[usful]

Anecdotal but, I'm 36 and I made the most friends I have ever made in my life in the last two years. From doing the conference/retreat circuit to, surprisingly, the festival circuit (Burning Man, Gratitude Migration, etc.) I've made a lot of close, real, amazing friends

[JimboOmega]

Similar reality (most of my friends since 30, I'm 35 now), very different origins.

I changed a lot as a person after 30 - I moved to the bay area for one thing. I also transitioned... which let me meet other women in more feminine contexts (IE, fans of a clothing brand).

I also met a lot of people who became friends through dating.

Almost all of my friends that I see regularly I met in the last 5 years or so.

[usful]

Wow thats amazing! Congrats on being more of your self.

[InclinedPlane]

Yeah, I don't think this is exactly rocket science. I'm a pretty introverted and socially anxious person normally (so I don't like hanging out at random parties or talking to complete strangers or whatever) but I've made quite a lot of new friends consistently year over year. All it takes is putting in a bit of effort to do it. Engage in a few activities now and then, keep in touch with people, organize a thing once in a while. It turns out you can make lots of friends via friends of friends, coworkers, people you meet through various activities, etc.

If you put no effort into it of course nobody is just going to randomly insert themselves into your life. And as you get older you don't have those common experiences of intermingling with lots of other people of similar ages or demographic backgrounds due to school, growing up, and so on. So put a little effort into it.

[djsumdog]

I feel like I'm in the same boat. I got a holiday work visa and lived in Australia when I was 29, and New Zealand until I was 32. For the past decade, I've never lived in the same city for more than three years.

Meetup.com, swing dancing, reddit meetups, board game nights, spoken word poetry, comedy open mics, theater, contra dancing are just a couple of the things I try to get involved in (I get burnt out on a few and rotate hobbies; dropping in and out of scenes).

It usually takes me about a year to a year and a half to make a solid group of friends in a city, but the friends I've made, I've kept in touch with all around the world. Going back to my home town was amazing too, even though so many people I knew had moved on. I wrote some blog posts about being nomadic:

https://khanism.org/perspective/a-tale-of-two-journeys/

https://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/

[tluyben2]

I an 43 and met my current best friend circle after 30 and 2 of them after 40. My highschool friends just did not click anymore and I do like long conversations about tech, so I find people that like that as well and make quite deep friendships that last a long time.

[usful]

Right. I feel like I changed into a whole new person, and all my old friends decided to stay the same. Which is fine, but they aren't people I want to spend lots of time with anymore.

[pteredactyl]

Congrats ( not sarc! )

[ionforce]

Is there an operator/annotation that is the opposite of '/s', like I'm being genuine?

!/s

/g

[InclinedPlane]

(Clippy): it looks like you're trying to write a Perl program, how can I help?

[ionforce]

Clippy, get back in the drawer! No one called for you!

[colanderman]

I use the smiley face emoji (":)") to convey this sentiment.