About Making Friends with Friendship Coach Zayne | Connectedness Podcast Ep 21 - part 1

Fernanda: Hi friends, and welcome back to Connectedness. I'm Fernanda, your host and founder of Filled Cups. This is a space where we explore what it means to grow, connect, trust ourselves, and show up authentically with each other.

Today's episode is about friendship, specifically why it can feel so hard as adults, even though we want it so deeply. My guest today is Zayne.

I actually found him randomly on Instagram, where he was talking honestly about loneliness, connection, and the skills that we're never really taught when it comes to building friendships. What stood out to me wasn't just what he was saying, but how real it felt.

Zayne has spent a lot of time thinking about why so many of us crave connection yet feel awkward, anxious, or stuck when it comes to actually forming friendships. We are going to talk about why adult friendships are so challenging, what gets in the way emotionally and socially, and how we can start building stronger, more meaningful connections in a way that feels authentic.

Zayne, welcome to the Connectedness podcast. Would you mind giving us a little intro, and then talking about your relationship with friendship?

Zayne: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I have always found friendships to be such a rich topic.

Growing up, I was the type of person who really valued friendships. I wanted to be with my friends as much as I could. There was always a bit of a block there for me, though, where I felt as though I couldn't connect to my friends as deeply as I wanted to.

I remember in grade eight—we were like 13 or 14—there was this app that came out where you could ask people questions anonymously or leave comments to them anonymously. I had this desire for all my friends to have this app just so I could share compliments, how much I cared about them, and how much I loved them.

It's really interesting because I never felt fully comfortable at the time sharing that normally to them. Friendships have been such a central part of my life to the point where, when I became certified as a life coach five years ago, I knew I needed to help people with their friendships.

I became a friendship coach, and now I help people make new friends, uplevel their current friendships, and move through friendship breakups and challenges. Growing up as someone who was really shy, it was difficult. But now I feel like I've really stepped into the capability of creating friendships wherever I go, and it's really powerful.

Fernanda: You mentioned that when you were younger, you wished you could have given people compliments anonymously through that app. Was there a kind of blockage where you felt like you couldn't give them compliments directly? Were you able to dig into that as you matured into your life coaching?

Zayne: Absolutely. I think for me, there was this sense of it not being normal or conventional for boys and teenagers our age to share compliments so fully and in such an expressive way with each other.

The app almost became a safeguard where I could be vulnerable without actually having to be vulnerable with them directly. And as we know, vulnerability is such a central part of forming those deep connections.

There was a really huge block between me and the friends that I had. My desire to express how I felt and how much I cared about them was unmet for the longest time.

I would actually say it was never met with that specific group of friends. I had to find other friends with whom I was comfortable enough to express how I felt about them, and those are my friends today.

Fernanda: In your story, when did you realize that friendships don't come naturally for everyone?

Zayne: I realized it for myself at a very early age. I was shy, but I also had a desire to express, love, give, and do all these great things with my friends, yet there was a block there.

A lot of people experience that today where they want to have those friends they can host parties with, be there for, and drive to the airport at 3:00 a.m. for. But there's a block when it comes to expressing themselves or even finding those friends.

I noticed into adulthood that everyone was having challenges with their friends. Even the people who seemed very social and happy were having challenges at some level once you talked to them a bit more. That's when I realized: it's not just me who's having friendship challenges, it's everyone.

Fernanda: Sometimes we tend to think, "What's wrong with me?" If a friendship is going awry or we're having trouble with a friend, we tend to internalize it. But that's not necessarily the case; it can be a general, even systemic issue at this point.

Do you think adult loneliness is a lack of people, or is it a lack of depth?

Zayne: I would say it's more a lack of depth and a lack of belief in one's ability to cultivate meaningful friendships.

When we were children, especially for those of us who went through the public school system, we were surrounded by people our age for eight hours a day during the week. There were so many factors that led to a very rich environment for people to make friends naturally.

Then you get into adulthood, graduate, and think, Okay, what do I do now? You don't have that built-in consistency or a large group of people around you going through the exact same thing.

I don't think there's a lack of people who are available or wanting to make new friends. If you go on any popular Instagram reel about friendships or dinner parties, you will see hundreds of comments saying, "I really wish I had that."

It's a lack of belief and perspective in knowing that so many people are going through this exact same experience. I half joke that we should just put all the people who comment on those reels in one room and say, "There you go, make some friends!"

Fernanda: You're so right. On the Charlotte subreddit—and I'm guessing most cities have something like this—there's very often somebody posting, "Why is it so hard to make friends in Charlotte? I'm lonely, I don't have a best friend, I wish I had friends." And then there are all these people commenting, and I've had that exact same thought: What if you all just got together?

You talked about a lack of belief and perspective, but what about expectations? Do you have a point of view on how expectations can make it harder for people to build strong friendships as adults?

Zayne: Absolutely. If you don't have friends and you're going to a new meetup event, you might expect a very linear progression: you go, meet people you really vibe with, and after two or three events, you have a one-to-one hangout.

The reality is that it takes time as adults, especially because we have so many priorities, to cultivate those one-to-one connections in a shared space.

Many people have the expectation that making friends just happens organically, like you just run into someone at a party, hit it off, and become friends. One of my favorite books on this topic is Friendships Don't Just Happen! by Shasta Nelson. It doesn't have to be purely organic; you can be really intentional.

A mix of limiting beliefs and rigid expectations disempowers a lot of people when it comes to making friends.

Fernanda: It sounds like they might have a defeatist mindset because their prior attempts didn't meet their expectations.

Zayne: That, and also what they see on social media. People think others have special circumstances that led to their beautiful friend group.

On social media, we only see the very end result of all the work and challenges—the beautiful themed dinner party with food and everyone laughing. What we don't see is everything that went into creating a friend group like that.

It doesn't just happen, especially as an adult. If you're just waiting around hoping to find someone who will act as the cruise director of your friend group, you're going to run into a lot of challenges.

Fernanda: That hits home with me so much because I love hosting dinner parties, and just getting my friends' schedules to align is not easy. I'm texting people like I'm wrangling cats trying to coordinate everybody to come at the same time. Social media makes everything look peachy, easy, and natural, without showing the intentional planning it takes.

Zayne: Be careful with what you consume on social media, especially when it comes to friendships. If you go into it with the societal idea that it's impossible to make friends as an adult, you're going to look for that everywhere, or you'll see people having fun and think it's completely unattainable.

It's like starting a business and only looking at multi-millionaires who are already far ahead; of course you're going to feel disempowered.

Fernanda: How much of the "I don't have time" feeling is real, and how much is based on fear and avoidance?

Zayne: It's real in the sense that adults have less free time and more competing priorities. But that's the key word: priorities.

I like to reframe it and say, "You know what? I do have some time, and I'm choosing not to prioritize friendships in this season of my life." That feels so much better than saying, "I just don't have time," because it stops you from feeling like a victim of external circumstances.

Tell yourself the truth: I probably do have time, but I'm choosing not to spend it on friendships right now. Owning that truth gives you back the power to eventually say, "Now I am choosing to prioritize making friends."

Fernanda: Aside from time, what are some of the other big things getting in the way of people making friends?

Zayne: Belief is so central. Do you believe you can go to an event and talk to people?

I don't think communication and social skills are as central as people think; when we study them too much, we get stuck in our heads. I'm a big advocate for just being yourself, but your underlying belief matters immensely. If you go into an event thinking, This probably won't work out, I'm just going through the motions, you won't connect.

For example, I love singing and performing, so I went to an open mic for six months before having a one-to-one hangout with someone there. We hung out a few times, and then the friendship didn't work out—we just weren't compatible.

If I believed that friendships never work or that something was wrong with me, I would have quit right there. But because I believe in my ability to connect, I kept going to events and made great friends afterward.

A lot of it comes down to resilience: being able to bounce back from challenges, like going to an event, feeling socially anxious, or stammering over your words, without making it mean something bad about yourself.

Find an area of your life where you already have resilience—whether it's business or your workout routine—and apply that exact same mindset to building friendships. If you have a bad day at the gym, you don't quit working out forever; you figure out what happened and go back. Internal belief and resilience matter more than anything external.

Fernanda: That is really insightful.