How to make – and keep – friends
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Friendship is vital for our health and happiness, but we don’t always prioritize it. The Optimist’s Maggie Penman goes on a journey to make new friends and learn why so many of us are craving connection.
Today’s show was produced by Maggie Penman, with help from Ted Muldoon, who also mixed the show. It was edited by Allison Klein.
For more stories from The Optimist, subscribe to our newsletter. If you want to hear more stories like this on “Post Reports,” send Maggie an email at maggie.penman@washpost.com.
If you want to check out Billy Baker's book, it's called “We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Ella Hey. On this holiday Monday, we've got a rerun of a great episode for you. |
| 0:08.2 | And it comes with an idea for the start of the year, making a new friend. |
| 0:17.0 | I know that for a lot of us, myself included, maintaining friendships as an adult can be hard. |
| 0:23.9 | We don't always prioritize it. |
| 0:26.3 | And where do you even find new friends? |
| 0:29.4 | Where do you go? |
| 0:30.4 | What do you do? |
| 0:31.0 | What do you talk to them about? |
| 0:32.4 | How do you make the time? |
| 0:34.2 | Wouldn't it be easier to just stay home? |
| 0:40.7 | Well, it turns out that friendships are incredibly important for our health and happiness. So today, I'm going to turn things over to Maggie |
| 0:46.7 | Penman. She's a reporter for The Optimist, and she has some advice on how to make and keep |
| 0:52.8 | friends. Here's the show. |
| 0:54.9 | Okay, I am walking up to this event for Real Roots to meet a group of women who are looking to make friends. |
| 1:16.6 | And I'm feeling a little nervous. |
| 1:20.6 | On a recent Thursday night in downtown Washington, D.C., I went to a bar to make new friends. I haven't been on a first date in like 10 years, but I kind of have that, like, about to go |
| 1:37.3 | on a first date feeling. |
| 1:40.2 | I actually don't think 10 years is even really long enough, because I don't think I've tried to show up at a new place just to make friends, probably since the beginning of college. |
| 1:51.6 | So, yeah, I was pretty nervous. |
| 1:54.1 | So I'm going to go inside. |
| 1:56.9 | We'll see how it goes. |
| 2:03.0 | Real Roots is an app that matches you with a group of new potential friends. |
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