The pandemic that put our social lives on concur for 2 years is a good as over. Summer is coming and Londoners are coming out of their shells. The bulk of my readers is aged 25-35, so it is no surprise that this post has been requested to me a number of times in the past months.

And I have to admit, I've been request myself this question many times over.

All these years agone, before moving to London, I never expected I would always be writing a post like this. As Paddington acquit puts it very accurately: "In London everyone is different, and that means anyone can fit in".

London is an enormous city with a very various population. There are nigh 9 1000000 people in the urban center. So why is it that there so many people in London who are struggling to make friends?

Don't worry, there is nothing wrong with you!

Making friends in London is difficult.

Metropolis life

It's not just London though. Information technology seems to be a bit of a pattern across all big cities. This seems to take something to do with the manner cities are designed. According to Noreena Hertz, author of The Lonely Century information technology is a combination of factors. Commencement of all there is the anonymity of living in a large city. On the 1 hand anonymity creates rudeness: if one knows they will never see someone again, people tin can go away more than easily with a lack of courtesy. On the other hand information technology may be a coping mechanism for the corporeality of people, and feeling overwhelmed, so the natural response would be to withdraw.

Secondly there is the general speed of city life. People in a city walk faster. Time is money and peculiarly in an urban economic system where people are more often than not expected to work longer hours.

And finally there is the lack of community. Buying a property in London is practically unaffordable, and then most people hire. Also rent prices tend to fluctuate, and therefore virtually people keep moving from ane area to the other. This makes it hard to form a community. It is a well known fact that well-nigh people in London don't know their neighbours.

I had e'er studied at international universities and after graduation, everyone seemed to take scattered out all over the globe. When moving to London in 2016, I felt that I had to start all over once again with my social life. Y'all can probably imagine the factors mentioned to a higher place, made this very difficult.

Add together 2 years in a global pandemic to that and it gets even tougher.

Developed life

At the same time it seems that making friends seems to get more difficult every bit we get older.

I remember how like shooting fish in a barrel it was every bit a child. Yous play in the sand pit, share a rake or something and a few minutes later you've made your new 'best friend'.

For adults it'southward a little bit of a different story. Near adults in London have total time jobs, and as mentioned above nosotros tend to work longer hours than those outside the city.

So how are you expected to socialise if you're defenseless in the part 10 hours a day?

Then in your 30s, there's the additional factor of friends getting married, friends starting families and earlier y'all know it they are struggling to fit you into their schedule of visits to the in-laws, nappy changes and bath time.

In that location seems to be an increase in the amount of xxx somethings who either have very piddling or no friends at all. However, despite this becoming a very mutual trend, there seems to be a bit of a shame or embarrassment around not having friends. In that location seems to be this idea that we should take made all of our life long friends already. Blame it on series like F.R.I.E.Due north.D.S, Entourage (for guys) and Sex and the Metropolis (for women), that all feature around tight knit friendship groups who seem to do everything together.

But the reality is completely unlike.

Friendships come up and go

I have definitely made friends when I was a kid, lost them once again because life got in the way. Made new friends as a teen, lost those as well for no particular reason and then again had to showtime over in university, and then on.

It'southward a common pattern. Equally the maxim goes, there are friends for a reason, friends for a season and friends for a lifetime.

Or the mode Greek philosopher Aristotle put it 2,000 years ago: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure and friendships of virtue. Sometimes we make friends because nosotros have a mutual benefit to it. These could for example be the friends you lot make at piece of work. I made friends at piece of work, because nosotros were working on a projection together. After long brainstorming sessions in the function, information technology often extended with 'Shall we go for drinks after this?'. Normally these friendships are relatively brusque lived. Later the projection ends, or ane of you lot alter jobs, the mucilage that holds the two of you together disappears besides.

So there's the friendships of pleasure, which is usually based on a shared hobby, shared interests or beingness in the same guild. I'thousand thinking nearly some of my young man blogger friends, the people in my yoga class and the people in my running club. Usually these friendships last a bit longer, because people commonly tend to accept the same interests and hobbies for longer times. But then one of you moves away, or has a infant and therefore less time for their hobbies, or anything. And once again, the glue disappears.

But finally, there are friendships of virtue. These are the ones based on mutual respect and admiration. They accept longer to form, but they likewise will last longer in one case they accept been formed. I have 2 of these friends. Beginning of all there's my friend Helen, who was my flatmate in my undergraduate university. We used to bond over cups of tea in each other'southward bedrooms, talking about everything and nothing, until graduation when she moved back to Scotland and I moved to Maastricht for my masters. Despite that distance, our friendship stood the test of time and she's been there for me during some of my most difficult moments. And of course at that place's Leah, who was my flatmate during my masters. She works in arts and has moved all over the globe, but once again nosotros've never lost touch e'er since and still visit each other now and then.

It is normal to have more utility and pleasure friends than virtuous ones. Co-ordinate to professor Robin Dunbar from the Academy of Oxford, there is a certain number of friends we can take. We can merely have a maximum of 5 close friends, merely a much larger number of "superficial" friendships.

Some friends may also start out equally work friends and they may eventually develop in very close friendships. But it's not uncommon for them to naturally fizzle out.

Making new friends

Although information technology's completely normal to only have a few shut friends, it's also normal to want to find new ones. At that place are a few ways that I have found helpful.

Something that'due south mostly advertised as the tool to meet new people is Meetup, and that's probably because the concept is very simple. Information technology's online and anyone can bring together. If you accept a detail interest, you can hands friend people with similar interests. For example, allow's say y'all're very passionate almost films. You can search for a group for flick lovers. So yous tin see the events this group hosts, let's say: "We will meet at the Curzon movie house in Soho at 7PM on Fri to watch this particular motion picture, then nosotros volition get to the pub and have drinks afterwards". Now this concept sounds ideal, because y'all can not only run into the film you've been dying to sentry, just you besides encounter a bunch of like minded people to sentinel it with.

I've been to quite a few ones for nutrient and mode.

It is great to meet new people, just I notice that in reality it is a niggling bit difficult to really connect with these people. First of all, there is always a bit of a random selection of people: some of then can exist actually young and others can be one-time enough to be your grandparents. Secondly unremarkably the online groups have thousands of members in them. This means that you can meet in ten people the outset week, and a completely dissimilar 10 people the next. Although it might work perfectly in smaller towns, I personally don't find it the most helpful tool in London.

Something I find a lot more than helpful is Bumble BFF. You may have heard of Bumble equally a dating app. Information technology's a bit like to Tinder: you swipe a bunch of pretentious profiles, and in the end everybody is looking for the quickest way to get in your knickers. Yes, it's true, but what most people don't know is that Bumble also has a BFF section! Basically it is the aforementioned concept as Bumble date, but the merely deviation is that you do it to make friends. It's a lot more fun too!

The profiles are a lot less pretentious. I've seen bios like 'All my friends are married, so I demand new ones'. Or 'I'm only spending time with my boyfriend, so I need some gal pals'. Y'all can select what gender and historic period range you are looking for, so unlike the random selections at Meetup groups, you can search for for example "women age 25-35", if you're looking for more gal pals within your own age range.

I know a lot of complaints about the app, are that y'all meet a lot of people who incessantly text or dont bulletin at all. But I think the problem is that those people still treat information technology like a dating app, while in fact there'due south an like shooting fish in a barrel way to piece of work around this issue. I usually message start as before long equally we "match" and the message can exist as simple as 'Hey! How are you? Any plans for the weekend?' and if they say 'No, you?', I immediately follow up with: 'Me neither, desire to take hold of coffee?'. Then I relieve the whole getting-to-know-you small talk for when we actually meet.

Unlike Meetup, I've met a few amazing new friends on this app and I'm very happy I did.

For case, this weekend was a nightmare. I started asking early throughout the calendar week what everyone's plans were for the Banking concern Holiday weekend. Sadly all my friends' agendas were fully booked.

So on Saturday afternoon, I started swiping and messaging a few people and before I knew it, I was going out for cocktails at Turtle Bay in Ealing Broadway that same evening. So I headed out, fully dressed in my LBD and set to party!

Information technology turned out to exist a not bad dark, full of drinks, banter and information technology may or may not take concluded with some tequila shots. (If you follow me on instagram, yous know the respond)

Just most importantly, I met an amazing new person!

I hope this post has been very helpful for you and that you lot will make some amazing new friends. Of class if you accept any proficient friendship stories, or whatsoever helpful tips for me or my other readers, please permit me know in the comments!

Alternatively, I've created a Facebook group where we could all collaborate. I'one thousand planning nearly hosting a meetup soon. Join here!

Looking forward to catching up with you presently!