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The original was posted on /r/edmonton by /u/TomHanksYo on 2023-10-18 19:26:45.

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Maybe this is a question which would be appropriate to newcomers to the city.

This is a real pathetic admission on my part.

It has recently become very clear that I no longer have much of anything in common with the social group that I grew up with. The interests, hobbies, and even ideology of the group no longer overlaps with mine and I am often excluded from social events because of it and I have been going months without socializing with anyone for a few years now and the isolation is wearing me down. This isn’t nefarious on their part or anything, it is simply (as I pointed) a difference in hobbies and interests. People grow apart. Its a disappointing reality to accept but it has been a few years now and that reality is now obvious. Unfortunately, I didn’t capitalize on my time in university and I didn’t establish friendships, preferring to spend my time with my childhood social group during those years.

Now that I have been working for awhile, I am confronted by the difficulty in even generating opportunities to meet people, let alone establish friendships as an adult. I have tried volunteering and that didn’t lead to much. I find myself turning more and more to the internet for the illusion of social interaction and it is not something I want to make a habit of, especially given the routinely toxic nature of online interaction.

Have any of you experienced establishing meaningful friendships in adulthood? How did you do it?