve found budding acquaintances in co-working spaces, exercise classes, monthly supper clubs and even local cafes. And these connections haven’t just been women, although, as a heterosexual woman, I tend to seek out new female friendships to avoid muddied waters or it feeling too much like dating – which hasn’t been the purpose.
At points I couldn’t believe my luck, it all seemed far easier than I’d imagined. Far easier than the research suggests. It is true that I’ve always been an extrovert and not particularly shy when it comes to meeting new people and I’m aware this might give me a boost in the friend-making domain. But I think there’s more to it than extroversion.
Spiritual leaders and Instagram memes alike preach refrains such as “what you put out comes back”, “like attracts like” and the importance of “loving yourself before you can love another”. All concepts I’ve rolled my eyes at in the past. However, I am almost certain that these friendships could not have materialised 18 months previously, because I was navigating a difficult time in my life. But at some point I found a measure of peace and discovered that happiness is a feedback loop: the happier I began to feel, the more interesting the world became – and as the world became more interesting, I grew happier and, apparently, more interesting to others, too.
The stats may suggest that it’s harder to make friends as you age. But what they also do is instil in us defeatist beliefs about our agency in the world. Age doesn’t stop you from making friends – fear, anxiety and sadness do. I believe that once you dedicate time to moving through difficult emotions, you will tend to find that there are swathes of fantastic people out there ready to be your pal.
