How to make friends online as an adult (without it feeling weird)

Somewhere between finishing school and starting a job, the easy way of meeting people quietly disappeared. There is no timetable that puts you next to the same twenty people every day. Nobody sits beside you in a lecture and asks to borrow a pen. Suddenly, making a friend means doing it on purpose, and doing it on purpose feels oddly embarrassing.

It should not. Most adults are lonelier than they admit, and most would love someone to send the first message. Here is how to be that person without it feeling weird.

1. Start with something you already love

The fastest route to a friend is a shared interest, because it hands you something to talk about before either of you has to be interesting. The trick is to be specific. “I like music” gives the other person nothing to grab. “I have been trying to learn every song on one old indie album” gives them three things to ask about.

Pick two or three interests you would happily talk about for an hour. Games, a book series, running, cooking, anime, a football club, a niche genre of film. Then look for people who are already enjoying the same thing, whether that is a community on a friend making site, a Discord server, a subreddit or a group chat from a hobby class.

2. Say something real in your first message

“Hey” is a dead end. So is a copy and pasted line. A good first message does two things: it shows you actually read something about them, and it makes replying easy.

• Weak: “Hi, how are you?”
• Better: “I saw you are also stuck on level 7 of that game. Did you ever find the hidden door?”

Keep it short, keep it friendly and ask one clear question. You are not writing an essay. You are opening a door.

3. Send the second message

This is the step almost everyone skips. A first reply feels nice, and then the conversation quietly dies because both people are waiting for the other to continue. Be the one who follows up. Pick up a thread from earlier, send a funny thing you saw that reminded you of them, or ask how the thing they were nervous about went.

Friendship is mostly repetition. People become friends because they keep showing up, in small ways, over weeks. It is not a performance and it does not have to be dazzling.

4. Move it off the screen

Text is brilliant for starting. It is not enough for finishing. After a week or two of good conversation, suggest something small and low pressure: a voice call while you both play a game, a watch-along of a show you both like, a quick video chat to put faces to names. If you live in the same city, a coffee or a walk is perfect.

Make the invitation easy to say yes to. “Want to grab a coffee on Saturday afternoon? I know a quiet place near the station” beats “We should hang out sometime” every time. If it is someone you met online, take a minute to read our checklist for meeting someone from the internet first. Everything in it applies to friends as well as dates.

5. Keep your circle small enough to look after

You do not need fifty online friends. Two or three people you talk to often are worth far more than a long list you never message. Quality here is not a cliche, it is arithmetic: you only have so many hours, and friendships need hours.

It helps to be honest about what you want. Some people want a gaming partner. Some want a best friend. Some want a group to go to gigs with. All of those are good answers, and saying yours out loud saves everyone time.

6. Choose places that make it easy

Where you meet matters. Look for places where talking is built in, like a small online community around a hobby, a class, a volunteer group or a regular event. Avoid spaces where everyone is trying to impress each other. If you are shy or introverted, pick formats that suit you: text first, small groups, activities that give your hands something to do.

7. Give it time and be kind to yourself

Researchers who study friendship often suggest that it takes a lot of hours spent together to move from acquaintance to close friend. In other words, it takes time and a bit of effort, and that is completely normal. If someone does not reply, it is rarely about you. People are busy, anxious and forgetful, just like you are.

Try again with someone else. Every message you send is practice, and practice is how it stops feeling awkward.

A quick checklist

• Pick two or three specific interests.
• Send one real, easy to answer first message.
• Follow up. Be the second message.
• Suggest one small thing off screen within a few weeks.
• Protect your privacy and your safety as you go.
• Be patient. Friendship is slow and worth it.

That is the whole method. It works on any friend making site and in real life too. We are building NetHitch to make each of those steps a little easier, and you can read more about how we think about making friends online. If you want to be among the first to try it, pre-register for free.