I’ve discovered, as an adult, that having friends as an adult requires being willing to sacrifice one’s solitude.

I know that sounds obvious, but it’s less obvious than it first appears.

As a kid, one’s solitude is not within one’s own control. One is forced to go to school, forced to see their parents, forced into contact with family and (when the parents arrange play dates) other kids.

As a kid, one can be a solitude-seeker, and still have friends from all the times they are involuntarily forced into fellowship with others.

But as an adult, one actually gains control over one’s own solitude. One can just lock the front door and say no to the world.

At work, one is protected by HR rules which say if you don’t want to talk to someone about personal stuff, you don’t have to.

An adult has access to isolation in a way a kid does not. Therefore an adult must choose to sacrifice their solitude if they want to make friends.

It’s not the solitude that’s the key word, it’s the sacrifice. Sacrifice meaning to actively kill it. To take a perfectly good evening of being comfortably alone, and to give it up and never get it back in order to go out into the world.