Making friends as an adult

How on earth does one go from stranger to acquaintance to friend?

Oct 28, 2022

A True Life Built is a living photo essay on starting over and building a truer life. It’s for anyone, at any age, who is finding the courage to begin again. Subscribe for free weekly posts.

I found out that I was divorced in the check-out line at IKEA. I hadn’t meant to end up at IKEA (or divorced, for that matter). Instead, I had planned to go to a garden store with two new girlfriends I met in a neighborhood plant group. But when a summer thunderstorm sent us scurrying inside, we dashed into a nearby IKEA to drip dry and wander the home displays.

An hour later, still damp, I found myself with a cart full of furniture I didn’t know I needed, signing up for a discount code in the checkout line. When I checked my email to get the code, I saw an official court notification that my divorce decree had been stamped and a note from my lawyer that said, “Congratulations! Your divorce is now official!”

“I did it!” I yelped, and threw my hands in the air in a victory sign, startling my friends and the rows of shoppers queuing for soft serve and Swedish meatballs.

“You got the discount code?” my new friends said, bemused by my enthusiasm.

I told them the news, beaming with a joy they didn’t understand. And how could they? They had never known me married. They didn’t know that this unexpected email, which had been pending for months, mercifully closed a draining court battle and marked the end of a long and tangled chapter of my life.

They only knew the Liz who bought plants on a Friday night and ran laughing through summer puddles. They were the first friends in my entire adult life that I had made when I was single.

Until that day, I hadn’t bought anything at IKEA since my now ex-husband and I had furnished our first apartment seventeen years before. We met in college and got together on my 21st birthday; he took me drinking and dancing and then he took me home. After graduation, we moved into a shoebox-sized walkup in SoHo that we shared with two roommates and countless mice, with an IKEA futon for a couch and an IKEA bar cart for a kitchen counter.

At 23, this was all the furniture needed to host endless parties. Our tiny living room was always filled with a rotating cast of international students and aspiring artists who discussed obscure films and smoked out the fifth floor fire escape. We served elaborate meals from the tiny bar cart, and piled on the futon drinking cheap red wine late into the night.

For an introverted only child who spent much of her youth in the company of books, this lively social scene felt glamorous, intoxicating. Wine and a charismatic partner felt like golden tickets to the bustling social life that had always eluded me. I drank my way through my shyness and told myself I belonged at these parties because I belonged with him.

Yes, the big parties felt overwhelming at times, the small talk draining, the nights dragging on too long. Yes, I woke to the haze of a hangover and a living room littered with empty bottles and cigarette butts. But the path to friends seemed to run through boozy parties and late-night confidences. I wanted friends more than anything, and it felt like a small price to pay.

By the time my ex and I separated in 2020, I had outgrown IKEA furniture. I lived alone in our beautiful Brooklyn apartment with a Crate & Barrel couch and granite countertops. I woke with a clear head and luxuriated in my clean and quiet space. But the apartment was also empty—empty of his things, of evidence of our decades together, of the lively cast of characters that had once filtered through our home.

When you’ve been married your entire adult life, nearly all your friends are mutual. Our oldest friends supported our split and stayed friends with us both, but most had partners and small kids and scheduled dinners months in advance. I was craving more regular company, girlfriends to gab about my day and to grab an impromptu dinner on a Tuesday. My only model for making friends was by throwing parties, but I was never that comfortable with big crowds and hosting solo—and, anyway, Covid brought parties to a screeching halt. How on earth was I supposed to make friends as an adult?

I knew I was not the only one asking myself this question. Every few months I’d see a meme circulate of the Last Supper, with the caption: “Nobody talks about Jesus’ miracle of having 12 close friends in his 30s.” I’d laugh and text it to my friends in different cities, and we’d lament at the challenges of meeting new people nearby without the party circuit of our youth.

What, exactly, was the alchemy by which one went from stranger to acquaintance to friend? How could we cut through the small talk and skip to trading voice memos and popping by each other’s houses and spending weekends away lounging in PJs?

At first, being single during Covid felt like an insurmountable barrier to making friends, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The sudden halt of parties opened up space for new ways of socializing, those that tilted more organically towards my natural preferences. Cocktails shifted to walks or coffee, afternoons outside replaced late nights indoors.

Freed from social norms and untethered from my ex’s constant need to entertain, I sought out more intimate ways to connect. I took pottery and painting classes. I signed up for meetups and museum walks. I volunteered for my local food pantry and City Council campaign. I joined running groups and writing groups and swapped plants and baked goods.

I met loads of nice people who liked the same things I liked, most of whom I never saw again but some of whom I did. Sometimes, when luck and effort and chemistry combined, we stayed in touch and met up again, and slowly built the shared experiences and inside jokes that transmute strangers into friends.

By March of 2022, three months before my scene at IKEA, I had worked up the courage to invite my new plant group friends over to my house. It was my first party as a single lady, but a far cry from the sticky dance floor of my youth. I was hosting a “plant swap,” where you bring cuttings of your plants to trade for others. Six ladies from my neighborhood plant group showed up on a Friday evening with armfuls of leaves and paper crafts and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.

It was meant to be a brief happy hour, but everyone had such a good time that they stayed late into the evening. By the time the night ended, we had inside jokes, a group chat, and a long list of future plans. Some of us were chatty, others more reserved; some were drinking wine, others soda water. It made no difference: The alchemy of intimacy was the shared delight in connecting with people who enjoy the same things you do.

In the photos from that evening, we are gathered around my dining room table, which is a cacophony of plants and snacks. I am standing at the center, my head thrown back in a peal of laughter, completely relaxed. I am no longer at the periphery of the party, drinking to fit in. I am at its heart, energized by the company because this is my kind of party, with my kind of people.

One of the unexpected joys of starting over has been hearing from others on similar journeys. If something resonates with you, I’d love for you to leave a comment, drop me an email or share a post with a friend!

Liz is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn. She’s spent her career finding the right words for others and now she’s finding her own.