I had a social life in college, but in my early 20s I moved across the country and had to start from scratch. So I knew how to be friends with people but not how to make friends.

Of course it’s possible. You can make friends at any age. Just don’t look to tv and movies to define what a “social life” is. It’ll probably be more sparse and less stable than sitcoms would have you believe.

The best way to start is to take up a hobby that involves interacting with real people.

Depends on circumstances a lot. It’s easy if you’re in college/work with similar people. Otherwise it might be hard to start, especially if you don’t have a lot of free time.

I moved a lot alone and had to make a new social life a lot. during school, for high school, for college, then jobs, then moved country. Except for last one where I knew a few people every other case I had 0 friends carried over. Hardest to have a social life was during the time I was working on jobs as the ability to meet new people decreased a lot.

So basically it is hard when you don’t goto college and job where you are forced to spend time with people, but that can also sometimes makes it hard to hangout with the same people outside of work.

So far things that have worked out for me:

• People with same interest that you randomly meet sometimes.
• keep your social media connected and when you see stories of people doing things you like strike a conversation about it. Don’t force to have full convo, just say your piece about that story and leave it be if it doesn’t go any farther. Small talks just sharing some sentences are good starting points. If it happens a few time with same person you might find someone you have common things with.
• try some group activities that doesn’t have to have a lot of talking. Something you can be present there just doing your thing, it could be local recreational sports group, volunteering, library, etc.
• friends of friends, statistically your friends in average have more friends than you, so just hangout with them in group activities, and try to make new connections. You have to start somewhere.
• online friends, sometimes it just helps to have people to talk to, careful on who you’re hanging out with, but fandoms and such online are good to make friends that you can talk to without responsibilities of maintaining a relationship. It’ll help you be more open on sharing your interests.

It’s never too late.

13 of my 18 friends I found when I was 30-35… My dad made the same experience in his 50s. Friends come and go. It’s rather unusual to get to the end of your life with the same friends you had in school.

I’ve had close to 0 social life in high school and the first year of college.
What turned me around was joining a board game club.

What I’ve learned from this experience is that everyone
has a minimum and maximum amount of time and slots for friendships
and newcomers are the ones most likely with empty friendships slots.

My 20s were complete garbage. I can’t remember most of what happened there because nothing ever happened. At the end I didn’t see any hope for myself and had some disturbing thoughts. But I’ve come around somehow and met my now best friends and many other nice people during my 30s. I owe them my life basically. Though I still have trouble finding romantic connection and I’m not trying anymore.

Where I meet people: At work, neighbors, hiking or board game groups

I think it’s important to get out and meet many different people, even without ever becoming friends. You learn social skills, you have more things to talk about with others, you feel more accepted in general, it’s a spiral upwards.

Nah. You can make friends at any age. Most of it comes down to showing interest in the person you want to befriend and asking them about themselves.

Imo as an ADHD person this world best for me. The hard part is finding the interesting person I wanna befriend. Most have happened casually through games or events. If you board game. Or pickle ball. Or shit join a cooking class. Good chance you’ll be interested in someone in the bunch.

Of course it’s not too late, it only appears harder because in school we spent a lot of time during the week with many people the same age. But only a fraction of that time is needed, all it takes is being around people and talking to people.

Many on lemmy rightly complain of the lack of “third spaces” nowadays in many of the richer countries (you said college I’m guessing US or UK?), so for example in many places it’d be a bit weird to just go to the pub alone. But you can also just go alone and do and enjoy whatever you want, it just takes a bit more confidence, the embarassment of it usually wears off with age for most.

What’s probably easier is joining some semi-regular activity where you get to chat. So pub quiz night, language exchange, chess club, hiking group, etc… are more likely to aid you in this compared to loud night clubs, the gym, or whatever, it’s all subjective it’s still important to do the stuff you enjoy, regardless of socializing.

Absolutely. I was an absolute loner for the better part of a decade. Then my depression just disappeared. I joined a community around a streamer and had loads of fun. Just find the intersection between your preferred subject (literary analysis, anime tiddies, etc.) and your preferred communication method. (Text forum, voice chat, real life meetings, etc.) You’ll find at least someone you can hang with, maybe more. Just go at it with openness and joy.

You start a social life many times on your life. The people around you will change many times, and your relationships will change as well.

Don’t feel pushed to start a social life.

Also, it’s a skill you will take time thlo learn and make lots of mistakes, don’t worry, it’s normal.

And don’t look for others approval in general, ota just wrong, but perfectly normal to look for. Still wrong

My most social years were in my 30’s!

Mid-20s is honestly the perfect time to start

It’s definitely harder after college, but not impossible. You’re just going to have to put in a bit of effort. The two best recommendations I can make are:

1. getting involved in some kind of hobby that’s either inherently social (board games, team sports, etc.) or puts you together in the same place with other hobbyists (I’ve done a lot of socializing at rock climbing gyms, despite it technically being a solo thing)

2. working a job that forces you to socialize in small doses (hospitality, customer service, etc). Being thrust into micro interactions dozens of times a day makes it a lot easier to approach people in casual settings.

Of course you can, it just requires more work. Find a group of like-minded people by joining a evening class; group training; volunteer at an event; etc…

It requires a lot of effort, but it’ll be worth it in the end.

Dude, it’s literally never too late. x3

There’s old people fuck-a-thons in retirement homes for heaven’s sake, lol. And those people are almost a century old.

Get on meetup.com if you aren’t sure what’s out there, but there’s all sorts of fun stuff going on! Meetup is platonic.