How to Make Friends In Your Thirties

Today on the show, we're going to break down one question that came from a listener. This question came through and it made me think, man, this is actually a really good question. I think we should probably just dedicate an entire episode to this. So that's what we're doing. The question is, why is it so hard to make friends in your mid-30s in a new city? That is what we're going to be chatting about here today on the Travis Makes Friends podcast. So without any further ado, let's go ahead and dive in. I wanted to do this episode with questions that were coming in because the last couple of episodes, I've been so eager to get some of this data and statistics out that I think I've taken up way too much time talking about data and not enough time talking about you who are watching the show or listening to the show and addressing your concerns about making friends and about building better relationships. So instead of pushing the question off as an afterthought to the core content of this particular episode, I thought, why not just start with this question? And then if we have time, then we'll get to some of the other things which involves the Surgeon General's Six Pillars to Advance Human Connection. But if we don't have time, we'll just do that next week because I want to make sure that we're dedicating enough time to get your questions answered. So if you're new to the show, welcome to the Travis Makes Friends podcast. On this segment, this is the Make Friends with Travis segment where we just talk about all things friendship, all things loneliness, relationships, and how to make more friends, how to make better friendships, how to build a better relationship with yourself, to have more self-awareness, to increase your self-confidence, all for the purpose of building better relationships and ending the loneliness epidemic. So this week, we're doing a lot of Q&A. And if you want to get your questions answered, feel free to shoot me an email, travischappell.com, or you can shoot me a DM on Instagram at travischappell, C-H-A-P-P-E-L-L, and we will chat over there. So let's go ahead and dive right in. This question comes from at 4.rachelmarie. She asks, why is it so hard to make friends in your mid-30s in a new city? And first of all, that's a great question. I think it's one that everybody's continuing to ask these days. When I had Joe Gatto on the show from Impractical Jokers, we're talking about friendship and making new friends and everything. And he actually said that on his show that he does with Steve Byrne, this is one of the questions that they get the most. This is the question they get the most was, how do you make friends as an adult? And I think your mid-30s is probably right around that time where you're feeling more like an adult. So I think there's a few reasons why it's hard to make friends in your 30s in general. It's harder to make friends in your 30s in general. First of all, it's just an increased, you're more self-aware. You know what you like, you know what you don't like. And that tends to decrease the total number of mutual interests that you have with other people. When you're in your 20s, most people, and again, this is not ever a blanket statement. Most people in their 20s tend to decide to do similar things, meaning they're probably going to college or they're starting off work. Meaning that in their free time, they're probably trying to go to the parties, they're trying to get drunk, they're trying to hang out with friends, they're trying to do all similar things and nobody really knows who they are at all. So everybody just does all the same things. When you get into your 30s, this has been my experience so far. I'm still pretty early on, so simmer down. But I am officially 32 years old. And one thing that I've realized is that you just start to understand what you do and don't like in terms of interests, sure, but also in terms of how you like to hang out and meet new people. So it's just part of your life when you're growing up. You're in school, you're around people all the time, you have to be. Then you go to college and then you're in college and you're around people all the time, you have to be. You, in your free time, are going to parties where you're around other people. You are going to clubs, you're going to bars, you're going to all of these different places that everybody is doing ubiquitously and it causes you to meet a bunch of people, people with whom you have common ground, you have shared interests. If you're all going to the same college and rooting for the same football team, you're probably more likely to get along with those people because you have areas of commonality. Yet, when you are in your 30s, you might meet that same person somewhere and you don't really have anything in common except for that you used to go to the same college 10 years ago. So I think increased self-awareness, which is a good thing, by the way. Self-awareness is a very good thing and probably something lacking in society at large. But I think when you're in your 30s, you have an increased level of self-awareness, which leads to just a smaller number of mutual interests that you can share with others. Number two, I think time management is increasingly more difficult in your 30s. Your work tends to start taking precedence in your 30s and then you have the relationships that are necessary underneath that. So you would have your work and then you would have family or really, really close friends. Not any new friends, just close friends. Whether that's if you happen to be in a new city, none of those previous friends are going to be in that city, but you're still texting them or if you're gaming with them online or you're on Instagram catching up with them. You tend to prioritize these other activities and work is definitely one of them. Obviously now, post-2020, work is increasingly more virtual. So now we have people that used to go into an office and be forced to be around a bunch of other people that are now not doing that. Their work has them also completely isolated, whether it's in the spare bedroom in their apartment or if they're out at a coffee shop. The work that's being done is still work that's being done alone, work that's being done socially, isolated from other people. And if you need collaboration on a project, you're jumping on a Zoom call, which has nowhere near the same level of connection that you get from working through problems and solving them with people in person. So your work takes precedence, your family has to move to the top of your priority list. Then you have personal work, personal development, errands, things that if there are personal goals that you have in your life, you have on top of work and family, you have fitness. If you want to go to the gym, if you want to go for a walk, if you have the value of staying healthy, which I think a lot of people do these days, which is good, you have to put in time for that and you have to schedule time to go to the gym, to go for a walk, to read a book that might help you in your career or might help increase your belief in yourself or your self-confidence. There's time that has to be scheduled for your personal work, your personal development, errands, running errands, just going to the grocery store or setting time to budget for the next month for your personal finances. You have personal work, you have personal development, you have errands, you have family, you have work, and you have rest. You must take time to rest. Rest seems to me like anymore. It's one of those necessary things that I enjoy, but I always feel guilty for doing it. You can't allow yourself to feel guilty for doing it because we all need rest. We all need to be rejuvenated. That might look different for everybody, but it doesn't mean that you don't need it. You have work, you got family, you got personal life, personal development, fitness, interests, errands, hobbies, rest. Then you sit there and you look at all that time and you go, man, I only have a little bit of time left at the end of the day. The problem with making new friends is that it's work and it doesn't always turn into a great friendship or relationship. There's risk involved there. You're risking some of that additional free time, that little tiny sliver of free time that you have in your calendar, you're risking it to spend time with other people with whom you may never have a good relationship with. Maybe even that you might look back at and think, man, that was a waste of time. If you don't take the time and schedule the time to do these things, then that's when you look back in 10 years, 15 years, maybe you have a great career. Maybe you have stayed in touch with your parents really well. Maybe you are right on track with your fitness goals and personal development. You feel great. You're reading books. You feel fulfilled in these other parts of your life, but then you look back and you're lacking in true friendship. You start to feel lonely and question why, what's happening. But if you go back and evaluate your time and examine the things that you've done, you're going to find probably that there was a moment where you just subconsciously neglected the activity of building new friendships because that extra hour or two that you had to yourself, you wanted to just go home and watch Netflix instead of go read your book that you're reading at a bar out or not even, it doesn't always have to be over alcohol, but at a park or somewhere where you have the opportunity to connect with other people over mutual or shared interests. So there's plenty of reasons why. For being in your 30s in general, I think all of those things are things that are going to prevent you from being able to make friends. But specifically in a new city, I think it's more difficult to meet new people because you don't have an existing friend group. It's much easier to me, it feels less intimidating to invite a new contact, a new connection if you meet somebody whatever at the gym, meet somebody in the line at Starbucks, you want to potentially hang out with them or they seem cool and maybe you connected over your shared love of a sport or your shared common interest in a book that you were reading or something like that. And you think, hey, this person might be somebody cool to connect with. When you're in that situation, it's much less pressure and a much easier ask just to be like, me and a couple of friends are getting together on Friday night to get some dinner or to go watch a movie or to get some drinks or to insert activity here. It's much easier just to invite that person along. And it feels way, like I said, less pressure than to just almost like ask that person on a date. It can get kind of awkward and especially nowadays, you don't even know if it is not a date and it can get kind of awkward. So I think that contributes to it when you're in a new city is that if you don't have existing friend groups, it can feel just easier to retreat back into yourself because you don't have an existing friend group that you can even invite this person into. It's just you by yourself. So I think that there are some of those things that exaggerate the effect, especially when you're in a new city and you don't know a lot of people yourself. So what can you do in order to combat all of this? First of all, you've got to be a master of your schedule. Don't allow for dead time in your calendar. So look at your calendar. And by the way, I just said earlier, this does not mean neglecting rest. It does not mean neglecting relaxation. This does not mean neglecting time with yourself. You need that as well. All I mean is that if you're looking at your calendar and you see dead space in there, fill it with something. Be intentional. Be purposeful about your rest, about your relaxation, about your Netflix time, about your you time. Sure, be intentional. Be purposeful about those things. But if you see big gaps in there too, try to schedule activity that's going to be in there, that's going to help you get around other people or further a connection and deepen the relationship that you have with yourself. So schedule that activity. Schedule solo time for yourself in your calendar. So you have to be a master of your schedule. Or like I said, you're going to wake up in 10 years and realize that you spent your free time, the extra one to three hours a day that you might have had on scrolling TikTok, on watching Netflix, or watching YouTube recommendations. And you didn't even intend to do that. It's just that these are platforms that are designed to hold your attention for long periods of time. So if you don't intentionally create something that gives you a reason to go do something different other than sit there and doom scroll, you're going to be doing it for a lot longer than you think that you're going to be doing it for. If you don't believe me, go to your screen time app on your phone and look at how much time you're currently spending on social media apps, on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, and all these different things. And the answer, it might surprise you in terms of how much time you think you're going to do it. If you estimate it, if you're like, I'm spending X amount of hours per day on all these platforms combined. And then you went and looked at it, you'd probably be surprised because they're meant to make time pass quickly. They're meant to drag on and hold your attention for long periods of time. So if you don't have things scheduled, you can just kind of sit there and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll. But if you had something scheduled, you might scroll for three minutes and then be like, oh, I got to go get ready to go do that thing that I have scheduled in my calendar. So be a master of your schedule. Number two, go out for dinner by yourself or work at coffee shops. If you work virtually, get used to doing more things in public around people instead of just doing things at home. So if you're working virtually, try not to just work at home. Now, if you're watching your finances and you're budgeting, you don't want to go spend a bunch of money on coffee out, fine, that's okay too. There's other places that you can go to sit and work without having to spend a bunch of money. And frankly, what I look at it as is like, personal finance is one of those things that's tough because I understand if you're trying to pinch pennies and you're trying to save money and you're like, well, I can make coffee at home and that's going to save me, you know, 150 bucks a month or whatever it is that you're looking at, however, if you can work at a coffee shop and at the very beginning of the day, you buy a $3 black coffee or just regular coffee, and it allows you to sit in there with wifi around other people for four or five hours, rather than sitting in isolation in your home. And you have the opportunity to meet people. And that could turn into a friendship that could be a big part of your life. To me, it's worth risking the little bit of extra money that you're going to pay for coffee or for tea or for whatever it is that you're doing. So if you work virtually, go work around other people instead of being by yourself. If you have the money, go join a coworking space or a membership club or social lounge or something like that and work there. Gyms can be a great way to do this as well, but also going out for dinner or going out after dinner. Again, if you have the money, then go out for dinner and be by yourself, schedule a dinner for yourself by yourself. And sometimes the intention of that can be, I just want to spend some time by myself and take myself out to a nice dinner. And honestly, I've had some great evenings by myself eating a steak in a steakhouse. I probably look like a lunatic a little bit to some people, but frankly, I don't care because it's a good chance for me to hang out by myself and reconnect with myself and be alone with my thoughts and strive to solve some bigger problems in my life and have some retrospection on the previous day, the previous week, the previous month to re-engage with what my goals and my vision for myself and my future are to regain clarity over the direction that I'm headed in. I think there's plenty of room for that. However, sometimes the intention can be to go out by yourself so that you have open body language to be able to talk with those around you. If you do that, I highly suggest you go sit at the bar. Sitting at the bar just invites other people to talk to you. And then your body language makes a really big difference. If you're sitting at the bar and you're just on your phone and you're closed like this, your arms are in and your elbows are basically almost touching and you're just staring at your phone, your head's down, your shoulders are slumped and you're completely avoiding eye contact and everything with everybody around you, then it's not going to be a good social activity. So put your phone down. Please put your phone down. Sit there. Take a drink, even if it's your water and not your beer. Take a drink and have open body language. Sit a little bit straighter. Put your shoulders back. And then when you turn, don't just turn your head like this. Turn your body. This is open body language to say that I am somebody that you're allowed to speak to when you're showing these other things, you're hinting to other people that you don't want to talk to anybody. So you can't be surprised when people don't come and talk to you. Remember, 55% of communication is body language. So 738-55 rule. 7% of communication is the actual words that we say. 38% is tonality and 55% is body language. Do not underestimate the power of your own body language, especially if you're out trying to connect with other people or you don't have to go out with the intention of like, I'm going to leave with one cell phone number tonight. Again, this is not a sales call. It's just leaving yourself open to serendipitous occasions. So if you're to do that properly, you need to make sure that you set your body language up in a way that encourages people to talk to you rather than discourages people to talk to you. And then let's see, make unattached comments. So when you're out for dinner, you're out for coffee shop, whatever. You don't have to go in and immediately try to, again, get contact information or set up a date, quote unquote, for another time to go hang out. Just make unattached comments is kind of how I think of them. They could be a compliment. It could just be a comment about something that they're working on, a book that they're reading, a sports jersey they have on, a game that they're watching. It could be literally anything. And make them whenever you can. I tend to lean more into compliments because people always remember how you make them feel. So when you start a conversation off with somebody, making them feel good about yourself, they're probably going to remember you in a very good light. The point there, though, is you can't just make stuff up. If you don't like their shoes, don't be like, oh, I love your shoes, even though I'll never be caught dead in them. They're super cool for you, though. Don't make stuff up just for the purpose of doing that. But if you genuinely like their shoes, be like, hey, those are cool shoes. Where'd you get them? Oh, cool. Yeah, I got these. And if they shut it down, follow their lead on some of those things. You don't have to be the persistent, annoying person that's talking to people. Sometimes that's happened to all of us, where somebody just keeps talking to you, and you're not in a space to want to be talking right now. So you don't want to be that person either, but you can make a comment or two, and then you can gauge whether or not that person is interested in continuing to speak with you. This is the other day. I was at a bar in Miami, and I was by myself, and I was taking my own advice here. I went out by myself, sat at a bar, and there was a basketball game on that the Mavericks were playing. And I'm a big Luka Doncic fan, and so I was glued into the game. And this guy comes down, sits next to me. He's by himself as well. And he's looking at the TV the whole time. And so he's watching the game, I'm watching the game, and I look over at him, and I eventually say something. I said something like, man, Luka's on one tonight, or that was killer, or something like that. And the dude looks back over at me, and he was clearly just in a socially awkward position. And he looks back over at me, and he's like, oh, I don't really follow basketball. And I was like, oh, okay, well, I mean, I went out on a limb there, but it seemed pretty obvious that he was literally staring at the screen watching the game. But clearly, it was just that nothing was happening on his phone. So instead of wanting to sit there in uncomfortable, social awkwardness, being by himself and just being okay with himself, he wanted to be distracted by something. So he looked up and watched a game that he had no interest in with a sport that he never had any interest in. And I took that as like, oh, you're watching a game. I'm a big basketball fan. I love watching the Mavericks. Here's a comment. And then it was immediately shot down. And then he didn't follow it up with anything else. And then he never even turned over to kind of acknowledge me. It was all very closed. And so I was like, okay, well, hey, whatever, cool. So I kept watching the game. Five, 10 minutes later, somebody else comes and sits down, these two other guys that worked in Miami, they came and sat down next to me. And we ended up talking for like an hour over a bunch of business stuff, because they were watching the game, we heard something about business. And then I asked one of them a question. And it just led into this conversation that carried us for the next hour. Both of them, turns out, had listened to a podcast episode I was interviewed on because they followed somebody who had me on their show. And we connected on social media and stuff. Now, we didn't like, build a great friendship or anything after that. But it was a good example of both of those things happening where I sat down and I thought that there was going to be a potential connection with this guy. And just to say what's up, nothing happened. It kind of got shut down. Cool, doesn't bother me. And that's the cool thing about doing friendship stuff like this, because I would imagine in a romantic setting, it would feel much worse to be rejected in that sense. But when you're just chit-chatting with dudes around you, or you're a girl and you're just chit-chatting with the ladies around you, there's no pressure there. There's not this risk of, I'm putting myself out there and I don't want to be rejected. It's like, of course, you don't want to be rejected. But also, it's completely neutral to me anyway. You're not putting yourself out there for a job opportunity or romantic situation. It's just like, there's no budget on the amount of friends you're allowed to have, or especially the amount of connections or acquaintances that you're allowed to have. So that's why you can't put too much pressure on it. Just throw something out there. If it's reciprocated, great. Keep talking about it. If it's not, don't worry about it. Something else will come up in the future. But if you don't go out and do it, if you just sit in your hotel room and order room service, I guarantee you, it's not going to happen. So get out there. And then don't make it weird at the end, but just grab contact information. You don't have to ask them out again. You don't have to make it a date when you're leaving there. Just get the initial point of contact. For me, that's usually something like Instagram. If you are not being on social, it doesn't have to be. It can just be a phone number. Just be like, oh, cool. Before I take off, let me grab your info so in case something comes up about this thing, I can let you know or hit you up or whatever. It's very, very simple. Most people are totally fine with giving it out. And then at that point, then you can be like, oh, we connected over basketball. We connected over a business. We connected over whatever. Cool. Well, this weekend, I happen to be playing basketball with some friends of mine and we're playing some pickup and we could use a couple more guys. Do you want to come out and play? Or my friend is doing this meetup for local entrepreneurs and I thought of you because you said you're in the business world. You want to come out for that? It just gives you more ways to contact people. The key here is when you enter the contact info in your phone, put stuff in the notes section of the contact. So when you're searching for whatever Las Vegas entrepreneurs, if you put two or three lines of notes in there and you can put some of those keywords, then when you're searching, when there is a meetup or there is an excuse to hang out with those people that you met, then you actually can go search them, find them and bring them out to whatever it is. So just grab some sort of way to stay in touch with them and don't be creepy about it. Okay. So be a master of your schedule. Go out for dinner, for work at coffee shops. If you are typically doing those things alone, go out and do those same things. Number three, engage in what you enjoy and find ways to compliment people. And I kind of already mentioned the complimenting thing when we're talking about just saying things to people, but engage in what you enjoy and find ways to compliment people. So go do things that you already are going to do, but figure out a way to do those things with other people. This happens on the golf course all the time. There's twosomes or whatever. And then there's one single and that single will always get paired with another group of people. And then you're automatically put into a group of a bunch of other people that are doing an activity that you obviously also enjoy doing. And you are able to connect to those people over 18 holes, do more stuff like that. Go do things that you enjoy. If you enjoy music, go hang out where live music is being played and get to know the band and give them an extra tip. Go do the things that make you feel good about yourself and then find people, give them compliments along the way, make them feel good about themselves. Now, one thing to keep in mind here, all right. Cause I know a lot of dudes listen to the show. Don't be creepy with your compliments. Okay. I'm not giving you carte blanche to go hit on every woman that you see under the guise of like, I was just giving her a compliment. I was just complimenting her, her waistline, you know, like, okay. That's just an excuse to be a creep sometimes. Okay. Don't do that. You can still compliment a woman without hitting on her. Okay. You can compliment a dude without him thinking that you're hitting on him. Compliments. You just have to look for the right compliment and try your hand at it. And then, especially if you're a guy and it's a woman that you're complimenting, just walk away afterwards. Like just the exercise of doing that will help you strengthen that muscle where there's no, I'm not intending for this to go any further. I'm not wanting anything else from you. I'm not trying to be a creep here. I'm not just complimenting the tens that I see walking around. You just get used to saying nice things about people, um, uh, regardless of the circumstances. And one great way to do that is to compliment somebody who you would usually want to continue talking to and just walk away. Hey, just want to, just wanted to let you know that, um, you know, I appreciated the way that you talked to that bartender. It was really kind of you. And I think more kindness is needed in the world. Have a good day. Walk away. I actually did this the other day with, there was a lady that was behind the counter at the shell station around the corner from our house. And I went there to get something last minute for, I don't know, milk or orange juice or something like that. Cause we were cooking breakfast at home and we forgot something. So I went to the, the shell, it's a little green Valley groceries, what it's called and, uh, pick something up. And when I walked in, the lady behind the counter was like, are you okay? And I did not know she was talking to me. I thought she was talking to somebody else. And so I kind of ignored her for a second. And then I felt that kind of awkward silence stare being, uh, uh, you know, rained down upon me by her and her coworker who was also behind the counter. So I kind of like did one of those like, Oh, are you talking to me? Oh yeah. I'm doing great. Just a little tired, you know? And she was like, okay, just checking, just checking. You seem like, you know, you needed to pick me up or something. And so I grabbed whatever I was, I was getting, I go up to the counter and I was checking out and I just looked at her and I said, Hey, thank you for checking in on me. The world needs more of that. And I appreciate your kindness. And she said something nice. And then we, we left. And I remember leaving that exchange being like, like that was great. She, she was showing genuine interest in the wellbeing of a stranger. And it felt good for me to, first of all, check my face. Cause apparently I looked like I was depressed or something when I walked in. Um, and maybe I should change my demeanor to be a little bit happier sometimes. Uh, but also it allowed me the opportunity to encourage her to continue asking people questions like that because you just sometimes need to know that people care. And most people don't. Most people understandably are thinking about themselves. They're thinking about their own problems, their own struggles, their own obstacles, the thing that happened to them this morning, the diagnosis they got, the person they talked to on the phone that's in distress that they care about. People have all these things that are going, that are happening to them on a daily basis. And so turning a interaction like that into something positive that probably both of us walked away feeling better from, uh, with a connection with a total stranger is only, only good, only good. So I always compliment people just don't be creepy about it. Okay. Um, it is, it is a great way to make a first impression though, is to start off with a compliment. So hopefully that's helpful. Be a master of your schedule, go out by yourself, uh, to drinks, to dinner, to coffee shops, even if you don't have a bunch people to go out with. Um, and then engage in what you enjoy and find ways to compliment people. And that should, that should give you a good start. Um, don't be afraid to grab that contact information. Just like I said, don't make it weird. Don't make it feel like, like the example I gave last week with this guy that was trying to play pickleball with me. Maybe he was just trying to play pickleball. I don't know, but I also, it made me feel better about my decision that I wasn't being crazy. And for those that didn't watch the last episode, basically this guy was kind of like forcing my hand at the gym to go play pickleball. And I kept kind of putting it off. But then he was like, uh, and then he asked me one time and I so politely was just saying like, yeah, yeah, we can do that sometime. He was like, how about Tuesday? And I was like, um, yeah, sure. Let's tentatively call it Tuesday. And I made a big joke about it being tentative. And then I was like, just confirm with me the night before, but he texted me too late the night before. And I didn't see it until I was at the gym and I told him, and then he was mad. He literally was just upset with me and didn't talk to me for a long time after that, just friendly guy at the gym. Uh, because he was like, well, you could have told me and I could have gotten somebody else. And I was like, oh, look, man, I'm sorry, but you were kind of like forced me into doing this. I didn't really want to do it. I don't know you at all. I've never played pickleball. I don't even know if I want to do it, you know? And I'm feeling this pressure from you. Like, like we've been friends for five years and I'm blowing you off. And it's like, I don't owe you my time, bro. Like we just met. Um, and, and I didn't confirm anything. And now you're mad at me because I broke some sort of unknown social contract between the two of us. It just didn't make any sense. And I heard two, three months later, he was talking to another guy in the locker room and he was talking about some product or something, something that he was like pitching. And clearly to me, it felt like some sort of MLM, um, or network marketing company. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that industry. Like a lot of people do as at least as big of a problem as other people do. But, uh, it, that's what it felt like to me. It felt like, why are you so, why are you so adamant about like playing pickleball at Tuesday at seven 30? It just made me feel like you're doing this so that you can build a fake front end relationship with me. So you could sell me something or get me into your pyramid scheme or like get me to, I don't know. It felt so weird and slimy. So like, just don't, don't do stuff like that. Um, you know, get the contact info, but just play cool. Hey, me and some friends are getting together to do this thing. You want to stop by? Okay. Hey, no worries. Um, and then if it's a yes, okay, cool. We'll see you there. Just don't be weird about it. Okay. Uh, remember I'm opening up my calendar in an effort to stay socially connected to those of you who are watching, who are listening to this. Um, so if you're interested in connecting with me, just head over to travischapel.com slash chat, C H A P P E L L travischapel.com slash chat. Um, and you can book a time in my calendar for 15 minutes. Anybody it's free. There's no agenda. It's just to connect and say, thank you for watching the show, for listening to the show, uh, and, uh, and see how we can make the show better. Uh, but then ultimately just to connect, say what's up. Um, and you know, get out of those feelings of loneliness, talk to somebody. Um, so in an effort to try to help make that happen, travischapel.com slash chat, go there, schedule a call and let's talk soon. Catch you on the next episode. Remember to leave every relationship better than you found it.