How Can I Make New Mom Friends?
By Christine Murray, PhD, LPC, LMFT, Director of the Healthy Relationships Initiative
Our Healthy Relationships Initiative (HRI) team is excited to partner with Triad Moms on Main on this blog series. In this series, we offer general guidance to relationship or family questions submitted by TMoM community members. If you’ve got a question to ask, please share it anonymously on the form here.
Reader Question: I’ve been living here for four years and have yet to meet a close group of friends! Help! Any advice? I promise I’m a nice person. ~ Needs Friends in Winston-Salem
Dear Needs Friends,
I’m sorry to hear it’s been such a challenge to meet new friends since moving to the area. Making new friends in a new town can be very tricky indeed, especially if you’re a busy parent. If you didn’t quickly meet new friends in your neighborhood or through your children’s school or your work, you may have started to wonder if you’d ever connect with anyone in your new hometown. Now that some time has passed, it’s a good time to re-evaluate to see if there are other steps you could take to begin building new friendships. I promise, it’s not too late!
Two things about your question stand out to me, and I wonder if they’re part of what has been standing in your way of connecting with new friends. First, you mentioned wanting to connect with a “close group” of friends. You may be longing for a tight-knit circle of friends like you had in college or high school, when friends tended to hang out in groups. While it’s certainly possible to form circles of friendships like this in adulthood, it might help you now as an adult to focus on building one-on-one friendships. At some point, individual friendships may come together into a group, but there’s no rule that says you can’t have close friends who don’t even know one another! In fact, you may even feel more emotionally fulfilled with one or two very close friends than if you have a larger number of less-close friendships.
The second part that stands out about your question was how you said that you’re a nice person. I believe you when you say this, and of course most people do want to associate with friends who are nice. However, it takes more than being nice to make new friends. (Look at how many not-so-nice people have friends for proof of this!)
Some of the keys to making new friends – beyond being nice – include getting involved in your community to make new connections with others, being a good friend to others, and living your own best life so you’ll be appealing as a new friend.
First, in terms of getting involved in your community, consider new ways to meet other people who share similar interests, such as through volunteer work, a religious community, or a favorite hobby or activity. Find ways to get involved with organizations and groups who share those interests, and take extra steps to up your involvement. So, instead of just attending a service at a religious organization, consider signing up to be a member or leader of a small group. If you’re serious about making friends, then you may need to step a bit outside of your comfort zone and take on new roles that would offer opportunities to get to know others on a more personal level.
Second, whether you meet a new prospective friend or already have someone in your life that you’d like to build a stronger friendship with, focus on doing your part to be a good friend to them. The best way to make and grow friendships is by being a good friend to others. Make sure you’re investing the time, energy, and interest that’s required of building a close friendship. Simple actions like inviting someone for a lunch date, sending an encouraging note or text message, or sharing a news story of interest to the other person can go a long way toward growing friendships.
And finally, always keep growing personally and working toward living your best life. Even if you don’t have your ideal quality or quantity of friendships in your life right now, don’t let that hold you back from taking on fun new adventures and working toward personal goals. We bring our selves into any relationships we enter—friendships and otherwise—so the better person you can work toward becoming on your own, the better you’ll be positioned for happy, healthy friendships when the right people come along!
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Make sure you don’t just join a group and then sit and wait for friends to come rolling in. You have to extend invitations, talk to people, ask questions, and learn about them. It took me a long time to realize that others were just like me – WAITING. Once I started taking a more active role, I was able to meet more people. Jen, I understand where you are coming from, but I bet there are others in the same boat as you who are waiting for an invite from YOU!
This post feels condescending and comes across as a slap on the hand. I’d like to believe that’s not how it was intended. I’m also still pretty new to the Triad area and know exactly how this mom feels. We’ve been stunned by how hard it is to make friends here (and finding a friend shouldn’t have to be a full-time job). The locals are cordial and talkative, but we have yet to be invited over or included in anything. This wasn’t the case anywhere else I’ve lived throughout my life, with or without children. We’ve made countless attempts to get together with people, only to be put off because they claim to be busy. They might very well be, but at some point you get tired of hearing it. My heart goes out to whomever asked the question, and maybe the person writing the response has either forgotten or has no idea what it’s like to be a stranger in a town full of families who are, by and large, in their own little worlds. I have no doubt that this mom is smart enough to figure out she should try joining groups and volunteering. I have done the same. We haven’t once been welcomed into the fold beyond the activity we’re participating in.
I think this question has more to say about the culture and less about the mom not living her “best life”. Oy ve.
If you’re a local and reading this, please consider extending an invitation to someone who is new to the area. You don’t even know how much they’ll appreciate it. You might make someone’s whole month just by simply inviting them over for coffee and dessert. New residents (especially people who are totally new to this part of the country) can feel awkward and might be waiting for a native to break the ice. Everyone is busy, but connections with people are so important. When a new resident works up the courage to ask if you’d like to get together, replying with “I’m busy” is received as code for “go away”. You don’t have to be best friends forever, but just taking the time to talk with someone who doesn’t know a soul can be so refreshing for both parties. Go make a new friend!
Hi Jen, You are correct that it was not intended for this to sound condescending. Our goal through the Healthy Relationships Initiative is to offer support and information to help people build healthy relationships of all kinds. We know that people are most able to make changes in their own lives, so our comments were meant to inspire the writer to think of new possible ways to connect with others. You offered some great suggestions for how others can help to extend kindness and opportunities to friendship, especially to those who are new to the area. Thanks for your feedback, and we hope you’ll check out the HRI website at http://www.guilfordhri.org to learn more about our work!
I totally get what you are saying. We have been here 2 years and while I have made acquaintences, I have yet to make a real friend here. I did go out and volunteer for things and went to birthday parties my daughter was invited to. I went to a few mom group events but it’s hard when others already have their clique.
As someone that has lived here for 8 years with no friends outside of family, I don’t find this article condescending. I’ve gone to all of the children’s parties and volunteered for things but I have finally started to have a breakthrough with someone at my church (that I’ve gone to for 3 years) and it was all because I put myself out there instead of staying in my comfortable bubble. She was going through a rough time with something I’ve been through and so I asked one of our priests to give her some info that might help her the way it helped me and gave my email address if she wanted to reach out. She did almost immediately! Another person I’ve been talking with lately, I met because I decided to put myself out there and volunteered to help lead (I’ve never led anything before) one of the groups of kids at Vacation Bible School, she was my co-leader. I’m going to be a Girl Scout Leader this school year which (as an introvert) is very scary for me, but I hope to develop some close relationships with the parents of the girls I will be leading along with creating a wonderful bond with my daughters. I don’t know that these will develop into unbreakable friendships, but I feel like I’m on the right track, and even if they don’t, at least I’m creating memories with my children. I will pray for you guys on your journey. It is very hard to realize maybe there are things that we need to change or do differently, but we can’t keep doing the same things expecting different results and we can’t make other people reach out to us. I would imagine if they have friends, they aren’t reading this article anyways.
Cyndi, good luck with being a girl scout leader this year! This is one of the volunteer positions I took to get outside of my comfort zone (being introverted myself). It did not lead to friendships but it was a great experience and I loved helping the girls. I hope your troop has a great year ????.
I agree with you 100% percent!!