I just had yet another conversation with someone remarking on how hard it is to make friends as an adult. He felt like he was putting in all the effort, and it was rare to find people who would reciprocate and prioritize making time to connect.
I nodded. I see this all the time.
Clients, friends, people online... they say they want community, deeper friendships, more connection. But they aren’t taking the actions required to create that.
There are a lot of valid reasons for this: social anxiety, fear of rejection, the seduction of cheap dopamine from screens, being overly busy or tired, conflict avoidance because we never learned how to do it well, work and family obligations eating up all your bandwidth.
💛 And yet, we need each other. Humans thrive in community and with close connections.
The quality of your relationships is the greatest predictor of your happiness AND your health... over exercise, diet, even income.
Here’s what I’ve learned it takes to create the kind of friendships and community where you feel support, belonging, and trust:
1. You have to be willing to inconvenience yourself. 🚗
Picking up a friend from the airport, dropping off soup when they’re sick, hand-writing a condolence card, offering to babysit in a pinch. These things won’t always be convenient, but these are the acts that build real trust, intimacy, and the kind of relationships where people have your back.
2. You have to be willing to show up when you don’t feel like it. 🙋♀️
You will often not be in the mood to go to that birthday party, the moon circle you signed up for, or the meetup that now feels like a chore. And while it’s reasonable to occasionally cancel, if you don’t overcome your resistance and show up more often than not, you will not create the community and friendships you want. The resistance keeps us in more isolation than is good for us because showing up takes energy, and we tell ourselves we’d rather curl up with Netflix. What I’ve found? 9 times out of 10, I’m happy I went. 50/50 that I regret not going. Those odds say... go, even when you think you don’t wanna. 😉
3. You have to be willing to go first. 📲
Sending the first text. Following up to say you had a great time and want to plan another one. Initiating plans, inviting people, asking for help. If you want great friends, you have to be willing to BE a great friend first. So many of y’all are out here waiting for someone else to go first, and so nothing happens.
4. You have to be willing to risk rejection. 💪
Just like dating, intimacy in friendship requires vulnerability, which is risky. You might like them more than they like you. You might want to prioritize someone more, hang out more, or go deeper than they do. This is all part of adult relating that cannot be avoided. Not everyone will be the right match for an inner-circle friend, but you won’t ever find the ones who are if you aren’t willing to risk rejection. If you want more intimacy, you have to lean in.
5. You have to be willing to engage in conflict and repair. 🤝
Most people I know end friendships at the first real conflict, or they avoid conflict entirely, which means the relationship can’t go very deep. This leads to short-lived connections and relationships without REAL trust. We build trust through the rupture and repair process. If you haven’t worked through a conflict with someone and come out the other side, you don’t yet have security in the connection. The friends you’ve had real conflict with, done the gritty repair work with, taken accountability with, apologized to, and committed to showing up differently with next time? That’s the kind of friendship that feels like true belonging. It’ll change your life. ✨
I’m passionate about creating community spaces with REAL intimacy and depth. If you’ve been in my group spaces, you’ve felt it, and they only continue to deepen. This round of Becoming the Muse has been exceptional, and it will keep getting better. Waitlist is open for the fall cohort.
Love,
Caite
About Me
I’m Dr. Caite Gordon: relationship and intimacy coach, Doctor of Chinese Medicine, and feminine embodiment teacher.
For more than a decade, I’ve guided women and couples through the landscapes of healing, intimacy, and eros. My work draws from eastern medicine, functional medicine, somatic healing, spirituality, and years spent sitting with thousands of people in life’s most vulnerable and sacred moments.
I’m fascinated by what allows us to become more fully ourselves: to unwind old survival strategies, trust our bodies, create nourishing relationships, and build lives infused with vitality, meaning, and pleasure.
This Substack is an extension of that exploration—a place for conversations about embodiment, women’s health, intimacy, spirituality, and the art of being human.
If these words resonate, I’m glad you’re here.
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