I finally made it… but I have no friends
I come from a non target and broke into banking my senior year of college. I was proud of myself and so grateful for the opportunity. I felt like I finally made it. And I did.
However, 9 months later into my role when I look around I realize that I actually have zero friends. Not actually zero but my friends from college all live in different places or have since lost the spark that kept us all bound together from school. Not to mention most of them do not have any idea what I do or work in unrelated fields nor understand the demands. I just want a group of friends to hang out with and be a part of but I struggle with it. I do not have a commanding presence and I feel like I’m always having to be a part of things rather than build it myself. If anyone has any advice on how to create friends in a new city outside of work I’d greatly appreciate it.
Gonna be me in a couple months. Circling back to this
Making friends as an adult is hard. Definitely seems like everyone sticks to their college friends. Honestly recommend joining any type of social activity like a group fitness class or sports club etc. to meet more people. Or hit up other ppl in your analyst class
I don't completely agree with this. It really depends on who you try to connect with.
Making friends is not that different when you are an adult compared to when we were younger, kids are generally not afraid of talking to people they don't know, that's what makes you meet people and then from there you can maybe make a friend. Human nature doesn't change.
Everyone nowadays (me included) just avoids situations where you are in an inferior/weird social position and just hop on their phones to distract themselves but seconds later you have to again face reality. Be shameless, don't be afraid to put yourself out of your comfort zone. Try talking to people, initially referring to anything you have in common (something like being stuck in a queue in a place you go to often). Yes, some people would be like "this mf weird" but others will find you interesting, you are doing what many doesn't even try to do. The only difference is that now that we are older we (mostly) have a social group so we don't really need to make new friends, but most people are still receptive to meeting people (I mean it makes it a bit more interesting, you are esentially breaking that boring routine you are used to).
I have put myself in so many social awkward situations, especially with girls (usually think you are trying to hit on them, when in most cases I am not) but on the other hand I have made 2 good friends that I keep in touch with, with one we both didn't know anyone (both new to the city) and the other day he invited me to a party with some friends he made and I met new people with who we had a good time together.
Once I tried talking to this girl who clearly didn't want to talk to me, 2 weeks go on and I see her again with someone I know, who isn't really a friend of mine but we always talk when we see eachother and all that. The friend was astonished I wasn't some creep that was trying to hit on her and then decided to start talking to me: "omg you are the guy of x". Having a social status (aka that you already have friends) it's usually a factor that others take into account when deciding to talk to you, but many of us just feel lonely inside (we are all in the same boat, trust me) so many will just completely ignore this factor if your first approach is funny.
Essentially, you have to be willing to accept that in more than half of these interactions will lead to nothing.
Spot on. Apologies if it comes across as condescending, but it's good to see such introspection in one so young.
As you grow older, and your friends start to get married, move outside the city, etc. almost everyone will feel this way to some extent. You can't really hang out with your peers at the firm like you did in your Analyst or Associate days either. While I am on genial terms with the other MDs at my BB, they are not close friends who I regularly hang out with. The only person from my youth I still see on a weekly basis is someone from my Analyst class (now a Partner at a Megafund). Everyone else in my social circle are friends I have made after college.
You will also face the same thing if you do a secondment in a foreign country you have zero connection to. In many countries in the continent, there is a separation of work and personal life. That means that your coworkers are not willing to hang out with you outside of a work setting. I can personally vouch that this is the case in the Nordics; they are happy to "hygge" by themselves with friends they have had since they were 6yo.
If you already approach women to set up a pipeline, then this will be little different. After you get the bang, and once things cool down after a few months, instead of blocking her number, just hang out more with her friends who you get along with. Since you've already slept with the girl, presumably you've already met her friends at some point. Identify the most tolerable person in her friend group, and attempt to reach out. People are less hesitant to form connections to those with the ostensible "social proof".
A lot of you may scoff at the idea of cold-approaching women, but the social skill and "bravery" required to do so will serve you well in higher echelons of Finance.
Caveat: During my Analyst stint, I only hung out with people from my Analyst class, had no other friends, and minimal social life. There was literally no time for anything else due to 80-100 hours/week. This was before Tinder was invented and online dating became normalized, so perhaps things are different now.
My advice is more geared towards senior bankers, consultants, those in CorpDev, and others who work less than 60-70 hours/week.
If you are an autist with zero social skills, I suggest Dale Carnegie for friendships, and Roosh & Roissy for women. These will get you to a decent baseline, from which you can slowly find your own personality.
Thanks for your comment. Dw, idk what condescending or introspection means
I feel like this will be me soon. idc tho I'll wipe my tears with my money.
Being friendless even though you have money sucks.... but being friendless AND broke sucks more.
You have to take initiative more in social relationships if you find friends aren't materializing. First off is your co-workers. Start by always asking someone to go to lunch when you go. Then ask them if they want to get drinks after work etc. Don't limit yourself, asking all of your friendly peers. Choose activities that are repeated and be consistent (gym, workout class, rec league, pottery class, whatever). The key is that the activities are repeated, so you'll see the same people over and over again. If you get along well with anyone, go out of your way to ask for their number or whatever and ask if they'd want to get a drink. Making new friends can be a lot like dating. It can be a little intimidating, but it is so worth it. Having good friends makes it all worth it.
^ This.
The important line here is that you have to be the one that takes initiative. You don't have friends sitting around you automatically, in the same place in life, doing mostly the same activities and engaging in effectively the same career (high school or college student). You now have to create these friendships yourself and actively be the one maintaining them. They slip away quickly if you're not on top of them either. So, get out there and try hard.
Additionally, just sign up for activities that are interesting to you. Take up makeup, or volleyball, or bodybuilding, or listening to Jazz, or chess, or coding, or poker, or mahjong, or whatever you might want to do. Many or all of those activities will certainly lead you to making new friends.
The best part and worst part about being an adult is everything is up to you. There's no guide-path like there was for college or high school. Good luck and make those friends!
I'm in college atm ... I have been completely tunnel visioned into IB. I have a non-existant social life atm; only thing holding me together is that I know when I talked to girls in the past a lot of them were super receptive to my flirting so I feel like in the future when I hopefully have room to breathe I can get back out there. But yeah, I definitely have to consume a metric ton amount of caffiene a day to function pretty much.
When I was recruiting I obviously knew the drill but I can assure you that what got me the job was connecting with the interviewers. Don't restrain yourself to 0 social life, always have some fun (personally would make it 2/5 social life, something but not great).
Grades? You can make it with a 3.1 GPA.
That party @ your friends house? You can only go there once
This is me rn bro, I started this month off-cycle and I know no one in NYC. That's just how it is lol.
It fucking sucks
dude what sucks is that there's no place to meet people, like yeah I could hit up a bar alone but that looks sus as fuck lmfao no matter how confident you seem to most people
When I was an analyst, I became really good friends with people in my analyst class (both my group and others).
This ultimately led to me having a larger friend group because naturally you make friends with their friends from college and the city (and vice versa)
The one big thing is you have to be proactive about making friendships as an adult. Don’t wait and think they will magically develop without work. Life is so much different after college (pros and cons)
College is designed to promote friendships and interactions.
There are dorms / residence halls / Greek life / social clubs that you readily join.
Theres a set routine in terms of courses that promotes interaction in and out of the room.
People are still finding themselves and actively looking for a social network so there more proactive and open to friendships.
College also on some level serves as a filtering mechanism for your friend group. Presumably, if you attend a good school, while people may differ in terms of life experiences and socioeconomic background, on average they’re highly motivated to succeed
Post-college is different because people are at different stages of their lives. People are more set in their ways. People have additional responsibilities and time is a lot more precious in terms of how you allocate it. You have to make an added effort to filter through social groups to figure out where you want to fit in because the volume of interactions can increase tremendously in a city like New York.
The beauty of post-college is having money and the ability to afford a variety of different experiences that can expose you to different kinds of people…once you have time to do it haha
As shitty as the analyst experience can be, there is something to be said about the ease to which you can bond with other highly motivated individuals going through the same thing. Im an MD now and some of my closest friends are from my analyst class; I then had the opportunity to make friends with their friends and likewise