Why Making Friends as an Adult Feels Impossible & What to Do About It

Here are the top 10 key takeaways from Mel Robbins' podcast that will transform how you approach adult friendships and help you create meaningful connections in any stage of life.

1. The great scattering

The "Great Scattering" occurs when you hit your 20s and everyone moves in different directions after college or other structured environments. This fundamental shift changes friendship from a group activity to an individual pursuit, catching most people off guard.

This scattering repeats throughout life during major transitions - when people get married, have children, change careers, move cities, or face significant life changes. Each time, your social circle disperses, requiring you to adapt your approach to friendship. Many people make the mistake of taking this personally or clinging tighter to existing relationships, which often backfires.

Understanding that these scatterings are normal life transitions rather than personal rejections helps you approach friendship with greater flexibility and resilience. It allows you to see that the best friendships may still be ahead of you, waiting to be discovered.

2. Friendship conditions in childhood vs. adulthood

Childhood structures naturally create ideal conditions for friendship formation. Schools, sports teams, and other organized activities put you in constant proximity with peers sharing similar experiences, schedules, and milestones.

These built-in structures make friendship almost automatic during childhood and adolescence. You're surrounded by people your age, following similar schedules, experiencing the same life stages, and participating in group activities together. This environment conditions us to expect friendship to happen naturally without much effort.

Adulthood removes these structures, drastically changing how friendships form and function. Without the automatic proximity and shared experiences of childhood, adults must intentionally create conditions for friendship rather than expecting them to develop naturally. This shift requires a completely different mindset and approach to building relationships.

3. The three pillars of friendship

Friendship requires three essential pillars: proximity, timing, and energy. Proximity means being physically close enough to spend time together regularly. Timing refers to being in similar life stages where you can relate to each other's current experiences. Energy involves having compatible personalities, interests, and values that create a natural connection.

Research from the University of Kansas shows it takes approximately 50 hours together to form a casual friendship, 90 hours to become regular friends, and 200 hours to develop close friendship. This explains why friendship takes longer to develop in adulthood - we simply don't accumulate hours together as quickly as we did in school or college.

When any of these pillars changes, the friendship naturally shifts. Understanding these pillars helps you recognize that friendship changes aren't personal rejections but natural responses to changing conditions. This awareness allows you to be more intentional about creating the right conditions for meaningful friendships.

4. Proximity as the foundation of friendship

Proximity is potentially the most significant factor in friendship formation. Studies from MIT show that physical closeness strongly predicts who becomes friends with whom. This explains why people often become friends with those who sit near them alphabetically in classes or work at adjacent desks.

Our adult lives make proximity challenging. Unlike childhood or college where we spent countless hours with peers, work schedules and other commitments limit our face time with potential friends. This makes accumulating the necessary hours for friendship development much more difficult and explains why workplace relationships often don't develop into close friendships despite spending time together.

Creating intentional proximity requires effort in adulthood. You must deliberately seek out regular activities where you'll encounter the same people repeatedly, allowing those crucial friendship hours to accumulate. This might mean joining clubs, taking classes, or establishing regular routines at community spaces.

5. Timing's role in friendship compatibility

Timing refers to being in similar life phases or chapters. People connect more easily when facing similar challenges, celebrating similar milestones, or sharing comparable day-to-day experiences. This explains why workplace friendships often don't deepen despite proximity - colleagues are often in vastly different life stages.

When friends enter different life phases - having children while you remain single, moving to suburbs while you stay in the city, or focusing on career while others prioritize family - the common ground narrows. These timing differences make it harder to relate to each other's daily experiences and constraints, naturally creating distance even when proximity exists.

Understanding timing helps explain why friendships naturally evolve as life circumstances change. Rather than taking these shifts personally, recognizing them as natural responses to timing differences allows for more flexibility in how relationships adapt. Some friendships may become less active during certain life phases only to reactivate later when timing realigns.

6. Energy as the friendship compass

Energy represents the natural connection, compatibility, and chemistry between people. When the energy clicks, conversation flows easily, values align, and interests complement each other. This pillar can't be forced or manufactured - it either exists naturally or it doesn't.

When trying to force connections where the energy is off, we often become insecure, clingy, or inauthentic. This creates a negative spiral that further damages the potential friendship. Learning to trust your energy with others helps you recognize which relationships to invest in and which ones to appreciate more casually.

Energy can shift over time as people grow and change. What once aligned perfectly might evolve as interests, values, or priorities shift. Respecting these natural energy shifts rather than resisting them allows friendships to evolve organically. Some may strengthen while others naturally fade, making room for new connections that better match your current energy.

7. The rubber band model of friendship

Visualize every friendship as a rubber band. When all three pillars (proximity, timing, and energy) align perfectly, the rubber band rests in its natural, unstretched state. When any pillar changes - a friend moves away, enters a different life phase, or your interests diverge - the rubber band stretches but remains intact.

Many people panic when feeling this stretch and respond by pulling harder, creating tension that can eventually snap the band completely. Instead, allowing flexibility in the relationship preserves the connection through life's changes. The rubber band might stretch for years before circumstances bring you back into alignment.

Understanding this model helps explain why some childhood or college friendships can be instantly rekindled after years apart. The rubber band stretched but never broke. When proximity, timing, or energy realign - perhaps at a reunion or when life stages synchronize again - the friendship can quickly return to its unstretched state.

8. The "let them" approach to friendship

The "let them" philosophy involves releasing expectations about how others should reciprocate in friendship. Let friends cancel plans when they're tired. Let them prioritize their families or careers. Let them move away or start new chapters. Let them connect with other friends. Let proximity, timing, or energy shift without taking it personally.

This approach requires emotional maturity and security. Rather than clinging to rigid expectations of how friendships should function, allowing people to move through their own lives without judgment creates space for relationships to evolve naturally. This prevents the relationship-damaging behaviors of guilt-tripping, passive-aggression, or excessive neediness.

Adopting this mindset doesn't mean accepting mistreatment but rather understanding that friendship patterns naturally change throughout life. It means accepting that friendships have seasons, and sometimes those seasons include periods of less connection before potentially circling back to closeness when conditions align again.

9. The "let me" proactive stance

While "let them" creates flexibility, "let me" puts the responsibility for friendship creation squarely on you. Let me reach out first. Let me make plans. Let me introduce myself. Let me be consistent. Let me be understanding when plans change. Let me create opportunities for connection rather than waiting for them to appear.

This approach acknowledges that adult friendship requires intentional effort rather than passive expectation. Going first by introducing yourself, complimenting strangers, or inviting acquaintances to activities creates momentum that others can respond to. These small actions accumulate into the foundation for meaningful connections.

Documenting people's names (perhaps in your phone's notes app) after meeting them and referencing those notes before future encounters helps overcome the awkwardness of forgetting names. These "micro-connections" with baristas, neighbors, or regular faces at community spaces build a network that combats loneliness and creates pathways to deeper friendships.

10. Finding your people through shared activities

Joining activities aligned with your interests naturally puts you in proximity with people who share similar values and passions. Book clubs, fitness classes, volunteer opportunities, art workshops, or sports leagues create regular contact with potential friends while the shared activity provides natural conversation starters.

The activity itself does double duty - it fulfills your personal interests while simultaneously creating the proximity needed for friendship formation. You'll naturally accumulate those crucial friendship hours by attending regular sessions. The shared experience also reveals compatibility of energy through how others approach the activity.

Attending these activities alone rather than with existing friends forces you to be more open to new connections. When entering new environments or life stages, give yourself a full year to find your people. Remember that finding even one or two compatible friends can transform your social landscape as they potentially introduce you to their own networks, creating a ripple effect of connection.