Social life and making new friends after college and as an adult, your experiences?
I have to say, there are quite a lot of horror stories going around about "life after college" in terms of making new friends and just social life in general. Being that a lot of you work in the financial sector which gives you long work hours (80+), I am sure that initially most of you had a bad social life after college too. Now, I am wondering how it was like for you guys a few years down the road when you were in situations where you didn't have to work 80+ hours a week. Generally, I am talking about in regards to making new friends and being a part of new social circles.
For me, I never got the whole horror stories of social life after college. I feel like my social life actually got a lot better after college. During college I made a lot of acquaintances that I could have 3 to 5 minute conversations with and then just go on with my day while after college, I actually made a lot of close friends that I could go out with, party with, and even take some vacation trips with. For some reason, I found myself a lot lonelier during college than I did after college even though I made the effort to reach out to people and have a social life.
What has your experience been with social life and making new friends after college?
Definitely harder. I'm in sales so and even then it can be hard.
I have had some success at work by listening to what people talk about, then ask the one or two people if they want to grab drinks after work (The ones who I think I would get along with. Probably like 1/10 people or so). It's not weird at all.
At that point, you can see if you want to really be friends with them.
College you can make friends with nearly anyone as you said.
Meeting girls you really have 2(3) choices: Online dating/tinder, activities, and then meeting them out by approaching them. Sometimes at work. Otherwise, you are not going to get laid...
I disagree with this, back in university I found that people were very cliquish and often judged you for not being in the same frat as them and the friendships were very light and soft touch. At times I found that to be true for dating too, it was hard to date some of the better looking girls if you weren't in a fraternity (specific ones at that) or playing a sport.
Definitely true. Depends on the school.
I've only been out of school a year, but my social life is pretty similar. Monday-thursday just work and do my own thing, and on the weekends hang out with friends. In a way its been better because I'm still pretty close with a ton of people from high school and a lot of us live in the same city/area, so then you get to meet all of their friends from college that live/moved here too. Granted if I were to move cities it would be completely different.
No new friends?
No new friends, no new friends, no new friends, no, no new
I've found my social life post-college to be much, much, MUCH less lonely than my social life in college.
For "making new friends" I just utilize a cobweb approach with existing friends.
Same here, seems like people such as you and me are outliers.
Social life after college definitely sucks for me. It's a lot worse, personally. It really depends on personality though. Finding new people to hang out with after college takes a lot more effort. If you're introverted and go with the flow type, you'll find it a lot harder after college. In college, you can just tag along with a group of people you meet in activities or classes. People are your age and there's a lot more in common. At work, people vary in age and have other priorities (families). To meet new people and make friends, you have to take more initiative and find out new activities and pursue new hobbies. If you're working long hours or live in the suburbs where everything is a bit of a drive away, you get lazier/unmotivated.
I disagree with the introverted and go with the flow part about college. Back at my university, not sure how other colleges are like, you had to put the work in for a social life. You had to rush a fraternity or be a part of some sort of a club in order to truly make good friends. If you were one of those people that just talked to people in classes and on campus, all you got were short conversations and hardly any close friendships out of your situation.
It seems like the one thing college had going for it were dorms, Greek Life, and other 18-22 year olds to be around. Then again, I found that those 18-22 year olds formed cliques FAST and if you weren't a part of their clique, they often excluded you. After freshman and maybe sophomore year, most college kids became very close minded towards making new friends.
Then again, just my university, not sure how it was like at others.
It's harder now because I was in a frat in college, and then subsequently moved to a state where people marry young, so there aren't as many single folks out and about. Even the younger ones are in committed relationships w/ their high school or college sweethearts. It's not that I mind being friends with [married] couples, but it is harder to manage when you're not part of the circle and don't have a curfew or routine like they do. Especially once they've got kids.
College was much easier in that you're sort of thrown together, you meet new people all the time, everyone is looking to pair up or buddy up, and there's no shortage of easily available activities.
I find that traveling has opened things up somewhat-you do lots of intense bonding in hostels and then hit up each other's cities or countries and get hosted. Been having a blast with that but still no regular "crew" like my undergrad days.
Again, I am not buying the whole everyone looking to make new friends in college part. Even if they are looking to make new friends, they want to make friends with certain people like the fraternity guy who throws nice parties and belongs to a great house, not some studious guy who might be interesting and fun to talk to.
For some reason, I found people after college a lot less judgmental and a lot more open minded towards making new friends. College kids pretty much wanted to make friends with certain kinds of people that could get them the alcohol, drugs, and party invites.
My campus had 25,000 people on it. Even discounting all the cliques there were plenty of cool folks left over.
After college less judgmental? You must not be in NYC. In my experience people there only wanted to know what school you attended and what you did for a living, and if you didn't meet some arbitrary social threshold you got demoted to acquaintance status quick. And the city I'm in now, it's married couples, college friends, and everyone else, lol. People are cliquey, man.
Find a hobby.
sage advice indeed. Its definitely different after college but I found that your friendships are better and stronger post university. During school you end up hanging out with people usually only during 'fun' times or periods with relatively little stress. After school your time is much more limited and you really only want to be hanging out with people who add value to your life and who will be there through 'thick & thin' as opposed to just some dude you like to party with. You also need to get used to doing more things on your own outside groupthink culture and this is where hobbies and activities come more into play.
I've recently graduated in the UK, moving to London in 3 weeks, so in a similar boat, in a different harbour.
University was waaay too easy to meet people, I was in a professional frat and of course it was easy to make friends with everyone in it. However, it was not necessary, it wasn't really 'cliquey', I knew all sorts of people. And, especially as a fresher, as long as you had some alcohol you were welcome to any party.
Anyway, university was easy for socializing from my experience.
Post-uni? It obviously won't be the same, but I'm not worried about it. I know a few people in London (frat alumni, friends doing Master there, other friends) and I will live with 2 fellow graduate colleagues.
As for making friends, I guess at work I can meet some. As mentioned above - cobweb (especially with friends doing Masters). And then there are sports clubs, networking events and other social events.
Really you just need to meet 1 person, they might have 3 friends, and so on.
My college was similar to Postgradwonderer where you needed a really huge effort to make friends in most cases. Associates I know of seemed to end up just being close with and hanging out with their frat or club like mock trial.
Funny thing is that my college seemed to take a very serious approach to placing students in freshman dorms. My college friends today are the ones that were in my building back in freshman year unless they are older or younger but then they're just extensions from buddies in my dorm. It's the same for some of the other cliques that formed in our initial year. Everyone really got along and held mutual respect for each other through graduation and now. Everyone else I met is just an associate and I never made deeper connections with them.
On post grad, still hangout with my buddies from freshman year. Tinder helps with dating, or you can be the awesome guy that flirts with your barista at Starbucks or the cute girl in Suit Supply (there are so many hot chicks working there for some reason). I don't really get to meet a lot of new buddy friends. I'm not that far from being an undergraduate so still learning. Hoping to extend my circle through my existing friends and family
I think that part of what happens after college is that the people you are likely to come across are all too similar to you, I.e. Work colleagues. In college there are similarities but you're likely to be different in many aspects of your life allowing you to not be viewed as competition or someone that can later be trouble. Also, mostly everyone outside of work is just another run of the mill stranger. People have lives to live and don't want to introduce anyone new that might not turnout to be a really good guy.
I have made friends at work with people when I can be laid back (drinks after, lunch meetings, etc), it helps to be open with people post undergrad about you are and you have to talk more about your personal/home life. Personal home stuff is the only thing to really associate with folks unless you're talking about a potential business deal. I think it'll also help to have a hobby.
Tell me about it, does suck going to a college like that. Greek Life is a blessing if you're in it but an absolute curse once you're out. In regards to dating, what made it worse at my university is that about 90% or so girls that were good looking were in sororities. The nightlife scene at my university was run by frats too so if you went to the bars and attempted to talk to other kids there, they mostly ignored you or mocked you for doing so. I don't run into that in the real world, people are a lot nicer at the bars and that has helped me make a lot of new friends.
Looking back at it though, I did make some good friends but they weren't the friends I wanted. Religion was pretty big at my school so a lot of the religious folks were very welcoming of new friends, unfortunately they weren't the ones who wanted to party, get wasted, drink, and enjoy the "college experience".
As for advice for making new friends, I am sure just becoming a regular at some bar in town and tipping the bartenders well can work but so can joining a group/club. You're in IB so I doubt any of that is possible, I am surprised you're even posting right now lol!
Postgradwonderer @iBankedUp" Do you guys feel comfortable disclosing the conference of the schools you attended? It seems that the characteristics of the schools you are both describing resemble a lot of SEC and Big 10 schools, at least in my personal experience.
Yes, my school was in one of those conferences though I've heard that some Big 10 schools like Ohio State, Michigan, and Wisconsin have a very laid back undergrad population to where even townies and grad students have a very easy time having a social life and making friends. I've heard a lot of great things about the college towns in which those schools are located, especially in regards to how friendly and accepting the people there are.
I'm in my early 40's now, and my friend and social network has never been larger compared to my 30s and 20s. It depends on what you do to meet friends. If you're doing anything that is a variant of the bar scene, you will be lonely.
If you need a friend get a dog
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