By Erik Newton

My best friend of the last 57 years had one obvious advantage over everyone else: he lived right next door when we were 3 years old. We were the same age and in the same class for years. We walked to school together, played almost every day, and had sleepovers a few times a month. He often picked me first for recess football, even though I was usually one of the last kids picked by everyone else.

We spent an enormous amount of time together. Every hour and every activity built memories that quietly told us, "We must be good friends." Since we were little boys, we did not have girlfriends yet. We did not have jobs, mortgages, or endless distractions. Our job was to play and make friends.

Thirty years later, we both had careers, wives, and families. We kept many of the friends we already had, but making new ones became much harder.

Converting acquaintances into actual friends was a challenge. Most of the people I met at work turned out to be allies more than friends. They faded quickly when one of us changed companies. Neighbors were pleasant, but families moved every few years and the relationship usually disappeared.

The biggest difference were time and frequency. As children, friendship happened because proximity and repetition were built into our lives. School, sports, and summer vacations forced us together. The conditions for friendship were already there.

As adults, those conditions disappear. Careers, spouses, children, and endless entertainment compete for our attention. Meeting people isn't difficult, but turning acquaintances into friends often is. We sometimes romanticize childhood friendship and imagine there was something magical about it. There wasn't. We simply spent hundreds of hours together and fortified the friendship foundations.

How Friendships Grow

Friendship still grows the same way it always has. It grows through shared experiences, trust, familiarity, and repeated meetings. The difference is that adults must create those conditions intentionally in less time together.

That's why making friends as an adult feels so hard because the environment changed. The solution isn't to become more interesting or more charismatic. The solution is to make more time for friends and friendship.

Get together more often in the beginning. Don't wait three months between lunches. Invite people over. Join activities that repeat. Be the one who reaches out again.

Most friendships are not discovered; they are developed.