Making friends after 35 abroad: why is it so hard on the Costa Blanca?

If you have landed on the Costa Blanca in your late thirties or forties and struggled to build a real circle of friends, the honest answer is: it is not you. Adult friendship is hard to grow anywhere, and moving abroad removes the props that used to help, your language, your old colleagues, family a short drive away. Researchers have studied exactly this, and the good news is that from Torrevieja to Denia the coast is packed with clubs and networks built to help newcomers connect.

The short version: what should you remember?

Once you leave student life behind, friendship loses the three things that used to make it effortless: living close by, bumping into the same people unplanned, and a setting relaxed enough to open up, as sociologist Rebecca Adams puts it. Professor Jeffrey Hall (University of Kansas, 2018) even attaches a number to it: a friendship needs to pass roughly 200 shared hours to become solid. On the expat side, a FemmExpat survey found 12% naming social integration among their three biggest hurdles, while InterNations' Expat Insider work suggests almost one newcomer in four sees loneliness as a threat to a successful move. Along the Alicante coast, groups such as the U3A branches and international clubs exist to close that gap.

Why does friendship get harder with age, even before moving abroad?

Rebecca Adams, who studies friendship at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is quoted by Slate.fr, points to three conditions that let bonds form almost by themselves: day-to-day closeness, frequent and spontaneous run-ins, and an atmosphere that invites you to confide. A classroom ticked all three without anyone trying. Grown-up work and family life rarely lines them up in the same way.

Jeffrey Hall adds a figure that reframes the whole thing: in his 2018 Kansas study, a relationship has to clear more than 200 hours together before it turns into genuine friendship. Put differently, a new friendship that takes its time is not going wrong, on the Costa Blanca or anywhere else. It is simply how the process works.

What does settling on the Costa Blanca add on top?

Relocating knocks out, in one go, the supports that used to soften the difficulty: speaking your language without thinking, reading local habits, leaning on a ready-made professional address book, having relatives within reach. The FemmExpat survey backs this up, with 12% listing social integration among their three toughest challenges, and notes that loneliness does not strike at random: women, people living alone and those without local work feel it most. InterNations' Expat Insider 2024 survey, covering more than 12,500 expats in 174 countries, ranks trouble making friends and a perceived coolness from locals among the leading sources of disappointment. Its 2019 Business edition went further still: close to one expat in four saw loneliness as something that could sink a life abroad.

Is it about age, or about circumstances?

Both play a part, but circumstances outweigh the number of candles on the cake. Back in France, the Fondation de France measured in its 2023 annual study that 12% of people over 15 live in total isolation, and that 83% of those affected suffer from it. Moving to the Costa Blanca does not invent the difficulty of making friends after 35, it deepens it by pulling away the usual social supports at once: long-standing neighbours, familiar colleagues, family next door. Keeping that in mind saves you from blaming yourself. To give your arrival some structure, see also our guide to finding your community as a newcomer.

Which networks should you turn to on the Costa Blanca?

Few coastlines in Spain have as dense an international community as the Alicante province, and the club scene is very real, especially in the Marina Alta and around Torrevieja. The trick is not to sign up everywhere, but to pick one or two and come back often enough to log those hours that build friendship.

For more on settling into your first months here, see also our first-months guide for newcomers in Spain. A local Spanish friendship and an international one do different jobs, and cutting out either usually slows you down.

How long before the Costa Blanca feels like home?

There is no official clock, but a firm rule of thumb. If a close friendship already needs more than 200 shared hours in normal life, per Jeffrey Hall, then think in months, often past a year when you have just arrived in a new country. What speeds things up is not a string of one-off drinks, but a standing date: a weekly class, a walking group, a choir, a club activity. Regularity drives the hour count up, and that count is what keeps a friendship alive.

Frequently asked questions about making friends after 35 on the Costa Blanca

Can you feel lonely while living as a couple or with family in Alicante or Denia?
Yes, expat associations hear it constantly. A partner or children do not replace a friendship circle of your own, and it is often one person in the household carrying the entire social life. It is not a failure, it is an ordinary side effect of being uprooted.

Should you aim for international friendships or local Spanish ones?
They complement each other. International friendships bring instant understanding of what expat life feels like, local ones root you in the country's language and culture. Staying inside a single community usually slows integration.

How long does it take to make a real friend abroad?
No single rule, but research points to more than 200 shared hours for a bond to hold, according to Jeffrey Hall. On the Costa Blanca, that builds over several months through regular meetups rather than isolated encounters.

Are there circles aimed at women along the Alicante coast?
Yes: networks such as FemmExpat address expat women, and several mixed local clubs and U3A groups also run regular gatherings open to everyone.

Sources (facts cross-checked and rewritten, never copied): Slate.fr (Rebecca Adams' research), conjointsexpatries.com (Jeffrey Hall's study, InterNations Expat Insider survey, Fondation de France data), FemmExpat (network and survey on socialising abroad), and the official pages of the Costa Blanca U3A branches, AFRAM Javea and local international clubs. Consulted in July 2026.

Information verified in July 2026. If feelings of isolation start to weigh on daily life, talking to a health professional or a local support group can help; several of the networks listed here also signpost that kind of support. This article was prepared with the help of AI, then cross-checked, verified and edited by our newsroom, which takes editorial responsibility for it.