Is it really harder to find true, meaningful friendships (not romantic and/or sexual) in more ‘adult’ years or is this an introverts problem? I am quite introverted at first, I would never just start a friendly conversation with a stranger and work friends usually are just work friends. I moved to UK in 2019 and since then I had few different jobs and connected with people from work, but none of them wanted to stay in touch outside work. I was a bit confused, as I thought those people enjoyed my company as much I did theirs. Not even sure if this is maybe a cultural thing? I grew up in Poland and Eastern European people are more direct than British, so you know straight away of they like you or not. What are your experiences? How do you deal with meeting new people?
I’ve found in adulthood that having many one on one connections is exhausting. It’s just a matter of efficiency to have a “friend group” or at least get your friends to be acquaintances with each other.
It’s also that when you are in a group you are usually gonna carry like 20-30% of the conversational load rather than 50% (plus or minus).