Discover the Path to Friendship
Whether you’re a kid or an adult, making—and keeping—friends
can be really hard!
Sure, when you’re a kid, it may have felt like you were always being forced into situations with a group of other kids—school, extracurricular activities, even family reunions—there never seemed to be an end to the places where you could end up where you were grouped with everyone else around your age, and everyone was expected to “play and be nice”.
Sometimes, you and the other kids might find some common ground or similar interests, and it may have helped new friendships to bloom. It’s possible you may still keep in touch with some of those childhood friends to this day.
But as adults, especially for those of us navigating life with ADHD, friendships can feel like a complex puzzle without a solution.
Discussing friendships on The ADHD Podcast
Recently, on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast, Pete and I had the pleasure of exploring the topic adults friendships and ADHD with our good friend, Caroline Maguire, a brilliant coach and author who seems to have a knack for understanding how some of the pieces of the puzzle of adult friendships fit together.
Caroline shared some fantastic insights on why forming friendships as adults is challenging—especially when you live with ADHD. Through our conversation, we discovered a lot of great tips and strategies for finding and holding on to new friends, including a handy set of steps to creating new relationships through something Caroline explained as ‘The Path to Friendship’.
Navigating ‘The Path to Friendship’
Many ADHDers have difficulty grasping time and how it flows. We often refer to this as “time blindness”. Time blindness can often lead to moments of impatience when you may have expected something to already be done, when in reality, you may only just be getting started.
It turns out, creating and building new friendships can often feel the same way. You just want to get to the end—the being friends part—and you don’t necessarily want to go through the work that needs to go into it first, before you can get to the end.
Luckily, our good friend, Caroline Maguire, has put together a list of steps or building blocks that are often necessary when looking to build the foundation of a new friendship.
Participation
This is where you may decide to join a social club or group; somewhere you are bound to meet new people.Shared Experience
Going through a shared experience can give you something to connect with someone else. It could be the place where you are participating in a club or event, or it could also be a shared interest that you share with someone else. It is a great way to instant conversation topics—outside of “what do you do for a living” and talking about the weather.Regular connections build trust
If you are seeing the same person regularly, maybe someone in a yoga class or while volunteering at a shelter, you can begin to depend on them to be there to continue building and growing your friendship.Bonding and Meeting outside of your shared activity
As you continue to connect and find similar interests, a bond begins to grow. This becomes a lot stronger, once you take your connection outside of the place where it started. This could be making time to meet for coffee or scheduling a meet-up to participate in a shared interest together.
Destination: Friendship
As you follow along ‘The Path of Friendship’, eventually, as each step of the process flows from one into the next, you may find your bond and trust growing in that other person. You may find yourself feeling comfortable confiding more personal information with the other person, or even seeking them out for help or advice.
That’s friendship! If you have found yourself in a friend-style relationship with another person where each person is participating, and you can find a level of trust and support in each other—you have created a solid friendship!
As you may have guessed, it can take time and patience to get to that friend stage. You may even find yourself frustrated or wanting to give up.
While I truly believe it’s important for us to have strong friendships we can rely on, it doesn’t mean you should try to force something that isn’t working or doesn’t feel right. The most important thing is to make sure you are getting out just as much as you are putting in—a one-sided friendship isn’t a real friendship.
If you aren’t ready to dive in to the deep end of in-person social gatherings, you might try connecting with others in an online space that allows you to connect with others without feeling overwhelmed.
And, while I might be biased, I certainly have to recommend our Taking Control Discord community. We have some of the best members in our community, who want nothing more that to connect with others who understand what it means to go through life each day with ADHD. We would love to welcome you into that open and accepting community as well!
Thank you for your time and attention,
Nikki
Looking for some new people to connect with? Join us in the Taking Control Discord Community!
Unsure about Discord and looking for some guidance? Send us a message—We’re happy to help!