Hey, where’d all my friends go?

Feb 20, 2008 - 10:28 AM PST

“i don't have a lot of offline friends. it really bothers me.”

“me too. That seems to be common….”

“Isn't that the plague of a QLifer? If not few friends, few quality friends? That's been my thing. I graduated from college and my friends and I like the Red Sea we parted ways leaving both the Egyptians and a few Israelites behind.”

“What is it about this time of life that makes relationships so much more difficult? Is it the instability, the bad job, the booze?”

-- qLife handles djsummitt, CharlieMystic, and TahaniSon (who officially punted the question to me)


I promise I’ll get to the questions that you all have emailed me soon, but first I’d like to address this important and popular issue, which showed up on the qLife forums just before the holidays.

After graduation, college friendships scatter not only because of the obvious geographical distance, but also because of the loss of common ground. Suddenly, there’s no more commiserating about dorm food, planning the next pre-party, or procrastinating studying together until you crash. College might have been the last time in life when you were lumped together with classmates, teammates, and hallmates who were all approximately the same age as you. In your post-school world, odds are you can’t expect to pad shoeless down the hall at one in the morning and expect to see 1) a friend and 2) a friend who is also awake and up for philosophical discussions, a round of Grand Theft Auto, a second dinner, or beer pong.

Yeah, it’s hard to make new friends when you’re out of school. That’s natural. The guys who posed this question certainly had part of the reasoning right: many twentysomething relationships suffer because of instability, bad jobs, and booze. It’s tough to know what you want in a friendship if you don’t first know what you want from yourself. Or if you’re generally unhappy (which bad jobs can do to a person). Or if you’re tanked. Besides, a lot of twentysomethings say that trying to make a new friend feels like trying to pick up a date. How do you get across the totally platonic question “Hey, maybe we could hang out?” without inadvertently sending the potentially skeevy message “Wanna get laid?”

The time factor plays a role, too. What with jobs, dates, household stuff, and trying to keep in touch with the friends you already have, there might not be much time to meet new people. That’s why the most common tip for making friends isn’t necessarily realistic. From your clichéd twentysomething guidebook to your mom, you’ll be told to “join things that other people join.” But if you barely have time to yourself, you’re not going to want to add another commitment to your workweek. The only way this advice can reliably work is if you join an activity not to meet people but to do something you love to do, something that you want to make time for. Soccer team, cooking classes, local music scene – whatever. As long as you enjoy it, it’s worth a shot, and you won’t mind shuffling your schedule.

You can also try activities that offer one-time commitments so that you can scope out the regulars for their friend potential before deciding to come back: a yoga or kickboxing class, an activist event, a community service activity, an art gallery exhibition, a movie club, a college alumni gathering. Check out Craigslist for examples of these types of functions in your area. If you don’t like the people in a group, no problem – try another group.

But there’s much better advice in this arena, a secret that someone I interviewed shared with me a few years ago: fake it. I’ve written about self-fulfilling prophecies before, but the point is relevant (if slightly oversimplified) here, too. If you act confident, you’ll grow confidence. Act happy, and you might find yourself in a better mood. Similarly, act like you have friends, and you’ll make friends. This is a plan that has since worked for a number of people:

Let’s say there’s someone at work with whom you think you might click. Instead of asking, “Hey, want to grab a drink after work?” (too datey), try, “Some friends and I are going to get drinks after work. Want to join?” Find a few other people and feed them the same lie optimistic prediction. One of three outcomes will happen. 1) You’ll end up hanging out with a few people. 2) Only one person says yes, in which case all you have to do is let that person know before you leave that the others got tied up with work, so the two of you can grab a quick drink now, and you can introduce him around next time. Or 3) Nobody says yes – this time around. But it doesn’t matter, because you’ve begun to cultivate a reputation as someone social who has things going on.

This method works whether you use it to get a bunch of people from different circles together, or you meet someone randomly at the bookstore whom you want to get to know. If you are the person organizing happy hours (or hosting Nintendo Wii tournaments, my personal secret weapon), then people will begin to see you as a social magnet. And eventually – give it time – you’ll meet the kinds of friends who will stick with you, even through instability, bad jobs, and booze.


If you’d like to Ask Alex about life, love, jobs, home, family, friends, emotional, or identity issues, email her at robbinsbooks(AT)gmail.com or message her on quarterlife (handle: AlexRobbins).



Alexandra Robbins is a journalist who has written for several publications, including Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, and Forbes, and regularly appears on national television on shows such as The Colbert Report, Oprah, The Today Show, 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper 360, and The View. Some of her books include Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis: Advice From Twentysomethings Who Have Been There and Survived; Pledged: The Secret Lives of Sororities; and Secrets of the Tomb, about George W. Bush’s secret society Skull and Bones. A consultant on generational topics, she frequently lectures at universities, high schools, corporations, alumni and professional associations, and other organizations about quarterlife issues, and has interviewed thousands of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings on the subject.

Hailed by the press as “an excellent stylist and a first-rate mind” and “a media celebrity,” Robbins has developed a riveting signature style of investigative journalism that reads like a fast-paced work of fiction. The New York Times said Robbins’ latest book, The Overachievers, an Editors’ Choice, “reads like very good ...fiction, thanks to its winning cast, its surprising plot twists and its pushy parents.” People Magazine named The Overachievers its Critics’ Choice, gave it four out of four stars and called it “impossible to put down,” and Entertainment Weekly called it “quick and riveting.”

However, these days, Alexandra seems to be more commonly known as the chick who called Stephen Colbert a d-bag.

For more information, please visit www.alexandrarobbins.com

Discuss this article on our forums