I don't know how to make real friends anymore - embarrassed to admit

Sometime around 25, I noticed my friendships started feeling like... maintenance.

We'd meet up, catch up on life updates, laugh at the same inside jokes, and go home. And I'd feel somehow lonelier than before I left.

I kept blaming myself. Maybe I'm too intense. Maybe I push people away. Maybe I just grew up and this is what adult friendships look like — transactional, surface-level, scheduled like dentist appointments.

But the more honest I got with myself, the more I realized: I wasn't actually letting anyone in. And neither were they. We were all just performing friendship.

The thing nobody tells you about your late 20s and 30s is that you can be surrounded by people who genuinely like you and still feel completely unseen.

I'm not talking about being lonely in the "no friends" way. I mean the specific loneliness of being in a group chat that never goes more than memes and weekend plans

What actually changed things for me wasn't therapy (though that helped). It was doing stuff together. Not "grabbing coffee to catch up" but actually sharing an experience — a hard hike, a cooking class we both sucked at, something that made us drop the performance for a second.

Shared experiences create a weird intimacy that conversation alone just doesn't.

Anyway — curious if anyone else has felt this. The "surrounded but unseen" thing. Or am I just describing introversion and calling it a crisis lol

TL;DR ways to make friends and build long lasting relationships + advice