Making friends as an adult can be difficult. Here's how to look outside your workplace

Lillie-Beth Brinkman, Callie Athey and Helen Ford Wallace
·3 min read

QUESTION: I must be looking for friends in the wrong places, as I keep thinking my best friends are at my job. They are not, so how do I reassess these relationships and separate my work and social life?

CALLIE’S ANSWER: I would start with limiting discussing your life with them.

LILLIE-BETH’S ANSWER: I’m not sure whether you’re saying you have realized that your work friends are not your friends like you thought they were or whether you don’t know how to cultivate friendships as an adult apart from your job. In either case, forming new adult friendships can be challenging, especially if your life takes you in a different directions than the people you bonded with in younger years, whether in school or as young parents.

Sometimes friends are for a season or even for just a moment, and sometimes friends are for life, and they are meaningful and important for our health and well-being either way. If you want to keep your work friends separate from your personal life, then work on ways to foster relationships apart from work – through common interests or a new hobby, reaching out to acquaintances to get together in a different way or through networking and other events. If you meet someone that you want to get to know, invite them to lunch or dinner. It is hard to foster new friendships when we’re all set in our ways, but it’s still worth trying.

HELEN’S ANSWER: The people who share your work environment with you can certainly be excellent friends. Sometimes work is the only interaction a colleague has with other people. For many, work is like an extended family. Longtime work friends are interested in your news of the day and they can help out when there is a sudden need during the day. Pursue these friendships at breaks, lunch and after office hours. Otherwise, find group activities that you enjoy such as craft classes, church activities, card playing, mahjong on the weekends or at night. Some of the best friends that you meet will have your same interests. Keep all options open, at work and at home and in the community.

GUEST’S ANSWER: Yvette Walker, opinion editor of The Kansas City Star: Realizing the problem is a big part of the answer. You spend most of your waking hours at work, so why not find friends there?

You can be friendly with your colleagues, and some can even be real friends, but your best friends are the people who stick with you in the toughest times. You might not even speak every day, but when you do, it's like you have been together every day. Relying only on "friends" from work closes the other parts of your life. And trying to find romance at work complicates things.

So, where can you find friends? Try places and hobbies you enjoy. Do you go to church? Neighborhood socials? Crafting circles? Taylor Swift album releases? Organize a block party on your street. Ask family members to host gatherings. And keep yourself open to opportunities to meet new people. You never know where you might meet your next bestie.

Since 2009, Callie, Lillie-Beth and Helen have written this generational etiquette column. They also include guest responses from a wide range of ages each week. So many years later, Callie is 20-plus; Lillie-Beth is 40-plus and Helen is 60-plus. To ask an etiquette question, email hfsok@aol.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Adults looking for friendships may have to look outside of coworkers