How do you make friends if you are almost 30?

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I mean me and my boyfriend are happy together, like we really love each other. But I mean we don't really have any friends. I mean both of us have been a bit bothered by this, I mean I try and hide it and seems like my boyfriend does to...but really we desire friendship with people outside of us. But it would seem it is hard for both of us to get that...like he has better social skills and I am just so quiet. I mean we go out sometimes and get frusterated of not having been able to meet a potential new friend. So its like we are happy with each other, but we'd both just like some more social interaction outside the relationship. But I have never been great at making friends and my boyfriend while he has before, he's just been feeling rather down, he thinks it could be seasonal depression because he's had it before but yeah he just feels unmotivated to do his hobby and it seems like it distresses him. He likes to paint minitures...mostly Warhammer minitures, but lately he just hasn't been able to get motivation to paint his figures, I have also gotten into painting the figures and I haven't had much motivation lately either....even though it would be pretty easy for me to paint them up. And we are both kind of disturbed about this country and the harm Trump and his GOP could do, but we are still living on as best we can.

But like no one knows, all the advice is about if you're in your 20's or if you're an older man wanting a younger partner. I mean f**k I am almost 30 and I have no idea how to engage with other women let alone men in my age group. Like I love my boyfriend but f*****g hell I don't know how to interact with people so likely he'd have to take the lead in that. I just don't know sometimes I feel like I am getting it but most times I am just confused by other people. LIke today I needed to go get some more tampons and pads for my period which always sucks, seems I am cursed with the worst cramps ever. But then my sister told me she once got vicodin for her period from planned parenthood because she was having really bad cramps..I might try and see if I can get that. Like I would not abuse it but an opiate based pain reliever would certainly help the pain. I mean if you are a man don't even comment on the topic, because you got no f*****g idea what a terribele period cramp feels like, I mean imagine i someone just kept squeezing your balls 24/7...................would that feel good? well no, and on that point periods also don't feel good. Periods are like if someone grabbed your balls and squeezed them unpleasantly for 24 hours, that is how a period feels.

Unless you're talking about college, why are the rules in your 20s different from your 30s? Why 32 year old is a creep for hanging around 27 year olds? Generally it is hard to guess someones age. It wasn't uncommon for people to underestimate my age by 4 years.

Do you ever get out? After college people of all ages come together and friends are built on interests not age. At toast master's I talked to guys in their 40s. At bjj I sparred with a guy in his 20s. Of course the lasting friendships are with those close to your age and I am working on that as well since I just moved here a month ago but from what I see there really is no "age group."

Where I live these classes attract more people in their 30s, 40s and even 50s since too many 20 somethings just want play video games and watch Netflix.

Neurotypicals don't obsess with life stages like we do where if you're x age you need to be y or else you're a loser.

Another thing is that even most neurotypical people don't have much going on. My sister was in a top sorority. Even in her mid-late 20s she spent most of her time watching reality junk and only hung out with the same 2-3 girls. Next time you look at Instagram look at the dates and observe the people. Chances are the fun things happen only once a month and it's usually with the same 5-10 people.

I think I kind of relate to your situation. I've been kind of a loner my whole life & never had many friends. As an adult I really only had one friend when I lived in Louisiana that I saw & hung out with or whatever occasionally. We worked together(he was my supervisor) & I'm loyal to a fault & try to be supportive of people I care about so I stuck by him through some rough times. Anyways I moved to Vermont over 5 years ago to be with my girlfriend who's also kind of on the spectrum & I haven't seen Andrew much since then. I only see him about 1ce a year & we do text occasionally but we don't really have deep conversations or anything. Me & my girlfriend Cass both have some anxiety issues & find it hard to go out & meet people. She used to have a few friends from church before me but one of em quit being her friend & accused her of being very manipulative when all Cass did was try to be her friend. Cass may have PTSD from the experience cuz she worries that she's manipulative or that other people see her that way & it contributes her her anxiety issues. She kind of lost her other friends when she moved & quit going to church partly because she changed religions. Cass went alittle bit since then but her old friends kind of didn't have much interest in her. Neither of us has made any real friends since we moved. I don't go to places to socialize & Cass has been a member of different groups & organizations for people with disabilities that try to teach em certain things like a reading & writing class & a class for people with depression. There's people in the groups she likes talking to when she's there but she hasn't done anything with em outside of those things. Cass talks about wanting friends sometimes & I kind of do too cuz it would be nice to have someone to talk to about realtionship stuff(I never had a close realtionship with my family) but we both either don't know how to go about it or we don't care or have enough inertia to push ourselves to really try & get out there to do it. We both have depression so that may be a factor too but mines mostly managed by meds & Cass's is a lot worse than mine in some ways. We do stuff with Cass's sister sometimes but we used to see her more a couple years ago cuz she moved a little further away. Talking to her isn't the same as having a friend thou; she has her own issues too & isn't that reliable & I don't really feel comfortable saying anything negative about Cass to her family members thou they seem OK & talk about other family members to me. I totally get how you feel about Trump. Me & Cass both have benefits since we're both disabled(Cass has more than me) & we'll probably lose most everything if Trump gets his way & then we'll be forced to move in with my parents who resented me living with them before I moved out cuz they felt I should of been alot more independent.

I struggle with this as well to the point my prospects just feel grimmer and grimmer with each passing year.

The social scene where I live is just shockingly shallow. There's just a few crappy bars (One tries to present itself as a pub but it's just a sports bar with a cheap Irish theme) that literally stink with cigarette smoke and beer as well as urine, a ghetto dance club that is hardly ever active, a bowling alley that is ridiculously expensive, and a shopping mall but unless you are in your teens or fit the redneck or hip hopper molds, you can forget about socializing there. Everything else is pretty much for old people and hyper religious people.

I think some of the roots to my struggles are that whenever I went to school, I would never knew anyone but everyone else knew each other since birth so I was always the outsider. My parents also only wanted to associate with the really affluent people in the area and when we attended their parties, my siblings and I were constantly hounded by them because they thought anything we did would reflect on them. The kids of these people also had their own circles of friends and they never had the same interests I did. Once the males reached a certain age, all they cared about was football, cars, drinking as well as smoking like crazy, and fanboying over guns.

Well I don't know... I'm in my early twenties, yet have some friends in their late twenties and early thirties. I met these friends at hobby groups and, well, we just started a casual conversation about the hobby. At first we stayed on the topic and then it just... strayed from time to time. Isn't this how people of all ages make friends outside of school or work? The only other way I know aside from this one is being introduced to a friend of a friend...

https://www.volunteermatch.org/

https://www.meetup.com/

I struggle with this as well. Meeting people is the easy part, but turning pleasant conversations into a personal friendship is the part that always gets skipped over. Like it's so easy it should "just happen". What's never covered is what to do next when it hasn't been happening.

I asked an online friend who's also a bit shy for some advice on how they seem to make so many friends while playing games. Basically, they said that they always join groups, and then invite people to other activities or games afterward if they seem receptive (and talk about random topics even if it feels weird).

I think this is what a lot of Aspies need, only in real-life for their coworkers, Meet Up or volunteer acquaintances, etc. Actionable steps and information on how relationships develop once you're actually around people and talking to them.

I feel your pain, because I'm in the same age group, shy as well, and basically getting by just on my own for a while. At the start of this new year, I made up my mind that I was going to become more social.

I've tried Meet-Up.com, but there's nothing in my area that really seems interesting or applicable to me. Maybe there's something in your area that you'd like though.

What has really helped me find things the most so far is the events tab on Facebook. It pulls any events, organized into different categories, that Facebook pages based in your area are advertising.

Finding some kind of group or class that you like is the best way to go. That way, you know you're meeting people with at least one mutual interest.

The same way you made them when you were 20.

It really isn’t that different.

There’s no “mature” way of making friends. You have to act mature, though, to make decent friends.

It’s always common interests, common backgrounds, and complementary needs-fulfillment which brings people together as friends and lovers.

It seems like lots of people make friends when they are 20 by partying/clubbing; things like getting drunk, getting high, doing other drugs, doing dangerous or stupid $hit, & having lots of casual sex. People tend to be much less into those things at 30 & have their lives together more. People at 30 are more likely to have serious commitments like a steady job, a serious romantic realtionship & kids so they have a harder time going out & socializing than they used to. it's hard to have friends when you don't have much in common with people around your age.

I made friends in my 20's by doing drugs with people, but in the end a lot of those people did not really end up being friends. At least not dependable friends for anything beyond conversation.

That's pretty much how my older brother's friends (All now ex-friends) were like. They just used each other to get drugs. I will admit I did hang out with them sometimes because I thought maybe I could hang out with the girls they were friends with but that didn't happen. I didn't smoke or drink so I wasn't really fitting in and they had no interest in helping me get "laid". It was just as well because they were going to a redneck college (A&M but at the time, I didn't make the distinction.) and they all, including my brother, got busted for pot and underage drinking and they had to drop out. At the time, I was still in "God has a plan for me" mode, I didn't have much self-respect, and I didn't realize how I really didn't fit in with the culture around me. I got by sometimes listening to rock music and playing video games but I grew sick of country music being the predominant live music in my area, I grew bored with just FPS games being played as well as talked about around me, I hated the constant football fanaticism and how being dragged to the games was really unproductive for me, and I realized how hypocritical and sick the Baptist church was.

Work, school, social gatherings, public transport, library... anywhere.

I am 29 and got some new friends just recently by working part time as an extra for soap operas. When you get locked up for a few hours with a bunch of random people and have to pretend you are friends visiting a bar, a couple in a restaurant or classmates in a school while the camera is focused on the main actors or they are discussing the scene you naturally get to know people or else you die from boredom.

THIS^^

... I'd buy that handbook

I get you, Sweetleaf. In reference to your 20's methodology.

Just talk to people like you talk online. You can make friends that way. And no drugs or liquor are needed.