You need a playground or the equivalent. That’s what worked for us when we were kids: repeated low-intensity time adjacent to each other. No high stakes.
Do you want friends in your work city or where you live or both? Those require different levels of effort, scheduling issues, offer different opportunities. I found that when I lived in one city and drove 45-60 minutes each way to another city for work, my friends tended to be work-related and I did things right after work before going home. It was lonely not having friends where I lived–I hear you on that.
My job at the time involved going to meetings with people from other organizations, which was a great way to make friends who weren’t coworkers. Are there ways you can build a social aspect into the actual work so you have a way of meeting people and getting to know them? Then you can follow up with “Would you want to get together after work Thursday?”.
In that vein I created a scheduled “friendship space” once a month. I’d met so many great women I knew could be friends if we had time and got to know each other beyond professional space/time. I sent an email to a bunch of them, essentially said “I think we could be friends and we’re all so busy we have to schedule friendship time”, and set up a monthly gathering at a coffee shop, 9am on a Saturday morning. No kids, no partners, you’re welcome to bring someone who’s already a friend (because it could be scary to just show up and talk with a bunch of strangers; they might only know me as the common point of reference). It ROCKED! It became a long-running tradition–we met for over a decade and when I moved away someone else took on the email list (one reminder, once a month with the location) and it kept going for several years more. Some of the people I knew never came, or came once and brought a friend and their friend became the regular. It was a latte playground scenario.
Can you use the commute time itself? If you’re driving, look into whether there’s some system that sets up carpool opportunities. Maybe a passenger doesn’t become your BFF, but they’re someone to talk with to make the trip itself less tiring, and if you end up with multiple people in the car that buffers the effects of any one person’s personality. If you’re taking transit your route likely has regulars. Without being weird you can start making eye contact, smiling and nodding at people you recognize. You have to sit next to someone so that’s an opportunity to chat if they seem open to it. (Plus for me that’s just so much easier to handle than driving; I can read, knit, do email, otherwise relax, so it’s less draining than driving.)
Are you able to outsource some of the errands or chores to buy time? Are you able to lower any self-imposed standards to free up time? (Thinking of things like cleaning and organizing)
My parks/rec has evening classes and I’ve made friends that way. Best class for that was improv–several of us keep taking the class every time a series is offered and one person took the initiative to create “Improv Friends Club”. Between the sessions (which run about 6 or 8 weeks) they host a potluck dinner and we do improv skits at their house. If you found a class you liked with regulars, you could be that person.
Does your town have community theater? You don’t have to want to act. They need people to help build sets, work on costumes, sell tickets at the door, handle refreshments if they offer those. They’ll have a social group of regulars and you can become one. Or some other community (non-commercial) recurring activity you’d find enjoyable to associate with.
My local yarn shop has a Thursday night drop-in for people to sit and knit/crochet together, and one of the coffee shops in town does something similar once a month. Other craft stores may have classes or a similar set-up that could fit with your schedule. One of my local grocery stores has a cooking school and holds a monthly class in the evening teaching different cuisines. It’s being a regular that creates the opportunity for friendship.
Make time to walk around your neighborhood at least once on the weekend. Same route every time, smile and say hello to everyone you pass. Your body needs it from the description you give of your schedule! After the second or third time you see someone in the same general vicinity, stop and introduce yourself. “My name is LemonDrops. I live around the corner. Moved here in 20XX and I see you here when I walk so we must be neighbors.” They introduce themselves, you find out how long they’ve lived here, you admire their dog or flowers or house paint choices or something. Light, brief, move on after a while. Now you have someone you know to wave to when you go by. If you like them, invite them over for coffee one Saturday. Even if you don’t like them enough to do that, you’ve added some social interaction to your life that will feel a bit less lonely as a result. Or maybe you end up with a neighborhood walking group you create when people say “I admire that you’re so regular in going for your walks. I need to do that.”
Are you civic-minded? Does your town have committees or volunteer opportunities? My town lists these on the same page with their job openings. Everything from parks clean-up crews to advisory committees. (Looking this up now has me thinking about applying for a seat on one of these, so thanks!)
Good luck finding your people.
