How to Make and Keep Friendships When You Work from Home

Image source: Photo by Pixabay

In the past couple of blog posts, I’ve been singing the praises of my newfound remote freedom as a freelancer. Being your own boss and making your own rules, well, rules. But there is one big downside: It can be quite lonely walking down the freelance road. I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship, and, as I get older, the many forks in the road I’ve had to navigate have led to paths where it is not as easy as it used to be when I was younger to make friends.

Work was one place that facilitated easy friendships. Working 17 years at the same company with essentially the same group of people meant that I had a built-in friendship network. We suffered the same work slings and arrows together, watched each other get married, have kids, go through family tragedies. We had built-in after-work drinks partners and dinner companions.

For me, it was a boon for companionship, especially because I had moved all the way from California to Massachusetts after meeting my husband. I had left my college and family network behind and had to start anew. The work friendships I had got me through those initial culture shocks and helped me to feel like I was starting to fit into this strange New England landscape.

Having my child was another fork in the road that narrowed my friendships a bit. I’m not the most social person, so I never made a big thing about joining mother’s groups or setting up playdates. And, so again, work kept my social life humming while I navigated early motherhood.

Of course, now that I’m remote, I have seen that steady work companionship mostly evaporate. It wasn’t a huge shock, mostly because of the pandemic. We were already not going out for dinner and drinks, and we hadn’t done so for about three years. Toward the end of the pandemic, when we all started feeling a bit more comfortable going out to restaurants, I started a small monthly dinner group, where I invited folks to meet for local dinners. It was a standing invitation with no pressure to go. Folks dropped in when they could, and some of us would meet separately for lunch or breakfast.

I found that to be the key to keeping up those connections. Put in that invite and keep it going even if some months no one shows up at all.

The other key thing I’ve done is to say yes to invites, even if I’m feeling like I don’t want to go.

I had one colleague reach out to me after a long period of no contact. We kept just missing each other, but she kept trying to connect. Once we made that connection, she invited me to lunch, and I said yes. I wasn’t super sure about going because I was so comfortable in my own daily routine, but I said yes. Of course, schedules kept misaligning, but we both kept saying yes, and now we’ve got a monthly call that we do, and it’s been so wonderful to have that friendly connection to look forward to. I’ve had other colleagues reach out to have lunch or have a phone chat, and even though I’m not a huge phone person, I’ve said yes, and it has made a huge difference in my friendships.

Our current culture doesn’t make it super easy to make and to keep friends. I read Robert D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community way back when it came out in 2001. He talks about the collapse of social capital and social connectivity, and of course he wrote this before the rise of social media, which seems determined to give us all a fake sense of connection without ever really allowing us to have deep, meaningful, and real connections with people. Next on my new reading list is Lane Moore’s You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Friendships as an Adult. I’m excited to see new tips for this skill that we don’t learn in school or at work.

I have found that making connections and friendships when you’re older takes work. But it is so worth the effort!