Here's How to Find Your People
By Danielle Braff
We turned to Lane Moore, a comedian, actor, musician, creator of the comedy show Tinder Live, and the author of the new book You Will Find Your People, to explain exactly what we need to do to find friends.
Q. How do you suggest adults find their people?
A big part of that process really is about examining who you are, what you truly need, what your attachment style is and why you’ve been drawn to the wrong people in the past. Once you do that, I recommend taking the people who you have small conversations with when you’re at the dog park or at the grocery store and furthering the conversation to see if they’d like to get together some time for a drink. So many of these connections we have in the world have the potential to be deeper if we take that leap.
Q. How do you know that someone is your person?
I know someone is my person when I feel truly safe with them, safe to be all of myself. Safe to be happy or sad or angry or struggling; safe to not always be funny or entertaining. Sometimes I get sad, hopeless. These are such human experi- ences, but so many people want you to always be entertaining for them and to always be light, and that’s not a true friendship to me. I also know someone is my person when they do what they say they’ll do, and they never make empty promises to me. That’s a huge one.
Q. Why is it harder to make friends as an adult?
We don’t have a ton of people our own age whom we see every day, so we have to actively seek out new friends in a way we didn’t have to back then. Also, I know for so many of us, myself included, it’s scary to try again with someone new after we’ve been disappointed and hurt before. It takes time to develop intimacy and trust, and it’s scary to be that vulnerable again with a new person.