How to Make Friends After Divorce

I’ve written previously about the importance of remembering and nurturing the people who are already in your life in an article about connecting with friends. It’s something that’s easy to forget when you’re in the throes of divorce. But what if your social circle doesn’t fit anymore? You might have gained your friends mostly through your relationship with your ex, maybe you’ve grown in ways that aren’t aligned with the group you used to spend time with. This article is about starting over from scratch with friendship as you’re building your new life. You might find that you have lost friends during the divorce, or maybe you’ve outgrown them - either way, it’s important to thing about building these connections. It already feels so hard to make friends in adulthood but now is as good a time as any to invest your time and care into it.

Why making friends after divorce feels strangely difficult

You might have a low tolerance for ‘normal’ dysfunction

You’re probably going through a lot right now and changing in innumerable ways.

I know that when I was coming out of divorce I was hyper-vigilant about the ways that I was enabling the life and bad habits that I previously had. You get a clarity about relationships, in general, when you break apart from the main one that your life revolved around.

So, it makes sense that you are also going to see a lot of people play out these same narratives that you used to. It might rule out a lot of people that you would otherwise have gotten along with in your previous life.

You’re probably not around as many people as before

Making friends in adulthood is hard in general because we don’t get exposed to larger groups of people like we do when we’re in school or uni. Even if you work in a larger environment, that’s work. It gets dicey to try and get too close to people if you’re in a professional setting.

What I did to grow my community of friendship after divorce

Adjust what I thought about friendship

One of the biggest things I did was change my mindset about friendship. I used to be someone that was all-or-nothing. What I mean by that is that someone had the potential to be my best friend or I didn’t have the energy to make time for them. I now realise how important it is for me to socialize at lots of different levels of friendly people . There might be people that you just say hi to regularly when you see them in the store, there might be friendly neighbors who have kids the same age as yours so you have that in common, and there might be people you occasionally go for a coffee with to have some good conversation. Not everyone needs to be your best friend.

Start with the people already around you

I’ve said this before, but it pays to be a good neighbor. The more people you know, the more you can potentially expand your area of influence with friends. In the past I might have spent more time at my local coffee shop so I get to know the people working there. Then I would eventually see the same other locals who enjoyed the place. Even if we didn’t explicitly sit down to talk to each other, it’s still a nice feeling to feel like a place is familiar. Again, this whole process is about baby steps. I firmly believe that existing in your surroundings as ‘open’ to new conversations or run-ins primes you for other chance meetings. If you are someone who tends to be quiet, you can even challenge yourself to find a way to compliment someone or talk about how good the coffee is at a place. I know people say they hate small talk, but it’s one of the most important building blocks of this process. I promise you, it’s a really nice feeling to find that little sliver of commonality with someone even if it’s just for the duration of an elevator ride.

Revisit old friendships

There are some people from your past that remain the past for a reason. But then there are others who are in your past because you lost touch when you became busy with family life or other priorities – these are the friendships that might be worth rediscovering. This is especially true if they were friends with you in a young adult stage that is true to who you naturally were before the stresses and complexities of life weighed you down. They might actually hold some of the pieces of yourself that you might not have realized were lost or missing. It happened to me when I was coming out of my divorce that some of my oldest friends had been caretakers of those parts of me and reminded me of who I really was. I don’t want to put so much pressure on importance on this type of friendship, I’m merely saying that this could be an avenue that is worth exploring if it hadn’t ended poorly in the first place.

Find places where your current interests naturally put you around people

I’ve told this story before in the blog, but after my divorce (knowing that I needed to grow a community around me) I actively sought to enroll back in school and get my masters. The main point was to build up my professional credentials after a long hiatus from the workforce, but the just-as-important secondary goal was to meet people. So you better believe I was my chattiest, outgoing self. I wasn’t going to waste this unique opportunity to be social in a way that I hadn’t in years. It was really a fun time, even though everyone around me was so much younger, it didn’t matter. They were mostly around 25-ish and I was 40. In fact, it made it more fun because I knew no-one was within my dating pool so there were no nerves. I could be me.

Another thing I did was join social clubs and activities that I enjoyed. I played tennis and did salsa dancing. The whole thing was great during that time and place. I found that doing things that I naturally loved allowed me to meet people who I knew I at least had one interest in common with.

What to do when you’re building up your new contacts

Finding ways to be around and meet people is one thing, what you do next requires an entirely different set of skills and approaches. Here are things that I think are important to remember about the art of making friends:

Don't expect instant intimacy

It takes time to build up rapport and trust with people. In my experience the ones that want to be BFFs immediately are the friendships that fizzle out quick. You get close and then they move onto the next shiny object or person who will tell them what they want to hear. I’ve had this happen a few times in the past when I was opening up to more people and it didn’t take long to see a pattern.

Look for reciprocity

Are they meeting you halfway when it comes to communication and suggesting activities to do together? Is the keeping in touch easy, and conducive to your own ways of communicating? Maybe they’re not a great texter or they go MIA, but you enjoy their company when they are around and they are consistent in this behavior – it’s not just that they’re avoiding you.

Observe what people bring to the table and then decide if and how you’re willing to accommodate this friendship.

Let friendships develop slowly

Just like dating, I think friendships that develop slowly and naturally over time tend to be the best ones. My closest friendships are with people that I enjoyed spending time with and built that connection over time. There’s no rush to all of this because, after all, you can have lots of friends!

Learn now to let go of friendships that are incompatible

I also greatly believe that you have to be prepared to care for yourself and wellbeing enough to let go of social friendships that aren’t good for you. If they’re engaging in behaviors that are unhealthy to you or incompatible with how you choose to move through life, you might need to consider scaling back how close the relationship is. You’re allowed to go back to being acquaintances and be less entwined with them while still acting in a neighborly way.

Why you don't need a huge new social circle

You might see others online or in real life who seem to have a gigantic sphere of community and friends around them. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you.

I’ve known people whose main friendships are through a larger group like church, extended family, or a sorority or fraternity. The upside of these types of friendships is the sense of built-in community. But the potential downside is occasional infighting because it’s difficult to manage the dynamics sometimes of differing factions. It’s not to say this is a reason to forgo this type of friendship structure, just a consideration.

I learned about myself a long time ago that my friends are usually built individually. For this reason, I don’t have the problems that sometimes come from large social circles.

Starting from the beginning with friendships

I know it can be overwhelming and lonely to feel like you’re at the beginning of your friendship journey. Don’t worry about whether others will disappoint you. Show up how you hope someone would show up for you and be aware to not give so much of yourself away so that you don’t have some for yourself. Most of all, stay encouraged that you’ll find the people that are just the right match that they feel like you’ve known them forever.