Pre-pandemic, I used to see the same girl every Saturday morning at a strength training class at the gym. On a few occasions, we were paired up for the workout and exchanged greetings and small talk. From then on, wed say hi and chat briefly when we saw each other. She seemed cool and I contemplated asking her if she ever wanted to get coffee or breakfast after class. But I talked myself out of it I was worried the invitation might come across as weird. And I didnt want to put myself out there.

Many adults bemoan the struggle of making new close friends in adulthood. One reason, according to psychologist David Narang , is that people expect these bonds to form effortlessly as they did when they were younger.

In childhood and often in early adulthood, we were thrown together daily with the same people for many hours in school, with unstructured time available afterward to talk or get together, Narang, author of Leaving Loneliness, told HuffPost. This repetition gave us a chance to vet each other through time and experience and allowed us to naturally gravitate toward those we felt comfortable with and curious about.

As we get older, many of these organic opportunities start to dry up. Instead of sitting back and hoping an awesome new friendship will fall in our lap, its on us to put in some effort.

Is there an acquaintance in your life that you think would make a great friend? We have some expert-backed actionable advice to help make it happen.

Make plans with this person outside of the place you normally see them.

If its an acquaintance from yoga class, ask if they want to go to the farmers market. If its an Instagram friend youve been DMing back and forth with, invite them to go out to lunch. Basically, you want to change up the contexts in which you typically interact with this person, said psychologist and friendship expert Marisa G. Franco .

Ultimately, the more sides of ourselves that we reveal to one another, the closer our friendships become, she said. And varying the contexts in which we interact allows us to surface the different sides of ourselves.

You can think of it as repotting some of these casual friendships. Just as a plant requires a larger pot to continue growing, so too does a fledgling friendship.

Sometimes youve got a friend at work, and you see them every day, but the pot that plant is in at work is quite small, researcher Ryan Hubbard told The Atlantic . Its going to reach the size of the pot, and thats it. If you want it to be a bigger, deeper friendship, you need to repot it to a bigger context. You might need to bring them to your house. Or invite them to meet your family thats an even bigger pot.

These days, you can safely repot by asking an acquaintance or work colleague on a socially distanced walk, or asking a neighbour to join you on a hike, Franco said.

An alternative invite them to a group activity, if thats more comfortable.

If youre not ready for a one-on-one hangout yet, start by inviting the acquaintance to join you and a few others for a small group gathering.