Making new friends is hard when you’re 38, by Hannah Ashe

Hark! A guest post by the brilliant Hannah Ashe of Chez Hanny!

Today’s post is a guest post by the brilliant

Hannah Ashe

, who you might recognise from Greatest Hits such as

Chez Hanny

, and this thread I posted a couple of months ago:

(The retreat is tomorrow, and I am SO EXCITED.) But anyway! Without further ado, here’s Hannah’s excellent piece - thank you so much Hannah.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am an introvert. According to the collinsdictionary.com an introvert is ‘a person who enjoys solitary activities and calm environments, preferring to interact with individuals or in small groups.’ That’s me.

I’m sure there is a sliding scale of introversion, which I will endeavour to read more about at some future point. I’d guess that I’m probably a low to middle of the scale introvert in that I don’t mind social situations, in moderation, but I can’t cope with several days in a row of socialising. I crave alone time.

Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash

I’m telling you this because I’ve realised that once you get into your 30s, it becomes much more difficult to make new friends, especially when you don’t have kids and you’re an introvert. I hadn’t really thought about this too much until recently. As the dictionary definition suggests, I am happiest when socialising with one other person: lunch with an old colleague, drinks with a university friend, never a large group.

I live in London but didn’t grow up here. In my early 20s I had lots of friends in London, albeit dotted around the city. Of course, as people began to settle down, get married and have kids they often decided to move away from London. Some went back to their home towns, and others re-located further into the countryside. This automatically meant that my network spread further out, making it more challenging to see people regularly.

The other place that friendships are often established is in the workplace. I’d been in a stable job for almost 10 years until July this year, and in that role managed a large team of around 20 people. I do have some good pals from that job, but I found it more difficult to make friends as a manager. I was always mindful not to blur the lines of professionalism, and I was aware that it was much more difficult to have a challenging line manager-y conversation with someone you considered a friend, than solely a colleague. This meant that I didn’t actively chase friendships at work.

And now, here I am several months into having launched myself into a new way of working and thinking. These days I consider myself to be a multi-hyphenate because my income is coming from a variety of different sources. I retrained as an interior designer and that brings in a reasonable portion of my income.

What I didn’t consider when deciding to drastically shake up my career was that I might make some new friends along the way. I’ve realised that I was quite closed-off to meeting new people back in my old job. Now that I’ve allowed myself to follow my passions, I’ve opened myself up to the joy of interaction and communication again. Creativity flows best when I am discussing and collaborating with others and this seems to be opening the doors to all sorts of conversations and meetings.

So far, I’ve interviewed eight brilliant women for my podcast (Inspiring Creative Career Change), some of whom have become friends. I’ve been to several interior design networking events where I’ve met like-minded people and exchanged numbers. There are glimmers of opportunity appearing for making friends in a way that hasn’t happened to me for a good while.

I really hope this trend continues because, despite being an introvert, I do enjoy conversation and interactions. It just needs to be with the right people.

I wonder if this is something that others have experienced? Do you have any tips on finding friendships later in life? I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts!

Hannah Ashe is an interior designer, part-time music teacher and creative multi-hyphenate inspired by natural and musical rhythms and writing about career change and creativity across a range of disciplines. You can sign up to Chez Hanny here.