Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we'll continue our series about adult friendships, maintaining the old ones, and making new ones. Today it's a call-in of advice, how to make friends as a grown-up at all. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Obviously, that's our call-in line for on the air. That's not our donation line. If you're an older adult who has gone through that transition when you were in your 20s, call in and tell our younger listeners how you found new friends in adulthood. 212-433-WNYC.

If you're in your 20s or 30s yourself, you can call in too and talk about how you're making friends as young adults. What advice can you offer people whose professional lives are maybe just beginning, perhaps in an unfamiliar city, or working remotely from home? If you've managed to build a rich social life in this scenario, how did you do it? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. As some of you know, this series we're doing on adult friendships is built out of a really insightful essay in The Atlantic by writer Jennifer Senior, who kicked it off for us. She'll be back tomorrow too to wrap it up.

One of the things that she wrote in that piece is that we rely on our friends to fill the roles of people who once simply coexisted with us. She's referring to earlier generations, when there were more naturally occurring adult membership groups, which have now dwindled. By and large, we no longer have fellow parishioners, fewer people attend religious services, union members, the private sector unions have so diminished, Rotarians, people don't join the rotary clubs and things like that anymore, to find camaraderie in, certainly not as commonly as in past generations.

I think people really come to feel how intensely lonely adulthood can be once they graduate from their school-aged years, whether it's high school, or college, or whatever it is for you, it isn't as easy to just show up somewhere and find your thing, like a major or an extracurricular activity. Quoting Jennifer Senior, "It's not wholly natural, this business of making our own tribes." How did you go about it? What steps did you take to enrich your social life early in your adulthood? Tips for others. This is an advice call-in at 212-433-WNYC, or tweet @BrianLehrer. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your call-ins of advice on how to make friends in adulthood. We're going to start with Paulette in Manhattan. Paulette, you're WNYC. Hi there.

Paulette: Hi, how are you? Good morning. I have made a wonderful group of friends from the park just from having a dog. There are four of us who meet monthly for dinner, and we're at all different stages in our lives. I have really expanded my group of friends. I highly suggest getting a dog to anyone because it's really changed my life. I'm so grateful.

Brian Lehrer: You mean because it's a conversation starter, you walk your dog and people talk to you?

Paulette: Absolutely. All the time, even on the street. All the time I have had so many conversations with people. It's a great conversation starter. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Paulette, thank you very much. All right, you want to make friends? Get a dog. They say that in Washington, that's a joke in Washington, DC, for politicians when they think they have friends, but really, they're just people who want something from them. They say, "You want friends? Get a dog." Well, here's another way that applies. You'll meet other people that way. Jamila in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jamila. Oh, let's try that again. Jamila in Queens.

Jamila: Hi, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Hi there.

Jamila: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Tell me about your adult friendships.

Jamila: Yes, I'm in my 40s. About six months ago, I started kickboxing. As it turns out, the people in my class all have the same goals. It's either they want to stay fit or get back into fitness after the pandemic, and some of them want to lose weight. As it turns out, we all had those same goals, and that's what we had in common. We kept meeting twice or once a week and soon enough, we became friends.

Brian Lehrer: That's a good one. That's really sort of two categories there in one. One is take a class, you'll meet people who are interested in the same thing that you're interested in learning. Another one is sports. Now, kickboxing is an individual sport, but sometimes people join teams, company softball team, whatever. Organized sports or disorganized sports is a way that people also meet somebody, maybe kickboxing is an example of that.

Jamila: I totally agree. It's also a good way to show support to each member of the class, especially if we're all learning together.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks, Jamila. Thanks so much for calling in. Justine in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Justine.

Justine: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call, and thank you so much for your service.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for saying that. How are you making friends in adulthood?

Justine: The pandemic has been very difficult for everybody, but I have been making friends in adulthood, I'm 35 years old. I have been making really quality intergenerational friendships through recovery circles, both before the pandemic and through the pandemic on Zoom. I'm in recovery for drugs and alcohol. Having something really fundamental in common with people of all ages and people of all stripes and backgrounds has been really fundamental to both my recovery and my mental health.

Brian Lehrer: Do you find that you make friends in your recovery groups who then become friends on other levels or is it just around that issue in your lives?

Justine: They become real friends. We go out to fellowship after meetings, some meetings have opened up back in person, in addition to being on Zoom. We go out to breakfast, we go out to lunch afterward, somebody is coming to my apartment this afternoon to help me organize some stuff because I'm sure like everybody else, we've done some spending. I've done some spending [unintelligible 00:07:13] but I've done some spending. She's helping me figure out my life. Yes, these friendships definitely transcend our issues with substances. It's really an incredible-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: I guess it makes sense. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Justine: People have come in over the pandemic and gotten sober over Zoom, which is incredible.

Brian Lehrer: Right, incredible that it can happen over Zoom. I guess when you're coming together in the first place over something that intimate, that starts a real friendship. You don't even have to get past the shallow stuff because you're starting right with the deep stuff. I guess that really could lead to real friendships of course. Justine, thank you very much.

I'm going to throw something else into the mix. Some dating apps now offer a friend setting. Did you know that? Like Bumble BFF. BFF for best friend forever, if you don't know the term. I'm curious about how that works. If anybody does anything like Bumble BFF, since the decisions people make on those apps are often based in large part by how photogenic your options are. Anybody have a dispatch from Bumble BFF or any other friends setting on a dating app? We would love to hear that at 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Kay in Hastings, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kay.

Kay: Hi, how are you, Brian? Good morning. I wanted to tell you about an app that I've had some success. It's Meetup. I love Meetup because there's always a group of some folks that are interested in things that you're interested. I happen to like country dance, kind of rare, but I found some amazing people to connect with, and it has been a lifesaver. I'm super excited about it, and I love to promote Meetup. If there's a group and things that you don't find, you can very inexpensively create your own interest group and have people in your community join it. You don't have to be lonely.

Brian Lehrer: That is cool. Meetup. Still going strong. Kay, thank you very much. Mia in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mia.

Mia: Hi. I wanted to piggyback on two of the things that were just mentioned. One was dating apps and the other one I guess was Meetup. I'm in my mid-40s and I am a rare lesbian without kids and unattached. I find it very difficult and challenging to meet friends at my age because everyone has their family at this point, their kids in high school already. I think two things, one is, the dating apps for my own demographic are often slim pickings for the reasons that I mentioned prior. I find that from the dating apps, I often end up going on a date with someone saying, "Hey, this person's not someone I want to actually be romantic with, but they'd make a great friend."

I actually have a collection of delightful women around my age who I've met on dating apps having gone on dates with them and decided, "Hey, we make better friends." The other part that I wanted to add on [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Of course in that case, the other person has to feel like that too, right? Because if they're romantically interested in you-- you've got to get lucky in that respect.

Mia: Yes, and it's actually easier than one would think. I don't know whether it's a factor of being two women, where there's a lot more communication and processing and you're like, "Hey, I really like you." "I like you too." I find that in our times where we're so reliant on the apps to make friends or meetups or Facebook, something that is, I think, underrated is going back out in person, live in person.

I have made some really nice friends and acquaintances at restaurants and bars just sitting at the bar by myself with a magazine, a crossword puzzle and oftentimes someone will, or I will talk to someone or someone will talk to me and I've actually made friends that way. I think that that's a very old school way to meet people. I think we should consider going back to something like that.

Brian Lehrer: It's old school and it's also probably underrated. I'm thinking about the old TV show Cheers, right?

Mia: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Where the people, they were hanging out in the bar and if you think of a bar as just a place you go with friends to drink or a place where you go hoping to meet people who you want to date, yes, it's people's third space.

Mia: Right.

Brian Lehrer: Right?

Mia: Exactly. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: You have work, sometimes you have your neighborhood bar or whatever that hangout is.

Mia: Right. The bartenders are your best friends in that respect. You don't have to be a drinker to go to a bar. I think that that's also another misconception. You can order some fries and a Coke and sit at the bar and talk to the bartender who knows everyone anyway. I love that, especially in a neighborhood like mine, where there are so many places that you can just go and be friendly and meet people and getting out of that, the computer screen thing too. Don't bring your phone, bring a book, do a crossword puzzle. It always makes people more likely to talk to you when you're not on your phone.

Brian Lehrer: Mia, thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, and of course, a lot of the bars have game nights, trivia nights, things like that. A good way to go and just interact with people, maybe you'll make a friend out of that. All right, last one. Steven in Chelsea, you're on WNYC. Hi, Steven. Talk about how you're making friends in adulthood and we have 30 seconds for you.

Steven: Hey, Brian Lehrer. It's Steven Lincoln. I go on Scruff still, even though I'm happily in a gay relationship, I got engaged on Christmas and we're happy. I still only go on Scruff and chat with people [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: That's a gay dating app. For people who don't know, that's a gay oriented dating app, right? Scruff.

Steven: Yes. It has a network setting on there as well as the friendship setting on there, if that's what you're looking for. That has been since the beginning of Scruff.

Brian Lehrer: Steve in Chelsea, thank you very much. There are some good ones on Twitter coming in, I'll just read one before we run out of time. Cornelius writes, "I found a piano bar with regulars where I was able to make friends. We all love music and amateur performance and we sing on stage or from the bar together." All right. Hopefully some good stuff there. So many calls of advice, we could have kept going if we had more time. Thanks for calling in, and we're going to wrap up this series on friendships in adulthood tomorrow at this time as Jennifer Senior who wrote that article that inspired it all in The Atlantic returns.

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