There has been several times in my life where I found that I was running with a skeleton crew of friends. Some of those times were very painful. Out of those periods of darkness, I was able to grow by self reflecting and making adjustments as needed.
During my 20s I shedded a group of friends where we bonded over our “men problems .” They went on to marry their mates whereas I broke up with mine.
Out of that pain, I learned to become comfortable being alone and started doing the things I wanted to do solo. I found it freeing to not have to compromise with someone about restaurants or movies. I gain a better sense of my personal interests.
By the time I turned 30, I had a new group of friends that I gained from work, church, and school. But by my mid thirties I changed jobs and and moved and shed friends again. This time, I looked to volunteer and church activities to build up my crew. Here’s a great site to match your interest to volunteer needs.
http://www.volunteermatch.org/
Approaching my 40s, my life, priorities and interests changed and there again was another shift in my BFF pool. I became a mother. After I had my daughter, friends that I’ve had for decades were gone and in their place were new budding relationships with other single moms or mom’s from my daughters play dates. This change did not occur over night and for a short time, I felt lonely and did not know what to do with my free time since I was out of sync with my old friends. During this time I looked into meetup.com and monitored groups based on common interest. However, soon my social calendar was full again. What did this transformation look like for me? My daughter asking for play dates with her friends from school and ballet, starting up conversations with other moms at the playground and indoor play areas.
What I think has my greatest strength in helping me handling the dark times was taking the time early on to get to know my self,define my personal interests while learning to enjoy my own company. That took me being courageous enough to step out of my comfort Zone and try new things, go to movie and dinner by myself.