After graduating, you may find yourself moving to a city where the seasons change, the streets are quieter and the bars aren’t overflowing with crowds of classmates. Adapting to a less exciting post-Miami life is hard. Making new friends is the best way out of it.
Lizzie Kristal, a UM alum, moved to Minnesota after graduating in the spring of 2025. There, she works as a project coordinator for Artful Living Magazine and a restaurant host on the weekends. While Minnesota offered a lifestyle different from Miami, Kristal welcomed the adjustment.
“I missed many of the social and ‘cool’aspects of living in Miami surrounded by all my friends, but I was also itching to move to the next chapter of my life,” she said. “I was craving something quieter, and the adjustment wasn’t that bad because of it — but I know not everyone feels that way post-grad.”
A quieter town can feel like a breath of fresh air compared to Miami. For alumni like Kristal, leaving Miami is an opportunity to slow things down. Gone are the days of choosing between frat parties and bar crawls every night of the weekend.
Fortunately, slowing things down doesn’tmean foregoing a social life entirely. It just means finding friends in new places. Kristal credits her restaurant job with allowing her to make friends post-grad.
“Because things are low-risk there and most of my coworkers are my age, it’s easier to make friends,” she said. “I highly recommend getting a silly little restaurant job on the side if you have time.
Braving the Cold
While a low-pressure job can be a great way to make friends, not everyone has that opportunity. Challenges like work-life balance and social anxiety can become major obstacles to a social life, especially in a new environment.
Sal Puma, another class of ’25 alum, found that his hometown felt quite different when his friends moved to different cities. Making friends was something that felt effortless in Miami. In New Jersey, however, he encountered new anxieties.
“I thrived with classmates and coworkers because we had something in common, shared experiences, and we were forced to spend time with each other,” Puma said. “Though outside of a shared class, club, or shift, it was daunting.”
Puma, who works as a technical analyst at Fiserv, started off the summer strong with old friends and Jersey Shore outings. As the colder months rolled around, and corporate life started to intensify, things didn’t feel quite so exciting. While Miami experienced “syllyweek” parties and hot, humid beach days, the Jersey Shore became barren and cold.
“Not having access to a bustling Miami social life and instead watching others have it was driving me a bit insane,” Puma said.
Constantly Connected
One of the major downsides of social media is FOMO, or “fear of missing out”.While it’s great to stay in touch with your Miami friends, some of whom may not have graduated yet, this constant connection can easily make you jealous, sad and nostalgic. Instagram dumps and Snapchat group selfies start to feel like people rubbing it in.
Puma brings up an interesting point about social media. Watching others have fun while you aren’t having any, quite plainly, sucks. However, to the newly graduated, social media brings enormous benefits as well.
Platforms like Dice and Posh help college students access local social events. Both are massively popular with the UM student population, offering everything from ClubSpace tickets to Factory Town music events. Post-grad, platforms like these can be incredibly useful if you live near a city with a bustling nightlife scene.
In big cities and small towns alike, there are bound to be Instagram, Facebook and TikTok pages dedicated to curating the best local events, day or night. Kristal and Pumacan both attest to the usefulness of these pages.
Kristal, an avid gym-goer, has found events at her local gym through the internet. She finds the gym to be a great place to organically make friends while bettering her mind and body.
“There’s this event at my gym that one of the badass female trainers puts on every Sunday morning, and I found it through Instagram,” she said. “About 25 women show up and work out together, and it’s such a great way to meet like-minded people.”
Moving away from Miami is an opportunity to take a breather from fast-pacednightlife. When he isn’t going to New York to club in the city, Puma uses social media to find more “wholesome” events, as he puts it.
“[These] can be great to take newer friends to, to foster those relationships without the chaos of a night out,” he said. “These pages show me special nights at museums, thrift/fleamarkets, food festivals, you name it.”
Friends of Friends
One way to maintain your network is through mutuals. Maybe your closest friends are busy with their new grown-up jobs, but the friends you met through them are down to hang out again. Even if you don’t feel particularly close with these acquaintances, there’s no harm in reaching out. It might be the start of something amazing.
Without that one really close friend to bridge two people together, it might feel difficult to build a relationship. Puma remembers the moments when it felt awkward to reach out to friends of friends.
“You have to shake the feeling sometimes of feeling like you’re only friends with someone through someone else,” he said. “Once I realized that I’m my own person I started deepening the relationships with those I just met and now I’mmeeting their friends and doing the same thing, slowly growing my social web.”
For Puma, these mutual friends eventually became a great support system. If you look back on your tight-knit circle in college, it’sprobable that many close friends were once someone else’s friend. In college, however, forced proximity brings us all closer together in the blink of an eye. After graduating, that process might take a little more effort.
Reaching out in spite of the anxiety takes strength. However, reaching out doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. It can be sharing an Instagram post that reminded you of someone, or inviting someone to do some work at a coffee shop together. Chances are, the people you’re trying to connect with are also looking to connect with more people.
“I think people are receptive to making new friends as long as you don’t come on too strong,” Kristal said. This is when small gestures are key. If you’ve ever had friends who seem to only exist in the realm of shared group chats and Instagram story likes, consider inviting them out on a random night. Or maybe you happen to be in their area, and want to see if they’re available for lunch. These small interactions go to show that you care about furthering a friendship. Of course, the worst thing anyone can say is “no”.
When asked if Puma would do anything differently with his post-grad life, he said, “I would’ve reached out to more friends sooner and told myself to be less anxious about doing so. You can’t get out there if you don’tput yourself out there.”
Whether you’re an extrovert, introvert or somewhere in between, it’s always possible to make new connections. Your social life isn’tbound to end once college does. You’ll find ways to keep it alive at the small local bars, the gym or the coffee shop. The friends you make post-grad might just be for-lifers.
words_jay moyer. photo_ethan dosa. design_cole selden.
This article was published in Distraction’s Summer 2026 print issue.
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