This is common in the U.S. too. I can't begin to tell you how many threads I've encountered where people go "How do you make friends after college?" or studies that show that people lose friends over time and hardly gain any after college, on average.
But, I don't think it has to be that way in the US. I myself went from having few friends to having more than I can keep up with, thanks to a period of two years where I went to a ton of Meetup.com events, writers groups, board game groups, and the like. Generally speaking I just had to keep showing up, make a little small talk, and then eventually people knew me and trusted me enough to start inviting me to things outside of it.
And I'm an introvert at heart. I still struggle to talk to people outside of these events and I still get exhausted by social activities.
Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle (also there's some personalities that are either very abrasive, self-defeatist, or otherwise off-putting, and those people struggle as well). I find it's harder to keep up with myself now that I have a long term girlfriend and a puppy, but I still make an effort.
I wonder if that's possible in Japan as well, or if that's not even really a valid avenue over there.
> Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle
As far as "making an effort" goes, I can only speak for myself (in the sense that it's not worth judging whether other people are "trying" from their appearance), but it's definitely pretty difficult to get past that initial "social circle" restriction.
For example, I've worked at the same company for a few years, gone out for drinks with a few coworkers... attempts at casual chats between work, invitations to stuff beyond work, etc. are all politely rebuffed.
I've also done airsoft before; with the exception of one guy who's also actively looking for friends, nobody is interested in doing anything beyond airsoft. As far as I can guess, they're in that group to do airsoft, not to make friends or do other things with those people -- they just want to do airsoft.
As I said in the beginning though, this is just me and I don't think it's fair for me to judge whether other people are "making an effort," but my own efforts seem to indicate that it's a problem beyond that.
Well there are certainly friends where I mostly just do board games nights or talk about board games with. However, board games are inherently social and you tend to talk about other things while playing the games usually. In fact, I count some of those people among my closest friends now. It's also my primary hobby (in fact I design board games now), so I naturally spend a lot of time thinking about them anyway.
So part of it may be the activity. I've noticed it's been easier or harder to make friends depending on what it is. Dinners seem to work well, movies less so (although if you pair the movie with dinner it can be good). Board games are nice because if you don't really feel like chatting you can just be quiet and focus on playing the game. I bet other sports can be that way too. I remember Pool and Darts feeling that way at times. Trivia nights at pubs sorta worked as well for the same reason.
As for people at work.... I'm friendly with coworkers, and from time to time I will do something with them outside of work, but I've noticed that coworker friendships tend not to stick very well. I've actually found my first coworker friendship that I think might stick in over 20 years, and that's because we both have dogs and set up times to go to the dog park together (he also helped me find my dog when he went missing for a week).
I actually used to feel pretty cynical as well about making friends because I had such bad luck turning coworkers into friends. I stopped trying there a while ago.
I've also had bad luck at "Networking" events. Too many people are just there trying to find the next person to hire them or work with or pass their business card to. I have started having some luck at Hacker nights, though, again because I found one I just keep showing up to, and it's pretty low key.
And for the most part I didn't reach out too aggressively. I mainly just showed up to events, said hi to other regulars, listened in on some conversations, say something here and there, and showed up often enough to become a regular myself. I didn't start getting invites to private events by some people until I'd seen them at 10-20 events previously sometimes.
Spot-on. I'm working on this myself after making a significant move to a big city from the mid-west. Never having started from a zero friend base is tough. While our culture doesn't always make it easy to make new friends, it's also very permissive about breaking molds. I'm constantly going to different meetups and group events and trying to say 'Yes' to every invite. Even other new people to the city aren't doing this but I don't get ostracized for being different. Occasionally people are even willing to tag along.
I had this exact trouble, and though friendly, didn't know how to tell how to make closer friends. I so wanted, but was so awkward and made social errors. I lucked into finding a bunch of accepting geeks in LA and then SF so I could err in their presence and become friends with some of them, gradually. But even then, knowing how to be closer and accepted as friends was hard. At last, one solution presented itself, through a lover. Being able to talk about myself, being vulnerable, sharing myself, allowed other apes to share about themselves too more, and feel closer. I now can make friends better than I used to. And miss all my friends in the Bay!
But, I don't think it has to be that way in the US. I myself went from having few friends to having more than I can keep up with, thanks to a period of two years where I went to a ton of Meetup.com events, writers groups, board game groups, and the like. Generally speaking I just had to keep showing up, make a little small talk, and then eventually people knew me and trusted me enough to start inviting me to things outside of it.
And I'm an introvert at heart. I still struggle to talk to people outside of these events and I still get exhausted by social activities.
Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle (also there's some personalities that are either very abrasive, self-defeatist, or otherwise off-putting, and those people struggle as well). I find it's harder to keep up with myself now that I have a long term girlfriend and a puppy, but I still make an effort.
I wonder if that's possible in Japan as well, or if that's not even really a valid avenue over there.