Once you leave high school, you may start to drift away from your friends and have trouble keeping up your relationships. You may also find yourself not really making new friends as well.
The dynamics have changed in your life at that point, and you’re not spending most of your day with the same people, so it becomes harder to make friends the same way you used to.
You no longer have lab partners, study pals, teammates, and classmates. If you are running into the problem of how to make friends after high school, then don’t despair.
We have some suggestions for you that can help you try something different and make it easier to get and keep new friends.
Be Outgoing
Your whole life has changed after high school, so it’s understandable that you might want to keep to yourself as you process how to deal with the changes.
The environment is different, and you may not know how to interact with people in the new setting. In that case, it helps to be an outgoing and personable individual.
If you can be friendly, open, bubbly, and humorous, you can attract friends and make long-lasting relationships more easily.
Be the kind of person that people like to be around, and you will have no problem making new friends.
Take an Interest in People
Finding friends after high school can be a little tricky if you can’t find people with similar interests or lives. The people you work with and interact with may not share your way of thinking or your interests, so it can be harder to make friends with them.
The way to change that is to not change what you like just to get their interest but rather to change how you think about people and how you interact with them. If you take a genuine interest in people, you will make friends fast.
People love it when others ask them about their day, their interests, and their lives. What a lot of people do is ask potential friends about their likes and dislikes, and if they don’t find anything in common, they stop talking to them unless they absolutely have to. It’s hard to make friends that way.
Take time to get to know people, really learning what you can about their lives and not stopping to interject about yourself. You will be surprised at how quickly you make new friends this way.
Take Up a New Hobby
You may just not be meeting the right kind of people if you are having trouble with how to make new friends after high school. Try expanding your horizons and taking up a new hobby.
Whether it’s a sport, a collection, an art, or something else, adding a hobby to your life can really open up your friend potential. You can meet all sorts of new people, and both of you can share at least one similar interest.
Make sure you engage in the hobby in a way that involves spending time with other people. So, if you have taken up video games as a hobby, try going to tournaments, conventions, and other social gatherings where you can run into other people who share your interests.
Talk to Your Coworkers
Once you are out of high school, you may move on to college, but that can be a difficult place to find friends. The long study hours and intense class load can keep you from even looking up from your books.
So, how to make friends after high school outside of college? Try getting to know your coworkers. They will likely be the people you spend the most time with, and if you take time to get to know them you might be surprised at how quickly you become friends with each other.
Make it a point to get to know each person you work with. Some of them may be obviously people that you don’t want to know much better just by the way they act, but making the effort to learn about your coworkers and trying to start up a conversation with them that’s not about work can lead to some interesting new friendships.
Many people make lifelong friends with the people they work with. You may go for the paycheck initially but look forward to work because of the people you befriend.
Go to Youth Activities
There are lots of chances for you to meet other people around your age if you try to visit some youth-related activities. The availability of these vary from one area to another, but you can always look online for what kind of options there are close to you.
The most obvious option will be church groups, as many of them have Friday and Saturday night activities for young people, as a way of keeping them out of trouble during times they would normally be partying. You don’t always have to be a member of the church to join the youth groups.
Youth activities at the local community center can offer you a great way for how to make friends after graduating high school. These activities can range from sports to crafting to board games to cooking experiences.
In a lot of these activities, you will be paired or grouped together with other people. It will be kind of like high school all over again, and that kind of setup makes it easy to make new friends.
To find activities for youths in your area, try the town’s government website or tourist site and check the calendar for the year. That calendar of events could be updated periodically, so keep checking it for new things to do.
These are just a few suggestions for making friends once you are out of high school.
Hopefully, this list inspires you to try something different and branch out with your experiences so that you can more easily make some friends.
We really hope that your efforts lead to long lasting friendships for you.
I’m Jennifer a beauty and wellness expert. I believe in promoting a sustainable and healthy lifestyle from within. Helping people feel good is my passion; whether it’s teaching yoga or offering skincare advice.
