The Financial Reason Behind Why It's So Hard To Make Adult Friends Now

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00:00Why is it so hard to make friends as an adult now?

00:03There's been lots of talk in recent years about the difficulty of making new friends

00:08in our modern era once you're out of college, and about the loneliness epidemic at large.

00:13There are, of course, many causes for this, but one major one is actually financial.

00:19While money, or lack of it, affects so much of our day-to-day lives,

00:23you might be surprised at just how much of our current financial issues,

00:28individually and societally, are contributing to our friendship woes.

00:32So what's really going on here? And is there anything we can do about it?

00:37Let's take a closer look at four of the biggest money-related obstacles to building friendships

00:41in adulthood, and then we'll dig into some ways people are finding solutions.

00:46While making friends in our school years, when we're pretty much always surrounded by peers,

00:51can be, though certainly isn't always, a rather easy experience, attempting to make new friends

00:56as an adult is a whole different ballgame. We often don't have a set group of peers that we

01:02see on a regular basis, and going out and finding and building those connections can take a lot of

01:07energy and funding that we just don't always have. First up is one of the most obvious issues.

01:14Many of us don't have time to go out and meet new people because we're always working.

01:18I feel like all I do is work. I can barely pay my rent. Oh, which is due tomorrow. I almost forgot.

01:24And when we aren't working, we often feel too tired or burnt out to actually do anything.

01:30Lack of financial security means we feel the need to put money first to make sure we can

01:35buy groceries and keep a roof over our heads. Kendall's just attending to some other matters,

01:40but I can pass on your thoughts. He says in that case he's going to grind up your bones to make his

01:47spread. While young people might get flack in the media for slacking off or not wanting to work,

01:52it turns out that the opposite is true. A 2023 report by ADP Research found that,

01:58Younger workers are putting in more hours of unpaid overtime by starting early or staying late,

02:04and working over breaks and lunchtimes than their older colleagues. They give away an average 8 hours

02:1030 minutes of free work per week. Even when we're not at work, we're still always connected to work

02:17via our phones. All it takes is one slack ping to pull us out of our real lives and back into work

02:22mode. Jobs themselves have become ever more taxing as they've begun squeezing workers to take on what

02:36should be multiple separate people's jobs. And for no extra pay, of course. But attempting to reclaim

02:43any level of work-life balance can feel dangerous. Because there's always the looming threat of

02:48layoffs. With the job market in shambles, employers know that they'll always be able to find someone

02:54else to do the job. Or they might even attempt to completely replace human workers. Either way,

03:00we end up with less leverage. I want you to stay close, because I might need you. But just lay low

03:07and not come out of your room. And according to a 2025 survey by Glassdoor,

03:14only 44% of workers had a positive six-month outlook for their employers. Glassdoor's lead

03:20economist Daniel Zhao told USA Today, Many employees refer to several rounds of layoffs creating anxiety

03:27about when the next round will come, or leaving teams understaffed and overworked. Younger people

03:34looking for entry-level jobs are having what feels like a nearly impossible time, as they're having

03:39to go up against more experienced workers who have been laid off and themselves can't find jobs

03:44comparable to the ones they lost, and so are having to go after what should be roles for people new to

03:50the workforce. Even just finding a job has become essentially a full-time job for everyone now.

03:57I have no job. I have no credit. I have no underwear.

04:00All of these work problems dovetail together with the employer expectation that our jobs

04:05are our entire lives, and that our co-workers are not only our only friends, but our family.

04:11Figuring out how to manage the time, money, and energy to search for friendships outside of our

04:16work environments can sometimes feel like too high a mountain to climb. But the people we're

04:22surrounded by at work also aren't always people that we want to be friends with.

04:26This can all add up to a pretty lonely experience. But even when we can muster up the energy and carve

04:33out the time to venture out and search for friends, money can still stand in the way.

04:38These shared interests have long been a great way to make friends, and go out and find a hobby group is

04:44still touted as an easy way to meet new, like-minded people. But hobbies often cost money, whether it's

04:51buying materials, sport equipment, or even just joining costs. There's also the issue of it costing

04:57money just to be in so many places now, which we'll dig into more in just a second.

05:01I mean, it's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? Ten dollars?

05:06You've never actually set foot in a supermarket, have you?

05:08Wages have not kept pace with labor productivity, so while we're doing more,

05:13we're not being compensated for it. This then colors all of our lives,

05:18hindering our ability to recreate and enjoy ourselves outside of work, and increasing our stress.

05:24No, no, no, I'm a bartender. I'm 30 years old. I don't have health insurance.

05:28A 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association found that the top stressors

05:33among people ages 18 to 34 were money, health, the economy, and housing costs.

05:3958% of the respondents stated that most days their stress is completely overwhelming,

05:45with 47% saying that most days they are so stressed they can't function.

05:50Under these conditions, it's not surprising that we're having a hard time doing anything,

05:55especially as something mentally and emotionally taxing is trying to put ourselves out there

06:00and make new friends.

06:01Under all of this stress, keeping track of your finances can be so difficult.

06:06Trying to figure out where all of your money is going, what you can save,

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07:15Another major factor hindering our ability to find new friends in adulthood is the disappearance

07:20of third spaces. The term was coined by Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book The Great Good Place,

07:27about cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a

07:32community. Third places are places outside of work in the home that people can hang out. They used to

07:38be a very regular part of life. Think of Central Park on Friends, or the bar on How I Met Your Mother,

07:44or even just the local mall or a library. I don't think my boss likes me either.

07:48I don't think mine likes me either. Maybe it's a universal thing. Or maybe it's because you're all

07:54hanging around here at 1130 on a Wednesday. Oldenburg had noticed how suburbs had,

07:58even by that era, begun to erode community centers and separate people from one another.

08:04He wrote, Houses alone do not a community make. The typical subdivision proved hostile to the emergence of

08:10any structure or space utilization beyond the uniform houses and streets that characterized it.

08:16A two-stop model of daily routine is becoming fixed in our habits as the urban environment

08:21affords less opportunity for public relaxation. Our most familiar gathering centers are disappearing

08:27rapidly. This pattern only continued to worsen over the following decades. Pandemic closures certainly

08:33hit a lot of third places that were unable to reopen, but the loss of third places began well

08:38before 2020. Between 2008 and 2015, there was an 18% decrease in arts, entertainment, and recreation

08:46establishments, a 33% decline in civic and social organizations, and a 27% decrease in sporting goods,

08:53hobby, musical instrument, and bookstores, according to data from the National Establishment Time Series.

08:58Nowadays, many third places have either become prohibitively expensive, are hanging on by a

09:04thread, or have closed completely. This means that we have far fewer places to even have the opportunity

09:11to meet new people. And even our first spaces, our homes, are shrinking due to skyrocketing housing costs.

09:18So now, even having enough room to invite people into your own home can be tough.

09:24It's a hallway. It is a beautiful, railroad-style apartment in your budget.

09:31Social media is an interesting part of the adult friendship dilemma. On the one hand,

09:35it is absolutely great for making friends from all over the world and meeting people you otherwise

09:40never would have had the opportunity to. On the other hand, while many certainly have developed

09:45real deep friendships online, others do feel the disconnect of always being separated from their

09:50friends and buy that digital medium. There's also the issue of those digital mediums themselves being

09:55owned by others. While a corporation buying up and shutting down the local rec center sucks,

10:00you would still likely be able to run into the friends you met there since you live near each other.

10:05When a tech overlord decides to put up a paywall or destroy a platform, you could totally lose

10:10access to your friends you made there if you didn't already previously set up some way to contact one another.

10:16And of course, there's the other monetary aspect of social media. The fact that so many people are

10:22only trying to create a sense of familiarity in order to sell you something. In The Great Good Place,

10:28Oldenburg also impacts the problems that can arise from this commercialization of society and our lives

10:33feeling driven by advertising. Though it was written in the 80s, it still feels quite relevant to our

10:39current social media moment. It breeds alienation. It convinces people that the good life can be

10:45individually purchased. In the place of the shared camaraderie of people who see themselves as equals,

10:51the ideology of advertising substitutes the competitive acquisition. It is the difference

10:56between loving people for what they are and envying them for what they have.

11:02Okay, so all of this sounds pretty miserable. But don't worry, all hope is not lost. Dealing with all

11:08of these stressors is hard. But it's definitely better with friends. And that's why,

11:14no matter how difficult it might be, none of us wants to give up on finding and building the

11:19community of caring friends that we always dreamed of having in adulthood. In an effort to make it

11:24work, people have been trying to figure out ways to build community that work for them. From reading

11:29parties at local libraries and bookstores, to community block parties, to virtual get togethers,

11:35to working together towards shared causes.

11:38We have so much talent and excellence right here. We didn't have enough spaces to showcase and

11:42celebrate that in this neighborhood. So that's where the idea for the block party came from.

11:48Even just managing to carve out the time and space to enjoy the little things can have a huge impact

11:53on your own happiness and bring your friendships closer together.

11:56Self-care Sunday!

11:59Solving all of these financial and societal problems is obviously a huge uphill battle.

12:04And not something that will be magically fixed with a vision board party. Unless…

12:09But it's just important that we don't let all of these factors squash us down and separate us from

12:14one another permanently. Because it's through building stronger community bonds that we'll rebuild a better world.

12:22That's the take! Click here to watch the video we think you'll love.

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