A sad fact of life is that the older we get the harder it is to meet and make new friends. Outside the social bubble of the school system, there’s just not as many opportunities in our adult lives to meet people. Add in a military lifestyle with multiple moves and it gets even harder to make new friends, but also even more necessary. We all need support and connections with other people, especially in a military lifestyle. We all need to get in the friend zone.
Meeting new people is hard and can feel next to impossible if you’re not naturally outgoing or if you’re prone to social anxiety. As someone who, truth be told, is socially awkward as heck sometimes, meeting new friends is something I personally struggled with for a long time. Eventually I overcame my social anxiety and learned how to put myself out there and I’ve met some amazing people because of it. Hopefully I can help you on the path to meeting some amazing new people and making new friends too.
One of the hardest parts of meeting new friends is just finding them in the first place but there’s actually a lot of opportunities in your daily life to make a connection, you just have to look for them. Is there someone that you see on a regular basis that you feel a connection with? Why not ask them to hang out? One of my best friends worked in the same building with me for months before we hung out. We always had such a great rapport when we spoke at work, in retrospect it was no surprise that we would end up having an even better connection outside of work too. Another one of my good friends actually did my hair for months before we became friends. We always had such fun conversations at my appointments that it’s silly it took us so long to hang out outside of her work.
That girl that you feel you have a great connection with that maybe works with you, does your hair, lives near you or you see somewhere else on a regular basis could end up being a great friend, all it takes is asking her to hang out. Which is admittedly, easier said than done. You can also join interest groups on meetup.com, through your local FRG, or maybe even local play-groups if you have kids to meet people. The first step to making friends is putting yourself out there. Get in the friend zone.
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