Making New Friends in Your Thirties

When it comes to the concept of making new friends, some may equate this moment to their yesteryears as most people generally develop their close friendships in their earlier years of life. We have our childhood friends and then we have the friends that we make along the way through high school and college, but when adulthood presents, specifically during our thirties, is there no longer an interest in making new friends?

I ask this knowing that I was once an individual that was not interested in making new friends in my thirties. It wasn’t that I was being unkind or exercising poor character ethic, I was just happy with the close friendships and bonds that God had already blessed me with. “If aint broke, don’t fix it”, right? Wrong! At the age of thirty-five, I can honestly attest to the fact that making new friends in your thirties is quite essential and I am grateful for the amazing friendships that I have developed over the past few years and the ones that are still being nurtured.   

When you are in your thirties, you are developing a new and deeper level of freedom and self-awareness, so having stable female connections are significant during this time. Naturally, every woman is experiencing a different path, season and maybe even a state of being, but the good, self-reflective, intentional women of today are walking in assertive womanhood (at least I am encouraging such). As a woman in my thirties, I am more self-assured, confident and well aware of the type of friendships I want and need in my life rather than when I was my little 20-something self still trying to figure it all out and by all I mean me!

Making new friends in your thirties can be daunting for some, but it doesn’t have to be. Of course, you want to cultivate authentic friendships and allow for organic progression, but where does one even start? How do friendships happen in your thirties? Well, as easy as it was, we are no longer playing in the schoolyard gathering up friends with a game of tag, but we do still have the ability to gather and connect, just on different ‘playing’ fields, such as the workplace. This permits time to better learn one another and it creates an opportunity to regularly bond. Sometimes these friendships can actually become the most amazing ones, which I have personally experienced.

Reconnecting with old friends is also a way to establish friendships in your thirties. New friendships do not always have to begin with people you have never engaged or connected with previously. We tend to lose touch with people over the years and as we grow and change, sometimes it’s worth reconnecting. And you never know, the second time around could be better than the friendship that was once. Also, friends of friends is another way to cultivate new friendships in your thirties.

Similarly, be open to embracing new kinds of people. In my twenties, I am pretty sure most of my friends were just like me because that is what we gravitate towards, but as you mature, a natural shift in who you are and how you perceive life should take place; therefore, it is not beneficial to only have friends that are just like you. I stand behind the concept of incorporating like-minded individuals into your friend group, but how are you going to be able to fully grow if you always surround yourself with yourself? Mix it up a bit and diversify your friendships.

I state all of this understanding that making friends can be harder as adults due to the fact that we have real life happening before us each day and our schedules can be on lock, but consistency is key. Make the consistent effort that it takes to build, but consider the various factors of life that may naturally impede. Nonetheless, don’t let that deter you as friendships are built, developed and maintained based off what we sow into them.

So, sorry Drake…yes to new friends!