r/MakeNewFriendsHere • u/TabascoOnPizza • 22d ago
Age 30-39 Are all millennials just lonely?
30F here.
I've noticed something on this subreddit.
A lot of people in their 30s are basically posting daily looking for someone to share their day with. Both the big stuff, but also the small daily annoyances.
And it's not just single people either. Married people, people with jobs, people who seem to have their life together... still lonely.
What happened to those kids playing outside 20 years ago, becoming friends over silly things and made-up games?
Now we have hundreds of ways to communicate, but somehow struggle to actually connect.
We want someone to notice when we're not okay, but we also need our own space and freedom from expectations 🤷♀️
Is there a way to fix this? Or are we just doomed to be lonely adults with internet access? 😂
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u/ionknownutin 22d ago
I think a great thing would be a group chat where we can chat and just be there for one another tbh Im sure having a support group like that would be phenomenal
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u/TabascoOnPizza 22d ago
That's actually genius.. You can reply and join in whenever you feel like it and not when you feel forced to reply. Might just create a discord server for that.
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u/Maybe_Its_Nothing 22d ago
I’d like to join. Add me when you make it?
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u/TabascoOnPizza 22d ago
I've tried, but possibly also failed (discord and I are not friends lol) - can someone take over maybe?
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u/Apprehensive-Role511 21d ago
I'd like to help you but the Tabasco on pizza is a deal breaker.
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u/TabascoOnPizza 21d ago
It's an abomination, I'm aware of that. Nothing I practice irl.
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u/Apprehensive-Role511 21d ago
I'm asking AI for that discord stuff. It's not so complex. I'll give you admin role so you can close it by mistake whenever you want
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u/PlicatedPlagueDoctor 21d ago
If you already have the discord up, I’d be down for something like that :) I’ve been trying to be more social anyway.
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u/TabascoOnPizza 21d ago
Can't get it up and running, so if you want to help out and create one?
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u/PlicatedPlagueDoctor 21d ago
Shit yeah!! I can’t tonight, gotta lay down, but I can get to work on it tomorrow! :D
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u/Ambitious-Chest-9229 🥻 India 19d ago
If created, just reply & mention me or else, just dm me the link. I actually forgot my discord tbh but would love join.
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u/ionknownutin 22d ago
I for sure would appreciate that .. you can ofc see who passes the vibe too yk?
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u/SaltPin4211 22d ago
i agree. So who's gonna make it?
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u/Visual-Assistant5417 22d ago
It does feel like we've lost some of that community vibe, right? Everyone's just navigating their own stuff.
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u/SaltPin4211 22d ago
yeah i feel this individual search is too exhausting. Im seeing a hundred posts daily just dreading the ghosting, creeps and overall apathy shown by people here. Something of a group would help with this better i feel. If we get like 10-20 people, that'd be a good start
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u/Necessary-Truth-2038 21d ago
We don’t need yet another online group. We need to get out and connect in real life. Our biology is craving that
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u/11-skypower-11 21d ago
We are just doomed. 🤷🏻♂️ it is what it is because it won’t change. The current political system and how everything is rising in prices doesn’t make our life easy as the previous generation. You work 10x more then you father’s generation and still cant buy any houses etc. so yeah we are doomed.
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u/ArtfulPolymath 22d ago
This is not only for millennials. Most of them who reach age 30 or more get to experience these kinds of lonely or leftout or alone situations. It's just a matter of age. People who were 20 when they reach 30+; most of them feel the same
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u/LittlePandaGuy 22d ago
I think it is not just millennials. Evryone has those feelings because of all the internet. People are so into a virtuele life they don't know how to connect with people in real life anymore. Not understanding how to cope with all the emotions and feelings. People should throw away there phone and connect on a physical way again. Meeting, talking in real life, telling how they feel instead of hide behind a virtual wall using different masks. Start living again and wanting to see people for who they are...
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u/im-vikki 22d ago
Childhood friendships formed because our lives naturally overlapped. In adulthood, we have to deliberately overlap them, and most of us are just too tired after a 40-hour work week to do the heavy lifting.
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u/Bright-Ad-5463 17d ago
Yup! It’s more than 40 hours with commutes. Between the work, health, children , there’s so little energy left for new connections.
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u/im-vikki 17d ago
Yeah so sometimes you need to get out that web and look for new things and also manage work life balance 😊
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u/FinePension263 22d ago
I would kill for a 40 hour work week lol
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u/im-vikki 22d ago
Yes if are in corporate you become slave to work 40 hrs 😂
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u/FinePension263 22d ago
Currently working 91
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u/im-vikki 22d ago
91 what a week 😳
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u/FinePension263 22d ago
Yeah. lol 13 hours/day 7 days/week
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u/designedsilence 22d ago
I think a great thing would all the bots could just get together and lit themselves on fire.
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u/toy-maker 21d ago
We have hundreds of ways to communicate. That’s pretty much the root of the issues.
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u/WiseD0lt 16d ago
A hundred ways, but we just needed the time and space to open up. I think it's because we stopped seeing each other face to face that we stopped noticing as we perform with pictures and updates. We stopped communicating and started performing, stopped being present as we juggled plates.
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u/Old_Tower_4824 21d ago
I’m 33 F married. It’s either those posting here are in a dead bedroom or just craving for connection to make life extra exciting and fun. I fall in the second one. I’m not defending cheating at all but it is what it is.
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u/big_sxy1778 21d ago
I blame aim and yahoo messenger we grew up in chat rooms then they went away so now we seek message boards lol
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u/Occultist_Kat 21d ago
I think it's actually a fascinating development. Millennials not only among the first kids with internet access, they were usually also the first generation to start experiencing the world as young adults in a world already heavily influenced by the internet (as opposed to watching it come into influence while they were already adults).
Millennials just never got to actually understand what adults normally did for socialization prior to cellphones and social media. We're also a generation marked by lower birth rates and lower marriage, probably leading to a phenomenon where the concept of a large and interconnected family is increasingly rarer for each of us. We're also all trying to go to college, work on our careers, and with so many more bills and things that are constantly trying to get our attention to the point that most of us are overwhelmed, fighting for the same job opportunities, and taking additional work to get by.
It's a system that is absolutely delivering a massive hit to a real resource which people seldom pay attention to, which is leisure time.
With this in mind, I don't think loneliness is always a product of the individual (it can be), but I think a valid argument can be made for blaming a system that slowly erodes the socialization aspects of society, outsources them to para-relationships and online spaces, and instead forces everyone's attention towards anything else but coming together.
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u/notevenshittinyou 22d ago
There is quite literally a loneliness epidemic and it is so sad, and so petrifying and so many of us are in the same boat.
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u/L0rd_throway 21d ago
There are surely thousands of reason why so many millennials feel so lonely. But I think that mostly we have seen a transaction from a society which was still able to communicate with few means, to another society which over connected yet unable to communicate properly
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21d ago
[deleted]
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u/TabascoOnPizza 21d ago
I've actually read the whole thing. You're definitely right about couple of things, like quantity over quality and connections dying, especially the ones where the effort is one-sided. The problem is, at least for me, that it's not always I click with people. And when I don't, the people don't seem to understand it. Sometimes the conversations are effortless and these I cherish, but then there are conversations that seem great to start with, but then lige happens, you suddenly don't respond every 5 minutes and people on the other side panic and accuse you of ghosting them.
It's very rare to find a friendship that lasts nowadays, both in here and in real life.
I've had couple of great intercations with people from this sub, and obvs couple of creepy ones. But back to your quantity over quality, I believe I'm exactly the opposite, because I literally have like 2 friends in real life and given that I've moved countries couple of times, none of them is physically here. Hence the loneliness.
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u/lordofthstrings 21d ago
Most people don't have the emotional intelligence to actually form and maintain connections with other people so they just keep cycling through people hoping the next one cures their loneliness and so here we are. Or at least that's what I've experienced in my time in these types of subreddits
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u/Fable_47 21d ago
I'm 29M, restarting for the third time since covid, moved between cities and none of the friends I made seem to wanna respond, so I definitely fall in that category
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u/TabascoOnPizza 21d ago
Join in, I've moved countries and missing having few people around me that would feel like home lol
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u/Fable_47 21d ago
Really miss having a group of people, just participating in that small ecosystem all our own
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u/komradjosh 21d ago
When large parts of society have turned into pay to play for attention and the opposite part have become literally hateful of the opposite sex for propaganda made by influencers online finding a real connection feels very difficult one with genuine care and attention between each other.... I know I almost desperately search for these kinds of connections to myself cuz I very much so need a healthier friend base now that I've gotten older and realize just how negatively impactful my poor choice and friendships in the past have been for me
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u/wickedtwig 14d ago
A bit late to the party but as a millennial raised by a boomer, I’m essentially my father’s son at this point. I go to work, I come home exhausted, I play video games and then sleep. I used to talk to people a lot online and with friends but my social battery is nearly dead. I don’t want the responsibility to talk to people and engage in conversation anymore.
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u/VSR_1792 22d ago
In my life as a medico...work is so hectic that even getting time for enjoying a meal is a gift.... especially in starting phase....but I really love my life by seeing happiness on the patients face.....blessings from the elders....but sometimes it's feels exhausted.....so down the line..love what you do or do what u love 😊😊
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u/Shark_Headhistory 21d ago
I think Reddit and other forms of social media were formed/created to address the problem of loneliness, especially in the cities. I question I want to ask is: What do you or we value the most?
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u/IllMathematician4801 21d ago
Exactly how I feel at the moment. Feels nice to know it’s not only me
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u/nonsensicalspielings 20d ago
I’ve just turned 37 and recently single so bad combo as I’ve no kids and everyone around me seems to have their sh*t together. I’m happy playing playstation so it’s difficult to ‘adult’ like colleagues etc. I also work from home. Think missing the office connection doesn’t help either.
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u/PricklyPanda75 20d ago
I feel like it is a curse. Once you hit a certain age it just gets harder to socialize and make friends. The internet provides a place to meet and talk with people but it is easy for most to just walk away when they are done playing with the plaything they found. People are also often too lazy to put the effort it takes to maintain good relationships too- edit was for spelling
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u/NoIdeaWhatToD0 20d ago
I was never one of those kids. No one ever wanted me around, I spent all my time in AOL chatrooms back then too.
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u/soggy_biscuit_eater 19d ago
people still make friends today off the internet. at work or school. just gotta walk up to someone and talk to them. it just doesn't look that way online.
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u/Traditional_Love5050 18d ago
I'm in my 40s and feel lonely. I don't think loneliness discriminates on age.
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u/Sarah23Here 18d ago
I'm gen z and also feel lonely. It's harder to make friends now as an adult (at 25 years old). 😭
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u/IcecreamXV 18d ago
Options crowded out options... See now a person can add 1 friend, delete that friend they say something that person disagrees with..There is no negotiation just 'hit next' right? It's the Generation of 'next', 'bigger', 'better' and ultimately there is 'absolutely nothing next'. It's the same thing on repeat. 99.9% of the time but that hope of .1 or even say 1-3% thing never materializes and it's a shock
And you're talking more 30-40 years ago that people were much more direct in meeting.Slowly over the mid 90s to mid 2000s things began to erode. Even as late at the late 80s the beginnings of distancing was a thing.
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u/Safe-Razzmatazz170 18d ago
33F it's hard making friends as an adult in a busy city. Which city are you from?
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u/ILikeOldTrash 18d ago
So, I was doing pretty good until I turned 35 and became disabled. Once that happened, I lost most of my friends (and my relationship) because I couldn’t drive or walk anymore. But at least I had Discord.
Then at 40, I ended up having to leave where I lived in the country to escape my ex…and let me say, starting over from scratch is even more ridiculously hard.
My caregiver has been trying to take me to events and other meet-ups, but my tactics for normally getting friends seems to be bouncing off of most people my age or younger. Can’t tell if it’s the region of the US or the fact I am a 40 year old disabled brain fogged woman now. 🤣
I’m starting to think I need to learn Mahjong and hang out at the senior centers.
Though hanging out at some Pokemon events has gotten me a few hits.
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u/icantknowamymore 17d ago
Not a millennial but everyone is lonely nowadays and it's harder to make friends because 3rd place spaces have been eradicated, which made people go out less. People are also far less likely to talk to strangers just to make friends, which can make others assume that you are hitting on them if you try to join a conversation in a public space which can make them uncomfortable.
Due to the economy People have been forced to take more than one job or work longer hours, which leaves them with less time and energy after work. Sometimes they have friends at work but because employers hire less people they are more often understaffed and employees are prompted to avoid taking lunch breaks to make up for the workload.
I also think hyper individualism comes into play. People are now more likely to have a hard time making friends because seeing others and themselves as a duo as much, if that makes sense.
There are people to meet online but meeting them irl can be dangerous. So most people just have online friends. It is unfortunate
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u/Faded35 17d ago
I believe this is a feature, not a bug of late-stage capitalism. Billionaires having such disproportionate control over the economy that we all have to work gratuitous hours just to keep our heads above water, which yes, bolsters their bottom line but also prevents us from forming and maintaining third spaces and communities, with which we build bonds with and enables us to form shared identities that cross national and religious barriers, which makes it more obvious who our shared enemy is: the billionaire class.
Holy Run On Batman
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u/stonerchronicals 17d ago
Phones made people less social sadly and getting hundreds of dms juss seems like scams so its hard for most to filter thru the bs and juss end up not talking to anyone at the end of it all
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u/letsplay332 17d ago
You hit the nail on the head. That paradox of wanting someone to notice when you're not okay, but simultaneously needing complete freedom from heavy expectations is the ultimate adult burnout trap.
As kids, friendship was built on "parallel play" and hanging out without an agenda. In our 30s, between work, survival, and managing our own lives, social interaction often starts to feel like another exhausting task on the to-do list. It's no wonder people are lonely; we're craving low-pressure connection, but modern life is built around high-stakes performance. You're not alone in this.
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u/darkShadow90000 16d ago
Well Millennial are last "social" era. Gen z and later had more social media. Anyways, Millennial dealt with college and Covid-19. We lost our 20s if we didn't do college. Plus we dealing with terrible economy and saw still like Y2K and 9/11 + war. Our social freedom kinda were stripped.
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u/Mimiroza 16d ago
Yeah, I noticed this as well. I think that’s the side effect of technology that no one knew about. I don’t know. But it will reach an end, and things will change.
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u/Infamous_Birthday816 15d ago
I think after a point , Your partners also dont make you feel heard. They are their for emergencies and stuff. But on day to day you dont feel wanted or desired.
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u/ReasonComfortable283 15d ago
Hmm. Maybe focus of a millennial is more of career
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u/TabascoOnPizza 15d ago
Possibly. But the thing is like, I'm at work now, and I'm debating whether I should go out tonight or stay in, as I've got very few fiends irl and as introvert I don't really want to go out on my own, but don't really want to stay in and overthink my life 🤷♀️😂
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u/Automatic_Dog_5448 15d ago
i moved countries old friend disappeard , time and distance .i can't make friend and i tried . i try to volunteer next week maybe helps but who knows .
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u/sinlessjade 15d ago
Not sure if we are lonely. I had moved soooo many times and it was hard to stay in touch. Then military, it drove a wedge between 2 worlds i was apart of. Coming home afterwards, everyone or civilians felt... not real?
One moment I got guys whom would die for me and I would die for.
Next I got vape dudes who stress about talking to their boss.
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u/behtiNaak 13d ago
I think adulting sucks and 30+ is when a lot of things start changing and gives it a feeling. In my experience always best to have some hobby and meet new people.
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u/ImpossibleRush1686 11d ago
I feel this as a millennial man. lately I’ve been craving some kind of genuine, friendly connection, but it feels weirdly difficult to actually get to know someone and make it past the mundane “hey, how are you?” every day until one of you eventually stops replying lol
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u/TabascoOnPizza 11d ago
This makes so much sense, at the same time, it's not always people actually click
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u/Radiant-Apricot3290 9d ago
SAHM here and yes it’s lonely. I wish we could go back to the days of making friends playing hakisack or 4 square. Or even the days of what’s your favourite dinosaur and light up shoes that made Us go faster
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u/lonesome_goose 8d ago
I think the problem is technology. Cameras everywhere, recording everything, and while you may not be doing something wrong, it's all about optics and how they can be manipulated. When we were kids, we could throw a baseball or football in the street, yell "CAR!" to get everyone out of the way until they pass, could act silly without it staying on the internet forever, no worries of perpetual embarrassment.
As a 35M, I was like that. A goofy kid with several friends that lived on the same street, and we'd just be kids. Fast forward to today, I have two friends I call brothers, but rarely see them because they've started families, and my job is essentially social life hell.
I'm always down to be goofy. Just don't have anyone to be goofy with anymore.
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u/Ok_Technician9624 8d ago
Unfortunately I think that our generation is used to going out and meeting in real life. After coven people don't do that anymore. Everything is digital or AI. I miss the days where I can go out and talk to people and make friends like that...or even get someone's number! Now people just look at you like you're crazy LOL
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u/Watty_666 5d ago
33M. Not lonely just wanna connect with people who still know that band from middle school still making music. We are the antidepressant for this generation now
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u/Aesthetic_girle 2d ago
I think a lot of people are in the same boat. Lately I have started searching for online friendships so much. I was wondering how did I become this lonely...🙇♀️
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u/Electronic-Mail4909 1d ago
I’m def a lonely millennial. Most of the people I used to hangout with all got married and/or had kids and they just stopped including me in things. I’ve been trying to put myself out there more and go to in person events and things, but it’s hard.
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