The Friendship Gap: Loneliness, Adult Friendships & Why Finding Your People Is Worth It with Belinda Xia
Ep 13: It's Basically Just Like Dating — Making & Keeping Friends as a Mum
Adult friendship. Nobody warns you how hard it gets. You spend your whole childhood surrounded by people your age, thrown together by proximity and shared timetables, and then life diverges — different cities, different life stages, different seasons — and suddenly making a new friend feels as vulnerable and terrifying as a first date.
In this episode, I'm joined by the incredibly talented Belinda Xia, live illustrator and one of my own adult friendships that I am so glad I took a chance on. You might remember Belinda from our November episode where we talked about being the breadwinner of the family — and at the end of that conversation we promised we'd come back and talk about adult friendship. Well, here we are.
Belinda brings a wonderfully extroverted perspective to this one, and I balance it out from the introverted-extrovert side. Wherever you sit on that spectrum, I think you're going to hear yourself in this conversation.
What We Cover in This Episode:
Why adult friendships are harder than they used to be
Belinda breaks down the three pillars of friendship — proximity, timing, and energy — and why all three were so easy to align when we were kids, and so much harder to sync as adults. When life branches off into different cities, different life stages, and different seasons, the people we used to call our best friends can slowly drift out of alignment with who we've become. Nobody's fault. Just life.
The fear of putting yourself out there
Making a new friend as an adult is, as Belinda and Maggie both agree, basically just like dating. The vulnerability, the fear of rejection, the awkward "can I have your number?" energy — it's all there. We talk about why the fear of coming across as cringe or desperate keeps so many of us from making the first move, even when we're desperately craving connection. Spoiler: that stat that 40% of Australians feel lonely at some point in the week tells us we are far from alone in wanting more.
Time poverty and being precious about who gets yours
As mums, our free time is precious — and finite. Belinda puts it plainly: if you have five hours of free time in a week, you want to spend it with people who are worth it. We talk about how this season of life naturally makes us more selective, why that's okay, and how the best friendships in this chapter are the ones that feel low effort, deeply nourishing, and easy to pick back up even after weeks of silence.
How to actually initiate — and what to do if it doesn't land
From stalking someone on Instagram after an event (how Maggie and Belinda's own friendship started) to extracting a number from the class WhatsApp chat, to just walking up to the mum you've made eye contact with fifty times at school pickup and finally saying hi — we cover the many low-stakes ways to make the first move. And if it doesn't land? The bell will ring, you'll go to your kid, and you never have to speak to them again. No big deal.
Maintaining friendships across distance and different life stages
Belinda's best friend lives interstate. Maggie's closest friends are back in Sydney. Distance doesn't have to mean the end of a friendship — it just means getting creative. Belinda makes the case for voice messages as the ultimate low-effort, high-connection tool for busy mums (yes, even if you, like Maggie, are notoriously terrible at listening to them). We also talk about how to keep a friendship alive with someone who isn't in the same season of life as you, and why the friendships worth keeping are the ones where you skip straight past the small talk and get into the real stuff.
How to know if a friendship is worth pursuing
One of the most honest parts of the conversation — how do you actually filter? Belinda's test: are they in your top five people you'd text when something happens? Maggie's: how do you feel when you leave them? Drained or filled up? We talk about why it's not harsh to be selective — it's just smart, given how little time we have.
The mum-life friendship hacks nobody talks about
Kids are the ultimate icebreaker. Friendship catch ups don’t have to be this huge song and dance, it can be as simple as walks through Woolie aisles, Saturday morning Pilates followed by breakfast. Or tandem playdates with the kids. The beauty of this season is that friendship doesn't have to be a big night out — it can be woven into the things you're already doing. Some of the best connections happen in the mundane.
Belinda’s Permission Slips for this month:
"Take a chance on someone in your peripheral community. Go over and break the ice. I'm not saying go find your next BFF. I'm saying start becoming open to the opportunities of relationships."
"Reach out to someone you haven't spoken to in a while — someone you occasionally think about, maybe from a previous season of your life — and just say hey. You never know what you might restart."
Resources & Mentions:
Connect with Belinda Xia on Instagram — @belindaxiastudio
Check out Belinda's website & live illustration work — here
📖 How Long Does It Actually Take to Make a Friend?
We mentioned in this episode that friendship takes time — and there's actual research to back that up. A University of Kansas study found it takes around 50 hours together to move from acquaintance to casual friend, 90 hours to reach "friend" status, and more than 200 hours to consider someone a close friend. So if you're in the thick of building new friendships and it feels slow — you're not doing it wrong, you're just doing it honestly.📦 This month's ‘A Moment For Me’ hobby box is the Reset Box — a bath bomb or shower steamer, face mask, soft headband, and heated eye mask. Self-care isn't just a bubble bath — but when done with intention, you can turn your routine into a ritual.
🎟️ More Than A Mum Social Club — Wollongong — our IRL event for mums ready to reconnect with who they are outside of the title of mum. The next event is on Saturday the 22nd of August. Grab your tickets here or jump on the waitlist to be the first to know when the next one is.
🏡 Our Facebook community and the virtual home of the More Than A Mum Social Club. Behind-the-scenes content, early box reveals, sneak peeks and a community of women rediscovering who they are beyond the title of mum. Join the group here.
🎧 Missed the November episode with Belinda? Listen to Ep. 6: Redefining Roles: Building a Business & Identity Beyond Motherhood with Belinda Xia
💬 Listener Takeaway:
If you've been feeling lonely lately — if you've been craving a real connection and not quite knowing how to find it — this episode is your permission slip to stop waiting and start somewhere small.
You don't have to walk into a room and introduce yourself to everyone. You don't have to be an extrovert. You just have to be willing to take one small chance.
You're allowed to:
Say hi to the mum you've seen at pickup fifty times and never spoken to
Slide into the DMs of someone you've followed for months and actually start a conversation
Reach out to an old friend you've been thinking about and just say hey
Ask for the number from the class chat and suggest a playdate
Let a friendship be low effort and still deeply meaningful
Be selective with your time — and unapologetic about it
Your people are out there. And sometimes all it takes is one conversation, one stalk on Instagram, and a bit of kismet.
🎧 Listen to the Episode Now:
Hit play on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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