It's so nice to hear that there are some people who find making friends as an adult easy — for me it's a complete mystery, although obviously I do have friends I met in adulthood. But I can't explain how it happened!

I think, because my family moved around a lot as a child and I had very different experiences at all my schools, I had to really figure out how to make at least a superficial rapport happen quickly and not just rely on instinct, which serves me fairly well these days.

That makes a lot of sense, and also helps explain why I find things so difficult: I lived in the same city from the ages of three to eighteen, I went to my local preschool, then the local primary school, then the local high school, and then the local college (in Canberra the last two years of secondary school are in a separate 'college' rather than being in high school) — so basically I grew up surrounded by the same bunch of people for my entire childhood. I did change and add to my social circle during those years, but there was no need to do so at speed, and I always knew more than half of the people in my year when I moved from one school to another.

It really sounds as if your childhood experiences served you well and helped a lot when navigating friendship in adulthood.