10 SPECIFIC Things Stopping You From Making Friends as an Adult

Making friends as an adult is hard, and these are the 10 specific things that might be stopping you, every one of them something you can change this week. I left home when I was 18 and I've lived in five different states since, which means starting from zero more times than I'd like to admit, and somewhere along the way I made hundreds of new friends as an adult. It won't always be easy, but it will be simple. They get harder as they go. Number ten is the one that unlocks the rest, though. Awkwardness isn't failure. Quitting is failure. Don't try all ten at once. Pick two, one that's easy and one you've been avoiding, and go do them this week to make more friends. Then tell me in the comments what's actually been holding you back, I read every single one and I write back. It's a tiny channel, and if nothing else you can at least count me as your friend. The 50 and 200 hours in reason 5: Jeffrey A. Hall, "How many hours does it take to make a friend?", Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (2019). The three books and the essays: https://deaconsantiago.com CHAPTERS 00:00 I've made hundreds of friends as an adult 00:16 1. You never leave the house 01:00 2. You're always in a bad mood 01:51 3. You're at the wrong events 02:50 4. You're rehearsing instead of listening 03:50 5. You only meet them once 05:00 6. You're waiting to be invited 05:52 7. You don't know yourself 06:58 8. You think it's a gift 07:53 9. You don't really want to 08:58 10. You think being awkward means you failed 10:25 All ten in one breath (pick two) WHO I AM I'm Deacon Santiago. I spent a decade as a scientist, a PhD in molecular genetics, before I started building things with AI agents, and somewhere in there I wrote three books and about thirty essays on one question: how do you author yourself on purpose instead of drifting into whoever the defaults make you. This channel is Wayfinder's Almanac. No one is going to make you a man, so the work is yours: say what you actually mean, know yourself well enough to mean it, turn it into action, and point it at something worth the effort. Masculinity that builds people up instead of breaking them down. With love, from me to you, Deacon #makingfriends #friendship #lonelinessepidemic #masculinity #growth #hobbies