Making friends as an adult is hard, and I get asked about it more than I get asked about hosting.
Here's the thing. I think the best way to meet interesting people is to become someone doing something interesting yourself. And the lowest bar for that is hosting a decent event.
That's my whole answer, and it's why my book list here is short. Two of these are books I've actually recommended out loud. The rest come from everybody else's lists, and I've marked them so you know the difference.
The two I actually recommend
1. The 2-Hour Cocktail Party (my book)
My book has "cocktail party" in the title, but it's really a book about making friends.
Everybody is competing with a lot of different things for attention. As we get older, we're a little more protective of our time and our calendars. So the best way to meet people who are very interesting, or very successful, or very smart, whatever that is to you, is to be someone who is doing something interesting yourself.
I've found the best way to be interesting is to host a well-run event. Almost anyone can do it, because the bar is so low for hosting a good meetup or a happy hour. Add a little structure, facilitate, make introductions. That's how you add value immediately to a large number of people.
You could climb Mount Everest or run some ultramarathons instead. But the bar is so low to host a simple happy hour.
Read it free here, or buy it on Amazon.
2. Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam (and the movie, Join or Die)
There is a friendship recession. There is a loneliness epidemic. It has only gotten worse over the last five years.
I'm not an expert on why. But I'd point to digital saturation, remote work, and habits changing after COVID.
Robert Putnam saw a lot of this coming in Bowling Alone. His idea is that the joining phenomenon is dying out. People stopped joining things.
I'll be honest with you, I watched the movie first. It's on Netflix and it's called Join or Die. It's got a little bit of a political bent to it, but to the extent that it sticks to the book and gives an updated thesis, I do recommend it. And if you want to read the book, you should definitely read the book.
Grab the free 2-page party checklist.
The friendship books everyone else recommends
I searched for the best books on adult friendship and read what came back. These five come up constantly. I'm listing them for the full picture, not because I've read every one.
3. We Should Get Together by Kat Vellos
Daniel Stillman, who hosts The Conversation Factory podcast, compared my book to this one on his show. His framing was that mine is a single well-honed bullet and Kat's covers a broader palette of adult friendship. It's the book people name first when the topic comes up.
4. Platonic by Marisa Franco
Marisa Franco is a psychologist, and this is the research-heavy one. Attachment styles, why we wrongly assume people don't like us, and why somebody has to go first. It gets cited on nearly every friendship list out there.
5. Making Friends as an Adult For Dummies by Rebecca Greene
Yes, a Dummies book. Rebecca Greene is a mental health therapist, and reviewers like it for the concrete steps: building a new social circle, turning acquaintances into actual friends, and letting go of the ones that aren't working.
6. The Friendship Formula by Caroline Millington
Written in plain, relatable language, and the one most often recommended for introverts who find the whole thing exhausting.
7. Friending by Gina Handley-Schmitt
This one covers the parts other books skip: keeping a friendship alive when your lives diverge, repairing one after a fight, and deciding when to walk away.
What I'd actually do
Read one of these. Then go host something.
Reading about friendship feels productive, and it isn't. The friends I've made as an adult came from putting a date on the calendar and inviting people, over and over, until the same faces started showing up.
If you want the tactics instead of the reading list, I wrote up how to make new friends and how to run a speed friending event.
And I keep a separate list of the best books on hosting parties if that's the part you want to get good at.
