How to Make Friends as an Adult When You Share an Office with Your Ex

Sharing an office with an ex-partner is a specific kind of professional purgatory. Every morning, you badge into the same building, walk past the same reception desk, and sit fifty feet away from someone who knows the intimate details of your life—and who you probably never wanted to see again. When you are in this position, trying to rebuild a social life and make new friends feels nearly impossible.

You might worry that your colleagues know the history, or you might feel too emotionally drained by 5:00 PM to venture out to a meetup group. But staying isolated in a cubicle farm won’t help you heal, and it certainly won’t help you expand your circle. Here is how I navigated the strange landscape of adult friendship-making while sharing a workspace with an ex, along with practical steps to build a real social life outside of work.

Build a Mental Boundary Before You Build a Social Life

Before you can invite anyone to grab coffee or join a weekend trivia team, you need to protect your emotional energy. Working alongside an ex means you spend a large portion of your day managing your facial expressions, avoiding eye contact in the breakroom, and filtering your conversational tone. By the time the workday ends, your social battery is often completely dead.

To make room for new friendships, you have to stop treating your office like an emotional battleground and start treating it strictly as a stage set. I had to mentally downgrade my ex from “significant historical figure” to “annoying coworker I try to ignore.”

If you spend your lunch break ruminating on what your ex is doing at their desk, you are burning fuel you need for connection elsewhere. Put on noise-canceling headphones the second you sit down. Plan your workday so your physical movements—like trips to the printer or the restroom—don’t accidentally intersect with theirs more than necessary. Conserving your energy during office hours is the first requirement for having the stamina to socialize after hours.

Expand Your Circle Outside Your Industry

One of the biggest traps when looking for adult friends is relying solely on your immediate workplace. When you share an office with an ex, looking for friends at work is off the table entirely. Even flirting with the idea of befriending a cubicle neighbor can backfire if office gossip filters back to your ex’s desk.

Instead, you need to deliberately cast a wide net into environments where your ex has zero footprint.

• Take a tactile class: Look for ceramics, woodworking, or cooking workshops that meet weekly for six to eight weeks. These environments force you to interact with the same people repeatedly without the pressure of forced small talk.
• Join a recreational sports league: Even if you aren’t athletic, look for “social” tiers in kickball, darts, or bowling leagues where the primary objective is going to a nearby pub afterward.
• Volunteer with a regular crew: Food banks, animal shelters, and community garden projects attract kind, grounded adults who are also looking to connect with people outside their normal routines.

When you show up to these spaces, give yourself permission to be a little rusty. Adult friendship takes repetition. Do not judge the success of an outing by whether you walk away with a best friend; judge it by whether you successfully exchanged phone numbers with one person you wouldn’t mind seeing again.

Master the Art of the Low-Stakes Invitation

When you have been out of the dating game and out of practice making friends, asking someone to hang out feels terrifyingly similar to asking someone out on a date. You might worry about rejection, or overthink the logistics.

Keep initial invitations casual, highly specific, and anchored to an existing activity. Instead of saying, “We should hang out sometime,” try phrasing it around a logistical convenience.

For example, if you meet someone in a ceramics class who lives in your general neighborhood, say: “Hey, I’m grabbing an iced coffee at that place down the street before next week’s class, want to meet there at 6:00?”

This approach removes the pressure. It has a built-in end time, which makes it feel safe for both of you. If the conversation flows, great—you can extend it. If it stays polite and brief, you still got practice putting yourself out there, and you have a built-in buddy for next week’s class anyway.

Keep Your Workplace Private

As you start making new friends, you will eventually reach a point where you want to vent about your life. Be very careful about how much you share regarding your office situation.

New friends want to hear about your hobbies, your weekend trips, and your thoughts on local restaurants. They generally do not want to be recruited into a bitter workplace drama, especially when you are just getting to know each other. Venting too early about your ex sharing your office can cast a shadow over a budding friendship and make things feel uncomfortably heavy.

Keep conversations light and focused on the present. If a new friend asks what you do for a living, keep your answer brief: “I work in project management downtown.” You do not need to volunteer that your ex sits three rows over from you. Save the heavier processing for a therapist or a lifelong friend who already knows your entire history.

Navigating the awkwardness of a shared office while trying to build a new life takes patience, but it is entirely possible. By protecting your energy at work and deliberately investing your free time in spaces your ex cannot touch, you will slowly build a social circle that belongs entirely to you. Taking those first small steps outside your comfort zone is the best way to reclaim your independence and move forward.