Is it? If you find someone with similar views or common interests, it's easy.

200 years ago, life was pretty boring. When you go to the store for some potatoes or whatever, you're walking down a busy street full of other pedestrians, and there's like a town crier and kids walking the street. If you were sick and needed soup delivered to your house, you needed to ask your neighbor for help, and you better be on good terms with them for them to go through the trouble. If you want to hang out alone, your options are like, playing solitaire or lighting a candle and reading a book. So instead, you would go to your friend's house and ask to play baseball or whatever.

Today, a million different apps and websites and games are competing for our attention all day, every day. When you go to the store, you go there (probably) in a sealed metal box and talk to nobody, and you check out your items with a machine. If you need soup delivered to your house when you're sick, you order it on an app, and an underpaid gig worker brings it over, who you never see again. If you want to hang out alone, you can find infinite entertainment on your computer screen, HUNDREDS OF LIFETIMES worth of content to engage with and there's no hope of getting through it all.

Everyone has shittier social skills now. It has become less normalized to talk to strangers. Modernity is slowly killing us and there's not enough political will to fix it. So instead we all just suffer.

I never found it difficult, and I think the reason is because I have a lot of hobbies and I'm willing to blabber to anyone.
Try getting more hobbies. That will give you more things to relate to other people, plus it just makes you a more interesting person.

There are virtually no third spaces (places that arent work or home) which is where things like friendships flourish best.

Technically cafes, book stores, and gyms count as third spaces. Issue is, these are all places of business. They aren't work for you but they are work for someone. Meaning:

Hours are not flexible

Interactions between people are not the priority; profit is and so:

"Loitering" (just existing without spending money) is not generally acceptable.

So, at least to me, that makes me see them as not true third spaces.


And then on top of the decline of third spaces you have the fact that we are all overworked. We spend the prime part of most of our days at work so when would we even have time to hang out in third spaces were they abundant?

Perhaps we have become so isolated and have substituted virtual for in-person that we have forgotten the fine art of friend making? Or perhaps listening? Idk. I do know my dms are always open for making friends

If you have a few good friends you’re lucky. Most of my old circle have drifted but I can count some newer people as very dear to me.

It's hard because each are on their own and each have a purpose or agenda. Friendship requires a certain connecting factor which is missing these days.

Online is the easiest to make friends but even there people show more resentment than friendliness.

Because grown ups become set in their ways, most people are cynics, the world values apathy now, the feeling that most people can't be trusted, really so many reasons to why it's harder to make friends the older you get

if your speaking of S,W. friends. no one trust no one. you never know if you're talking to male or female.

Because I smell like cabbage.

People are scary

Probably the phones. But also the stress. Everyone is always on edge and self medicating with social media. Interactions in real life and virtually have become so transactional and shallow.

I have more friends than I asked for

If someone is too friendly I think they are up to some game or scam. Maybe some religious thing or they want to sell you something.

I'm boring, their boring. Everyone's on their phones the whole time.

No, it's always been something that just sort of happened.

Many are fake and most are paranoid/closed off. It makes it difficult to even try.

Perhaps some introspection is called for...

People are horrible and untrustworthy.

The times are evil 😈

Cause you're a gold digger

I never had problems making friends, just sit next to them and talk