[saurik]

How old are you? Like, serious question: if is a generally reported experience that people start to suck at randomly making friends as they approach 30.

[anyfoo]

Age does sound like a likely explanation. When I was younger, I made friends online pretty much the same as offline: Some people I just got along with very well, at some point hung out and talked with them more consciously (online or offline or both).

Now that I'm older, that barely happens. Online or offline, even while I do meet new people and some friendship forms on some level, a certain distance remains and things often stay confided to a particular function (lunch group at work, people in an online group).

I first tried to fight it, but now I suspect that I'm just more interested in furthering the relationships that I already have, instead of making room for new ones.

[ethbro]

I was thinking about this recently and decided it's probably another culprit: we're less tolerant of unexpected and different things as we get older.

That seems kind of essential for younger-esque 'Hey, stranger who I know nothing about? Want to spend a lot of time together?'

[bitexploder]

But they suck at it because they lack the time due to other adult obligations (kids, spouses, work, etc).