How to make friends after school ends

Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund

When we started talking, I was already imagining our futures together. Our children would play in the park, and our spouses could hang out, too. We could be really good friends who would have drinks together and laugh about jokes from shows we like.

But something was off. When I said I’d be happy to make her a meal when she shared that someone in her family was undergoing surgery, I got a shocked look and a dismissive hand waving off the offer. I’d misread the ease of our small talk over a few weeks and assumed warmth when there was nothing but casually perfunctory civility that takes place when you push your kids on the swings next to each other and must talk to avoid the discomfort of silence. She didn’t want a friend, and perhaps didn’t even want to continue any conversations with me.

I felt like I was 7 years old again, trying to convince some girl on the playground to play with me and I was failing.

After reaching adulthood, there are some things you’d assume would end — annoyances like acne, misplacing important pieces of information or daily essentials, and trying to establish yourself in a social group.

Alas, all these still plague me more than I’d like to admit, but the latter vexes me most. Every time I take a personality test, I swing between introverted and extroverted. The more I work outside the home, the more I seek solitude, and the more I’m home, the more eagerly I seek crowds. Regardless of where I am at any moment, I have always welcomed and sought deep friendships.

At times, I think it would be easier to get a date than it is to find the kind of friend who wants to have a good time and get to know you well enough to be there during different seasons in life. But when you’re married and looking to preserve that bond, relationships should stay platonic.

Friendship throughout school years is dictated by simple factors. Those in your neighborhood, place of worship, sports team, and even your desk or locker mate usually provide your core group. Even if there are some mean kids who don’t like your overalls or tell you that you don’t have enough pogs to play with them, you can usually find someone — even if it is your brother or cousin — to hang out with you.

Once school’s out, forging and maintaining relationships gets harder, not just because you’re busy but because you’ve spent your whole life enlarging or shrinking your ideas about who is worth that precious time of yours.

Despite my habit of talking to everybody I meet and learning that some of the most unlikely candidates for conversation have been the most endearing and most interesting, I still form ideas about compatibility based on external factors. I’ve wanted to talk to and befriend who I thought might be cool girls all my life. When we start to get to know each other, however, I’ve found that they usually have no use for me because I’ve mistaken exchanging information about common interests or enjoying quirky humor for amiability.

When those who let you know that their schedules and contact lists can’t take one more person, remember that when you walk away from them, you’re more prone to find the ones who need someone as much or more than you do.

I have spent too much time trying to get the people who I pick out for myself as possible friends to reciprocate the interest. You would think I’d have learned by now that the best friends are those who you don’t have to work to convince of your worth. They’re the ones waiting or searching for someone open enough to notice them, too. When making friends can be so difficult, there’s no need to make it worse.

Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund is a former news reporter for the Maryville Daily Forum, now living and writing in New York City.