Finding a female friend is actually harder than getting a date!
After over 10 years in Manhattan, I was moved up to Toronto, Canada just after 9/11 at the age of 36. Easy, I thought. I moved to about 30 different places/countries when I was young so I’ll be able to transplant easily.
Two days after I arrived here, I started doing stuff I liked to try and build friendships. I was positive and tried many different hobbies, including—taiko drumming, knitting classes, rock climbing, kayaking, cycling, singing in a choir, pottery classes, photography, contra dancing, birding, helping clean local parks, writing classes—you get the picture.
And yet, after almost 10 years in Toronto, I’ve yet to really find a best gal-pal or who I’ll call my “home team” – girlfriends with whom I can comfortably hang with a guarantee of respect, a good laugh or sympathetic ear. In fact, I recently had a friend invite her husband to our girls’ night out.
So it begs the question—how, in your 30’s and beyond, do you find girlfriends if “doing stuff” or meeting them at work isn’t working?
Here are four things I’m trying:
Tons of groups focused on tons of different interests.
Again events for interests. Ostensibly for meeting guys, but I did bump into many neat women in each event and I’ve seen women-only events now, probably to fill this very niche!
Just signed up—evidently like a Meetup group with stuff to do with the goal of “platonic female friendships”. We’ll see!
Same thing, just signed up. Feels like Meetup where you identify yourself (single mom/avid reader) and then meet circles of women in your area.
Please share your own tips—we’d all like to know!
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