For most, making friends as a kid was suspiciously easy.
Sit next to someone in class. Join the same sports team. Discover you both like the same band.
Boom: friendship.
Then adulthood happens.
Suddenly, making a new friend requires finding an opening in two packed calendars, leaving the comfort of your couch and working up the nerve to ask another grown adult if they would, perhaps, like to hang out sometime.
“Inconvenience,” Kellan Oxley said when asked why making friends gets harder with age. “It’s inconvenient to have friends.”
Oxley knows the struggle. She started Meet Her in Cincinnati after buying a home in the area and realizing she wanted something pretty simple: friends who lived close enough to spontaneously grab coffee, walk their dogs or just hang out.
“I don’t know anyone I could just text or call and ask to go grab a coffee with me, like just up the street,” she said.
So, she did what any person trying to meet people in 2026 might do.
She turned to the internet.
Oxley posted a video looking for women in her neighborhood who might want to meet up. She figured the algorithm might deliver it to one person.
Instead, the video took off and eventually grew into Meet Her in Cincinnati, a group centered around helping women meet and build friendships through activities around the city.
The response showed her that plenty of adults, newcomers and longtime Cincinnatians alike, are trying to figure out the same thing.
So, how do you actually make friends as an adult?
First, you have to leave your house
This is, admittedly, the worst part.
Your house has your snacks. Your TV. Your bathroom. Your pets. Maybe even pants with an elastic waistband.
But friendships require repetition, Oxley said. She compares it to building muscle: You don’t walk into a gym for the first time and immediately start curling 25-pound dumbbells.
Friendship works the same way.
You start with the awkward small talk, learn a little about each other and keep showing up.
“You might feel sore,” Oxley said. “You don’t want to go, but you show up anyways and you make your best effort. You got to show up for people, and that’s hard and inconvenient.”
Give yourself something to do
If the thought of sitting across from a stranger desperately searching for the next conversation topic makes you want to cancel plans before you’ve even made them, don’t make conversation the entire activity.
Do something.
Oxley is a big fan of trivia because the questions naturally fill awkward silences and create conversation. Pickleball, craft nights and other activities work, too.
“The activity is the excuse,” she said.
Maybe you actually finish the craft. Maybe you spend 20 minutes doing it and the next two hours talking. Either way, having something to focus on takes some of the pressure off.
That means the same principle can work outside an organized friend-making group.
Join a running club. Go to trivia. Take a pottery class. Volunteer. Find a book club.
Pick something you genuinely enjoy, and you’ve already guaranteed yourself at least one thing in common with everyone else who shows up.
Find the other nervous person
Walking into a room alone is intimidating.
Oxley’s advice is simple: “Look for someone who looks nervous too.”
Chances are, you’re not the only person wondering where to stand or what to do with your hands.
Then comes the hard part: Say hello.
Oxley said one of the best pieces of advice she’s received is that to be interesting, you first have to be interested.
Ask questions. Listen to the answers. Find out why someone knows a concerning amount about obscure ’90s sitcoms during trivia.
And remember, you don’t need every person you meet to become your new best friend.
Oxley said adulthood taught her that different friendships can fill different parts of your life.
You can have friends you play pickleball with, friends you craft with, friends you call when everything is falling apart and friends who fall somewhere in between.
Yes, you have to ask them to hang out again
Congratulations. You met someone. You clicked. You exchanged numbers.
Now someone has to actually use them.
Oxley compares this stage to dating. If you want a friendship to develop, somebody eventually has to risk being the person who says, “Want to do this again?”
Her rule of thumb is reciprocity. If someone invites her somewhere, she tries to invite them to something next.
And don’t interpret every “no” as rejection.
People are busy. Plans fall apart. Someone may genuinely want to see you and genuinely not be free Thursday at 7 p.m.
“Don’t take no as a rejection,” Oxley said. “Just take it as like a, ‘I can’t today, but maybe another time.’”
New to Cincinnati? Become a regular
For someone starting from scratch in a new city, Oxley recommends finding three things: a favorite restaurant, a favorite bar or gathering spot and a favorite activity.
Then keep going back.
Familiarity helps. You start recognizing people. They start recognizing you. Eventually, you’ve got an opening to say hello.
And don’t discount the internet.
“Social media is the best tool,” Oxley said. “It is called social media. Be social on it.”
Comment. Follow. Message. Join local groups.
Oxley thinks of commenting on someone’s post as the modern equivalent of giving them a little wave.
The important part is eventually taking the connection offline.
Making friends as an adult may require more intention than it did when you were 10, but the basic formula isn’t particularly complicated:
Go somewhere. Go again. Talk to someone. Ask them to hang out. Repeat.
And if you’re nervous about putting yourself out there, that’s probably a pretty good indication that someone else is, too.
This article appears in Annual Manual 2026.
