LifeHacker

The other thing is that making friends when we’re younger, while maybe not always easy, was somewhat of a necessity. From the time we’re in kindergarten to when we graduate college, friendship-making is such an important part of our social and personal development, it’s almost not even optional. We need to make friends find out who we are, where we fit in with our peers, how to navigate social situations, and which people will help us with the rough parts of growing into a person (things like dealing with class bullies or confusing relationships).

Of course, we never thought about that when we made friends in school. We were indiscriminate, bonding with friends almost arbitrarily. (You sit next to me for hours in a boring chem class? Also, hate a certain teacher or group of kids at school? BFFs!)

After spending years as an adult living in the real world, though, we no longer need new friends to figure out how to walk peer-pressure-filled tightropes or to develop a better grasp of ourselves as individuals. And things like pure circumstance are less likely to trigger strong bonds.

Sometimes, a post comes along and you realize that it’s so critically important — that it’s actually shocking that no one ever wrote it before. And, it’s got such clear and relevant advice for so many — that it’s actually saddening that the author didn’t write a book and make a killing off of it. This is one of those posts:

If you have ever wondered why it’s hard to make friends as an adult and what to do about it, then read the above-linked article.