https://www.reddit.com/r/sociallycharismatic/comments/1xl69lw/i_sat_alone_at_a_coffee_shop_every_saturday_for_2/
Two months of sitting in the same chair at the same time and I went from knowing nobody to having an actual social circle. Not from an app. Not from a forced networking event. From being a predictable presence in a space until the space absorbed me.
There’s a psychology term for this. Propinquity effect. People form bonds with whoever they encounter repeatedly. Not whoever they click with instantly. Not whoever shares their interests perfectly. Whoever shows up consistently in the same space over time. Proximity plus repetition equals relationship. That’s the formula.
Making friends as an adult isn’t hard because adults are less social. It’s hard because adults don’t have built-in repeated proximity anymore. School forced you to see the same people every day. Work does it for some. But outside of that you have to manufacture the repetition yourself.
Pick a place. Go at the same time. Become a regular. Let the space do the work. It’s slower than a meetup app. It’s also how every real friendship I’ve made as an adult actually started.