Making friends as an adult is surprisingly awkward...and surprisingly worth it.

By Cheryl Garcia & Jill Pakledinaz · Co-Founders, Midlife Secret Society

Making friends as an adult is weird.

There. We said it.

Somewhere after 40, making a new friend can feel harder than finding a new job. Not because women stop wanting friendships—quite the opposite.

We want friends to grab coffee with. Friends to text when we finish a great book. Friends who'll say, "Yes, let's take the trip." Friends who make an ordinary Tuesday feel a little more interesting.

The tricky part isn't wanting those friendships.

It's figuring out where they happen now.

No one really talks about that.

Two Stories. One Feeling.

Our stories look different.

Cheryl spent years immersed in the beautiful chaos of raising two daughters. Like so many moms, her friendships naturally grew around the places her girls were growing up—Girl Scouts, band, school events, Moms Club, and countless activities that filled the family calendar.

And for years, those friendships were real — the kind built in the trenches of field trips and fundraisers and group chats that never stopped buzzing.

Then the kids graduated. Scouts ended. Band concerts stopped. And within the first year, most of those friendships quietly dissolved — not because anyone did anything wrong, but because the thing holding them together was gone.

Here's what's interesting though: one group stayed. The Moms Club friends — the ones who came together when the kids were babies — are still the closest, most cherished friendships. And thinking about why makes all the sense in the world: when the kids are that little, you're not bonding over their activities. You're bonding over yours. The kids were almost beside the point. It was really about the women finding each other.

The friendships built around you stayed. The ones built around your kids faded.

That realization hits differently once you see it.

Jill's story looks different from the outside, but it ends up in the same place.

When you're a working mom — and especially when your work is as consuming as air traffic control — your social world is built in two places: the job and the kids' activities. Both are full, both are rich, both feel permanent while you're in them.

Then retirement comes. And the kids grow up. And the built-in social infrastructure that held your world together just... isn't there anymore.

The colleagues you saw every day — gone from daily life. The parents you knew from school events — faded with the schedules. Some friendships survived. Some didn't. And suddenly the calendar that used to be relentlessly full has a lot more open space in it than expected.

It's a strange grief, losing the social life you didn't realize you'd built entirely around a structure that was always temporary.

Different stories.

Same realization.

Friendships don't stop happening after 40.

They just happen differently.

So... Where Do Grown Women Actually Make New Friends?

This is the part where we get honest, because we think you'll appreciate it.

We didn't have a great answer.

We're too far past our "meet strangers at a bar" era. Recreational sports leagues sound great until you remember how your knees felt last Tuesday. Committed fitness groups — bless them — require an energy level we're not always willing to promise on a recurring basis.

The old on-ramps to friendship — school, work, neighborhoods with kids the same age —

don't really apply anymore. And nobody hands you a new map.

What we've figured out, slowly and imperfectly, is this: friendship after 40 doesn't happen accidentally. It has to be built on purpose. You have to find the thing that's actually for you — not for your role, not for your kids, not for your career — and show up for it consistently enough that the people there start to become yours.

It requires more intention than it used to. And a lot more vulnerability than anyone warns you about.

What Actually Works (In Our Experience)

Shared interest over shared circumstance. The Moms Club friendships survived because the women chose each other, not just their situation. Find the thing you love and the people who love it too — books, travel, creative projects, real conversations over good food — and start there.

Consistency over intensity. You don't need a deep soul-baring session every time. You need to show up regularly enough that the relationship has room to deepen on its own timeline.

Lower the bar on initiation. The text you've been drafting in your head for three weeks? Send it. The "we should get together sometime" that keeps not happening? Pick a date. Friendship after 40 rewards the person willing to go first.

Give it time. New friendships at this stage take longer to root than they did at 25. That's not a sign it's not working. It's just the nature of building something real when you both have full, complicated lives.

Why We Built a Community Around This

This is one of the reasons MSS exists.

Not to replace the deep, years-long friendships you already have. But to create a place where new ones can start — where the thing holding the group together is you, not your kids' carpool schedule or your old job title.

A place built around women who are in this same season, asking the same questions, ready to stop waiting for friendship to happen accidentally and start making it happen on purpose.

That's Between the Chapters. That's Girls Trips. That's every gathering, virtual and in-person, that we're building inside this community.

It's us, deciding that friendship after 40 doesn't have to be a loss story.

It can be a beginning.

We Want to Hear From You

We know we're not the only ones with this story. We've never met a woman over 40 who couldn't relate to some version of it.

So tell us — what's your friendship after 40 story? Where did you lose them, where did you find them, and where are you still looking?

Drop it in the comments. We mean it. This is exactly the kind of conversation we built this place for.

Friendship After 40 is one of the topics we explore inside the Midlife Secret Society. Not a member yet? Come find your people: Become a Keyholder

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