Table of Contents
Introduction To Friendship
One of the core aspects of self improvement is forging connections and cultivating bonds with people. Knowing how to make friends is such a valuable skill since the value of bonds should never be underestimated as let’s face it, in life we can only get so far on our own. We can only learn so much by ourselves. We can only feel so much joy by ourselves. That’s why it’s so important that we meet so many people in life and understand how to make friends.
Let’s face it though, life is boring without friends. As much as these “lone wolves” that appear on social media try to claim otherwise, they’ll never escape the fact that loneliness sucks. To live a lonely life is to live an unfulfilling life and recently, I’ve noticed that there is a rising amount of loneliness. That’s the main reason why I’m making this post.
Now, I’m sure you wanna learn how to meet new people right away, but first, we must go over a few important things that will greatly help you in the long run.
The Value of Friendship and The Consequences of Loneliness
Before diving into how exactly you can go about meeting people, we first need to address the value behind friendship and how being lonely is affecting you.
Part 1 – The Value of Friendship
Friendship is way more than just having someone to hang out with. If all your friendships only go that deep, then you’re missing out on a lot. Our friendships play a fundamental role in shaping our identity as people, as well as our happiness and beliefs. That being said, let’s have a look at some of the things that make friendship so valuable.
Reduced Stress and Improved Mental Health
Social bonds tend to have a calming effect on the body and the mind which will reduce your stress levels a lot. This is because lonely people spend a lot more time alone with their thoughts. This can often lead to them thinking negative things about their loneliness and themselves. These thoughts tend to spiral out of control and lead to increased levels of stress. However, when spending time with others, these thoughts tend to be pushed aside for more positive thoughts and feelings of happiness and joy.
It’s also just a known fact that being lonely takes a huge toll on your mental health. The opposite can also be said, as having great friends will make your mind way more healthy. The reasoning is obvious, being around people you like will make you happy. This will have a positive effect on your mental health.
Sense of Belonging
When you have no friends, it feels like you don’t have a proper place in this world. That is a feeling that too many people know too well. It feels like you don’t have anywhere to belong and no one to confide in, it’s truly a horrible feeling.
However, friendship is the remedy to this feeling. When you have friends that you genuinely love being around, it gives you a place in this world. You’ll feel happier and more satisfied with your own life when you’re around people that appreciate you. This is thanks to the happiness that being with friends provides you.
Memories
Our memories and past experiences often shape who we are as people. Having friends will lead to many great memories being made and this will shape you into a happier person. These memories will tighten your bond even further with your friends and make your life a more satisfying one to live.
I want you to think about what life is like for someone who doesn’t have many memories of being with friends. All their memories are mainly memories of them being alone and wishing they had someone to talk to since that’s what they spend their life doing. This will lead to them not feeling whole and becoming even sadder that they don’t have anyone. This feeling of emptiness will make them a shell of what they should be and slowly eat at their humanity. That’s no way to live.
The importance of memories can not be understated, since they’re one of the core components that form our identity as people and, without them, we’ll become shells of what we should be.
Personal Growth
By this point, everyone has heard the quote “You are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” Usually, this quote is used in a negative context to try and put people off hanging around people who partake in many bad habits. However, this quote can also be used in a positive context. That’s what I’m going to do now.
By hanging around with positive people who don’t partake in degenerate habits, you’ll be able to grow as a person and learn from the examples that these people set for you. Another thing to note is that good friends always challenge each other to be better and form friendly rivalries. These rivalries will push both parties and challenge each other to grow. Just make sure the rivalries don’t get too aggressive or out of control.
Part 2 – The Consequences of Loneliness
As I said earlier, loneliness is a problem that is getting more and more common in the modern age. Every day, I see more and more people who don’t have any human connections to cherish or friends to confide in. The impact of loneliness cannot be underestimated either. It can affect almost every aspect of your life and leave you feeling empty. Now let’s see how grave these impacts can be.
Poor Mental Health
Let’s get the obvious ones out of the way first. A lack of human interaction over a semi-prolonged period can lead to several mental health consequences. These consequences involve depression, anxiety, and feelings of hopelessness. It’s not good at all for your mental health.
However, there’s one group of people who seem to think differently for some reason. I mentioned them earlier but I’m going to bring them up again. These people are known as “lone wolves” and they tend to show up on social media. The lone wolves are guys who think that having friends is a waste of time and they constantly insist that they’re doing fine on their own.
Are they really doing fine though? Well, I don’t think so. I believe that all the “I don’t need friends” stuff is cope. These people don’t seem like happy people and I bet if you looked into it, you could confirm that. I do feel bad for them though, it’s really sad how lonely they look. All this just shows how much loneliness is affecting these people.
Less Satisfaction In Life
To me and to many, living life without friends is barely living at all. Friendship is one of the most important things you can have in life, without a doubt. An absence of friendship in your life will lead to a less satisfying life being lived. There are many things in life that you can either only do with friends, or are made way better with friends. Let’s think about it for a second.
Say you’re going to a water park, imagine how boring it would be going by yourself. Now imagine how fun it sounds going with a few friends. See how much more fun life seems with friends? Without friends, everything will just seem way more boring so you won’t end up doing much. This will lead to a less satisfying life.
Heightened Risk of Addiction and Substance Abuse
A lack of friendship is a difficult thing to deal with. It’s something that the people that do deal with it are constantly reminded of and this makes them pretty uncomfortable. As a result, many of these people turn to substances or addictive behaviours to cope with these feelings of discomfort and sadness that often come with a lack of friendship.
The most common addictive behavior that people turn to in this case is one we all know too well, alcoholism. This combined with substance abuse will lead you down on a dark path in life. If you get to this point, you’re no longer in control of your own mind and you have to rely on external sources just to feel joy. When you’re off the substances though, you’ll feel even worse which will lead you to take even more. Who would want to live a life like that?
Mental and Emotional Exhaustion
Chronic loneliness can really take a toll on your overall well-being. This will eventually lead to mental and emotional exhaustion. It’s all thanks to the persistent feelings of isolation that a create a spiral of negative thoughts in one’s mind. These negative thoughts can often lead to stress, which will drain all energy for enthusiasm for social interactions, leaving the person in question in a hopeless state.
These thoughts aren’t the only cause for mental and emotional exhaustion though, there are many other factors that can lead to this that all stem from loneliness. One example of this would be the drop in self esteem that comes with a lack of friendship. This is due to one really sad factor. Those with no friends tend to feel as if they are unworthy of any friends the longer they spend without friends. This makes these people think way less of themselves and it’s honestly really sad.
Another factor that amplifies these feelings of mental and emotional exhaustion is the heightened sensitivity that people with no friends have toward social rejection. People with no friends really want to be needed and appreciated by others and form meaningful friendships more than anyone ever. Since they want it so much, it hurts even more when they get rejected socially. This rejection will lead to further mental and emotional exhaustion.
Summary
Surely now you see how important it is to foster healthy and meaningful friendships. Without friendship, life can be truly painful for anyone and it can lead many on a dark path. However, life with friendship is something to be truly cherished and no matter how much some people try to deny that, it’s the truth. That being said, there is one obstacle that stands in the way of many people and friendship, let’s take a look at how to tackle that obstacle.
Overcoming Social Anxiety
Yep, that’s right, that one obstacle is social anxiety. Social anxiety is something that is becoming more and more common in the world. It creates a barrier between a person and meaningful friendships. It makes the person in question feel heavy pressure in almost any social situation outside their comfort zone. It makes them feel like everyone is watching and judging them, it’s truly a horrible feeling. Before we talk about overcoming it, let’s look at the impacts it can have
Impacts of Social Anxiety
Just like loneliness, social anxiety can have severe impacts on the mind an body, let’s take a look at them.
Avoidance Behaviour
Avoidance behaviour is one of the most destructive forms of behaviour that someone can display. One of the main causes of this behaviour just so happens to be social anxiety, and it’s no surprise why. Social anxiety can lead to people avoiding social situations altogether that they see as outside their comfort zone. This leads to them becoming even more scared of those situations. The more you try to avoid something, the faster it will catch up to you.
This kind of avoidance behaviour can further damage any existing friendships that this person may have, since their friends may feel like they’re being ignored by them. This’ll create distance between the person in question and their friends and it will keep pushing them further and further away from any social interactions until they’re completely isolated. I’m sure you see now how destructive this behaviour can be.
Emotional Distress
This one is kind of obvious but it’s super important so I thought I should include it anyways. For someone who has social anxiety, being in social situations is a very stressful event. Their mind is constantly plagued with thoughts wondering if everyone there likes them or if they have said anything wrong. Of course, worrying about saying something wrong is only gonna make it more likely to happen.
All these thoughts and feelings rushing through them will significantly increase their stress levels and can even result in full blown panic attacks in some cases. Either way, neither of these is particularly good for your mental or physical health since they both take a lot of energy out of you. This will leave you emotionally drained and physically fatigued.
Academic and Professional Challenges
Social anxiety can easily impact many other areas of your life than just the social ones. The emotional distress that it causes can easily affect your participation in class. As a result, you’ll start focusing on the wrong things while in class which may make you feel unsafe as well as impact your learning.
Social anxiety can also pose many problems in the professional world too. People with social anxiety generally find it harder to land jobs due to how much harder their condition makes a job interview. An interviewer is usually looking for someone who seems competent as well as calm and composed. The latter half of that sentence is where social anxiety hits the hardest. The constant worrying about judgment may cause someone with social anxiety to fold under the pressure of the interview and lose their cool.
Loneliness
It all leads back to loneliness, which is why I put it last. If left unchecked, this is what social anxiety leads to. Pretty much every single consequence of social anxiety leads to loneliness, and it’s really sad. Avoidance behavior can impact friendships and can even ruin some, emotional distress can lead to a person becoming emotionally distanced, and professional challenges can lead to even fewer people in your life
Loneliness attacks what makes us human and is one of the biggest problems we face in the modern world. It proves why friendship is so important.
Start Overcoming Social Anxiety
If you don’t want your life to end up like this, then you should take action immediately. There are many different things you can do that can help you to overcome social anxiety. Why don’t why take a look at a few options.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
You couldn’t even pay me a million dollars to type out that acronym. Ok maybe you could, a milly is a milly you know. Moving on though, cognitive behavioural therapy is a very specific type of therapy and one that is very useful for treating many different types of anxiety. It’s pretty simple to understand, however it’s something the needs to be practiced a lot to have a noticeable impact. That impact though, is beyond valuable.ve
How does it work exactly? Well that’s pretty simple actually. Cognitive behavioural therapy mainly revolves around the therapist recognizing negative and irrational thoughts in the patient’s mind, telling them why they’re irrational, and showing them how to change it. Over time, you’ll learn how to do this by yourself and that’s when a therapist will no longer be required. As I mentioned, it does take a while but it’s highly effective.
Another thing that you should keep in mind that just showing up to sessions isn’t guaranteed to work, you have to be ready and willing to put in the hard work required to overcome your condition. If you do your best to apply everything you learn to your life and are willing to break free of your comfort zone, then it’s only a matter of time before you overcome your anxiety.
Meditation and Mindfulness
It seems I’m once again talking about meditation. It’s for good reason though, meditation just provides that many benefits. One of these benefits is the ability to sort through your thoughts. This works wonders for people with social anxiety and it will make their life easier, especially when making friends or in any other social situations.
Even something as simple as breathing exercises can go miles for someone with social anxiety who is in an uncomfortable situation. These exercises can calm them in stressful social situations and allow them to think things through more logically and focus on fostering meaningful friendships.
Another great thing to do in these scenarios is practice mindfulness. Mindfulness will allow you to be truly present in the moment instead of being constantly distracted by thoughts and feelings that will make you anxious. A good mindfulness technique is to use the 5 senses and notice everything you can with them. This will pull your mind into the present and help you focus less on your stress. If you wanna learn more mindfulness techniques, check out my 7 healthy habits post here.
Acknowledge Your Social Anxiety
This may seem random at first, but I think it may actually help a lot. Just to be clear though, I don’t mean you should accept the fact that you have social anxiety, because that’s pretty obvious. Instead, you should apply this tip in social situations when your social anxiety starts to appear.
Making sense now? What you need to do when you’re starting to feel anxious in a social situation is first acknowledge those feelings of anxiety. Recognizing these feelings will help you so much more than simply rejecting them. Rejecting them will only make the feelings stronger. Acknowledging your anxiety will put more power in your hands and you can begin to work toward managing it.
Gradual Exposure
If you try to take on the whole world at once, you’ll get crushed under the weight of it. That’s why gradual exposure is so important. You’ll have to gradually expose yourself to more and more social situations. This will make it so you challenge your comfort zone without being crushed by the danger you feel outside of it. The more you expose yourself to social situations, the better you’ll get at them.
There is one thing you must keep in mind though. You can’t use gradual exposure as an excuse to not expose yourself to any uncomfortable situations at all. That’s what many people do. They trick themselves into believing that they aren’t ready to step outside their comfort zone and never take any action as a result.
Final Thoughts
Social anxiety is an issue that is becoming more and more common in the modern era. It is one of the main factors influencing the rise in loneliness that is currently taken place. It’s something that places a mental wall between you and so many opportunities for friendship and growth.
I honestly find it devastating seeing how many people are affected by this issue and who feel like they can’t take the proper steps to start overcoming it. If you are affected by this issue, you can’t make any excuses about why you aren’t getting better and instead, just get on with improving. Getting over this is in your hands and your hands alone. You have to do this.
Now, before we actually dive into how and where to meet people, there’s an important issue that we need to discuss.
Making Friends Gone Wrong – The Mistake Many Make
When it comes to making friends, there is one crucial mistake that many people make. I see people saying it all the time, and it’s killing many people’s chances of ever making any lasting connections. Now let’s get into it and start dissecting the mistake that many make.
What is This Mistake Exactly?
I’m sure you’re pretty curious about what this mistake is, and if you make it yourself. This mistake is saying that you “only want to make friends with the right people.” Countless people every day say this without even realizing how bad of a mindset it is. I know for a fact that a few people are mad at this one, so before you get mad, let me explain just exactly what is wrong with that mindset.
First things first, let’s break down the mindset.
Breaking Down The Mindset
This mindset mainly stems from the belief that our generation is extremely degenerate. People who have this mindset believe that most people in our generation have no ambition for the future whatsoever and will take the path that society has laid out for them without a second thought. They also believe that instead of being productive, most people from our generation spend their free time doing degenerate activities, many of which are extremely bad habits. These habits involve drinking, substance abuse and vaping.
Is this belief correct though? The answer would certainly differ from person to person that’s for sure. In my case, I do have to partially agree, as much as it pains me to. The reason I partially agree is out of personal experience. Just so you understand, I’ll provide a bit of personal lore (exciting, I know). Where I live, I haven’t met a single other person around my age range who doesn’t drink/smoke/vape. They’re pretty much everywhere here. It doesn’t end there either, I know a few people who are going to university and don’t even know what course they’re taking.
This mindset believes that all people like those are hopeless and nor even worth talking to, it puts all those people below the person who believes this who still continues to label western society as failed and degenerate. I did say I partially agreed with the mindset, but there are some huge problems with it that I cannot agree with, so let’s address the flaws behind this mindset.
The Main Problem With The Mindset
The main issue with this mindset is that it’s extremely arrogant. You’re basically placing yourself above so many people because of what you believe. While it is true that lots of these people are very bad influences, most of them are just normal people. I understand that you may not want to hang around with people because of their habits, but to completely invalidate them for it? That’s just too far.
Have you even talked to any of these people who you claim are degenerates though? A lot of people who have this mindset tend to just avoid them because they vape or partake in any other bad habits. However, actually talking to these people reveals a whole new reality. While I do admit that there are many bad apples, most of these people are just normal people and are mostly nice people. Many of them have dreams of their own that they’re working towards achieving.
There is one thing that many of them have in common though, and that is the fact that they regret their actions and wish they weren’t hooked on smoking or vaping. Pretty much all of the people I’ve talked to that smoke or vape are trying to quit. Unfortunately, many of them do tend to make excuses. However, there are quite a few that are producing results and are doing their best to leave that life behind.
To write everyone off who is into bad habits as a total degenerate is just not true, as most of them are just trying to get by and put an end to their addiction. If you are into these bad habits yourself, I highly suggest you also put an end to them, for your own sake.
The Other Problem
There’s one other problem with this mindset that also stems from arrogance and isolates you even more. Many people who have this mindset hold an ideal image for who they want as a friend in their head and completely write off anyone who strays even a little far from that image of an ideal friend.
That’s right, anyone who doesn’t fit this “perfect friend” image is completely written off. That’s about as blatant as arrogance can be. Think about it, even if you were to meet your “perfect friend”, why would they wanna be friends with someone as arrogant and entitled as you (by “you” I mean everyone who has the mindset)? You need to learn to humble yourself a little and open your mind up a little bit.
This thought process will cause you to miss out on so many great friendships as well. There are so many awesome people out there for you to meet, but this mindset will cause you to not even bat an eye. Instead, you’ll stay living in your little entitled fantasy world not making friends. I know for a fact that a lot of these people you ignore would be great friends as well.
This mindset is truly a destructive one and should be fixed immediately, speaking of that…
Fixing The Mindset
That’s right, I’ve provided a few quick tips that you can use to help get your brain out of this mindset, so let’s dive into it.
Humble Yourself
The main problem with the mindset as a whole is that it’s an extremely arrogant mindset, It places you on a mental pedestal above everyone you deem unworthy to be your friend. Look, I understand not wanting to be friends with someone and that’s fine. You don’t have to be friends with everyone you meet after all. But this is just too far. Not wanting to be friends with someone because they don’t match up to your expectations is beyond ridiculous and you seriously need to put yourself in check if you believe this.
Why are you so arrogant in the first place anyways? What have you achieved in life that is causing such arrogance? Exactly, there’s no reason for you to be so arrogant in the first place. My guess is that this type of arrogance stems from too much social media usage, there seems to be a correlation between the two and there’s a lot of content online that boosts a lot of people’s egos.
Moral of the story? Humble yourself. Make sure that you spot your arrogant thoughts and put them in their place. This will be hard at first, especially since we’re naturally reluctant to these kinds of things due to how uncomfortable they feel. However, if something you do feels uncomfortable, then it’s probably the right thing to do. Humbling yourself will allow you to realize how damaging arrogance and pride can really be. It will make you more likeable and open up so many more opportunities for friendship too.
Change Your Perspective
I know I’m kind of stating the obvious when I say this, but you have to change your perspective on people and friendship as a whole to properly get out of this mindset. Another huge problem with the mindset is that the belief system it grows from is fundamentally flawed. It judges people too quickly and only takes what is seen at face value and draws a conclusion on people too quickly. While I do agree there are certain things that are definite red flags, it’s not uncommon to see people these days draw conclusions from the smallest of things.
Still not convinced you have to change it? Let’s take a look at a common thought process associated with this mindset
It’s also not uncommon for our mind to paint an entire picture of a person based on one instance/mistake. We’re so quick to judge people in our minds and we have a tendency to paint many as bad people based on solely one mistake. However, when we make a mistake, we give ourselves a free pass since no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. If we really meant that, we wouldn’t be so quick to judge others for their actions. However, we only do that for ourselves and slam others with the hammer of judgement.
The thought process I just described is one that is deeply tied to this mindset and is a something that I used to suffer from. It’ll stop you from making friends and will mess with how you see friendship as a whole, so make sure you change your views.
Remove Unrealistic expectations
Many people who have adopted this mindset, have unrealistic expectations for what they want in a friend. My guess is that these expectations stem from shows and other related media. Everyone wants to be friends with their favorite characters, but these guys take that wish a bit too far. These people will base their “ideal friend” on these characters that they like and this creates unrealistic expectations a lot of the time.
The problem with this is that many characters in games/movies/shows are purposely made to be quit over the top compared to your average real life person. Their personalities are made more exaggerated to make them funnier or more interesting characters. These exaggerations usually come in the form of some characters being overly dumb or overly obsessed with a certain type of food.
You have to understand that most people don’t have exaggerated personalities like they do in games, it’s just not natural. So reduce your expectations.
Final Thoughts
To sum it up quickly, this mindset is not the right mindset for making friends. While there are some fairly good points buried within it, they’ve been ruined by the arrogant and unrealistic nature of the mindset. The good points that have been overshadowed actually provide real value to your social life as well, those points mainly revolving around avoiding bad influences and not giving into peer pressure by those bad influence. These points have been ruined by the arrogance of this mindset, with their true meaning buried under a thick layer of self entitlement. Don’t adopt this mindset.
How To Make Friends – The Mental Side
We’re finally ready to get started on how to actually make friends. I’m going to split this part into 2 separate sections, the mental side of things and the physical side. So let’s start with the mental side.
Half the battle is won when you show up.
This is a quote you may or may not have seen before, but it’s one of my personal favorites for sure. It highlights the importance of mental preparation and why we should all strive to master own mind.
When it comes to friendship, many of us tend to overlook the mental aspect since we’re used to making friends in environments that kind f force us to do so like school or work. However, for those who don’t have those circumstances to rely on, making friends can be extremely difficult. It takes a lot of bravery and courage to walk up to someone and start a conversation, let alone keep the conversation free of awkwardness.
To address this problem, I’ll provide you with a few tips to stay mentally prepared for meeting people and the challenges that may come with it.
Be Brave
This is the most important tip, so I’m doing it first to keep it permanently in your mind.
You have to be brave when meeting new people, there’s no two ways about it. This isn’t school anymore, you can’t expect friends to magically fall out of the sky. You will have to put in quite a lot of effort just to meet someone that you get along with. A good chunk of that effort just so happens to be spent on bravery. It is the most important tip after all.
Why is it so important though? Well this should be pretty obvious. You can’t just wait around for someone to walk up to you, if you do that then you’ll be extremely lucky to ever make a friend. If you want to make friends, you have to have the courage to take the plunge and go talk to someone. You have to have the courage to be bale to take the required steps to even meet someone you’ll be able to be friends with.
I understand how scary this is, there’s a high likelihood that it’ll go wrong after all. But is that really so scary? Sure it sucks to be rejected in life but you’ll forget about it before you know it. You may even learn from your mistakes in one interaction and take them into the next one. Besides, if you have the courage to approach someone and start a conversation in multiple settings, then you’re destined to go far in life.
If you think you’re not ready, just remember that we’re almost never ready in life. Regardless if you are ready or not, you still still choose to take the plunge and be brave. You’ll thank yourself for it.
Expect Awkwardness and Embrace It
When talking to someone you’ve just met, you can’t expect the conversation to go incredibly smooth. I mean if it does, then that’s a miracle within itself. But most of the time that won’t happen and it will be awkward, whether you like it or not.
Overcoming that awkwardness should be your main goal, not avoiding it. It’s like I always say, spend your whole life in your comfort zone and you’ll never get anywhere. Many people fear awkwardness in a social situation, and it’s no surprise why. Awkwardness usually creates a social gap between 2 people that can be surprisingly challenging to overcome. It can even put the impression in your head that the person you’re talking to doesn’t like you.
However, you have no reason to fear it. If you want to make friends, you’re basically signing yourself up for it, so fearing it would be a waste of energy. Instead, you should use that energy to mentally prepare yourself for those situations. It’s pointless to fear something that’s inevitable anyways.
Awkwardness is a huge barrier between you and friendship, so make sure to overcome it.
Embrace Rejection
This one is similar to some points from the sections above but it does deserve a section of its own, due to how important it is when it comes to making friends.
Like awkwardness, rejection is also something you should mentally prepare yourself for, since it’s highly likely to happen. The main difference between rejection and awkwardness is that unlike awkwardness, the situation can’t really be saved. This is why rejection seriously sucks for a lot of people, it’s feared even more than awkwardness. It’s the main reason why walking up to someone and starting a conversation is so scary. Rejection is viewed by many as uncomfortable and dangerous and is the main reason why you won’t meet new people.
However, there’s one quote I want you to remember:
“If you spend your life trying to avoid danger, you’ll never move forward.”
If you spend all your time trying to avoid rejection, you’ll never make friends. I understand that rejection is scary, but should that stop you from trying? No, of course it shouldn’t. That would be admitting weakness, and I know you’re not weak. I also have another question for you, what’s the worst that could happen? Seriously what is the worst that could happen if you get rejected? You feel a little embarrassed for about 10-20 minutes and then you move on. To me, that’s pretty much the worst that could happen. The world will keep on spinning, and you’ll keep on living.
So don’t fear rejection, face it.
Let Go of Perfectionism
When trying to make friends, I often see people go to incredible lengths to appear “perfect” or to impress others. We’re often so preoccupied with how we appear to others that we end up coming off as annoying or irritating to them. This is a huge mistake that many make when it comes to making friends. They try so hard to come off as likable that they end up not being likable at all.
You have to let go of this idea that you have to appear “perfect” in order to be able to make friends and cultivate friendships. It isn’t true at all. Of course I’m not saying that you shouldn’t care about how you appear to others because you should. Only to an extent though. After all, overdoing something is just as bad as underdoing it.
In this case, overdoing it would mean trying so hard to appear cool and likable that you end up losing sight of what really matters. You end up losing sight of yourself. What really matters is being the best version of yourself, not a perfect version of someone else. Trying to come off as something you aren’t will always seem unnatural, even if the person doesn’t know you that well, so don’t do it.
Stay true to yourself, always.
How To Make Friends – The Physical Side
That’s right, after over 6000 words it’s finally time for you to go out and make some friends. However, just going out on the street and striking up a conversation with someone is a bit too reckless. Plus, it’ll be hard to find people you can connect with. It’s still totally possible of course so if you wanna do that, I’m not stopping you. However, I do have a few things you can do to increase your odds of meeting someone you’ll connect with. So let’s dive in once again.
Finding The Right Place
One of the most essential things you wanna get right when trying to meet the right people is being at the right place. Although, the phrase “being at the right place” is a bit of a vague statement so I’m gonna break it down a little for you.
Most people want to make friends with people that share similar interests or have similar personalities to them. In order to do that, you’re gonna need to go to places where the kinds of people you want to meet are. Luckily for you, I have the perfect example.
A lot of people in the self improvement community want to be around people who are also into self improvement. And for that, there’s no better place to go to than the gym. At the gym, you’re almost entirely surrounded by people who are looking to better themselves. The fact that they’re at the gym proves it. I’ve met many amazing people at my gym, and plus I’ve improved so much both physically and mentally by going there. S I highly recommend you take start going if you haven’t already.
This just goes to show how many awesome people you’ll meet if you find the right place. The gym isn’t the only place you can meet people at though, there are many other options. For example, you can search up clubs in your local area for things you’re interested in, you’ll for sure meet some people there. You can also search up summer camps as well for people around your age, there should be loads of them and you’ll make countless memories there.
Make sure you properly look though, don’t just do a quick once over on google and call it a day, that would be a waste. Search multiple places as thoroughly as you can. If you want friends, you’re gonna have to put in the effort for them.
Say The Right Things
I know this is a part a lot of people have trouble with, and I know exactly why. Too many people fixate on this one aspect way too much. You see so many people worrying that they’re gonna mess up and say the wrong thing that they end up doing exactly that. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t overthink it, you also shouldn’t underthink it though. So let’s see how we can fix that.
First things first, you’ll want to find the right moment to start a conversation. This moment can often be if you can see someone clearly needs help with something or, if you’re in the gym, you can ask them to spot you or if they need spotting. These situations can vary a lot, but you’ll know when you see one.
There’s one other important thing you should remember about these situations. If you see an opportunity, don’t hesitate, just go for it. Many people see an opportunity but freeze up because of the fear of failure. You should ignore that fear and take the opportunity anyways before it fades away. A basketball player will never score if he doesn’t shoot, and you’ll never make friends if you don’t act. You miss every shot you don’t take.
Once you’ve actually started that conversation, you’ll need to keep the ball rolling. Make sure you ask them questions about relevant topics like “How long have you been going here?” or anything along those lines. Make sure you genuinely listen to what they say as well, and don’t just wait for your turn to speak. You should also throw in the odd joke as well, just as a tension breaker. It’s also important to note that you shouldn’t force anything, which brings us nicely into our next section.
Friendship Takes Time
If there’s still ice to break after the first conversation, then don’t stress. Friendship takes time to cultivate after all, it won’t just happen immediately. There are things you can do to help cultivate the friendship though, so let’s see what they are.
The first and most obvious thing to do would be to keep up contact. Make sure you say hi to them when you see them and strike up another conversation. You should also ask for their socials as well if you feel like it’s the right moment to do so. That way you can potentially plan things to do together and just keep in contact with them easier.
Another obvious thing you can do is be kind. You really have no idea how far a little kindness can go. Being kind to them without expecting anything in return will show them that you’re a good person and will make them want to be around you more. However just remember that there’s such a thing as being too kind, so make sure to balance it out.
Final Tips For Friendship
An important thing to note is that you can’t just call it a day and put in no effort after you have made friends. Maintaining friendships is even more important than making friends after all, and it can be a real challenge at times. But you’ve gotten this far, so I’m sure you’ll be fine. To make sure of this, I’ve compiled a few tips to help you maintain and improve your friendships.
Make Plans and Keep In Contact
Okay Okay Okay, there’s something that’s been bugging me for a while now and this section is the perfect chance to address that issue. There seems to a an increasing number of people who get super fussy about being the one who has to make plans and initiate conversations. These people don’t wanna initiate the conversation or make the plans themselves, they absolutely hate it. I’m pretty sure they hate it either because it’s too much effort or it hurts their pride for some reason.
Moral of the story, don’t be like these guys. You should try and make plans with people because it shows you care about them. In turn, they should do the same for you. That’s how good friendships work. There should always be a balance. Make sure you make an effort to reach out to them fairly regularly.
Be Honest
Never never never lie to your friends, ever. I shouldn’t even have to say this but honesty is a super important tip. You should always try be as transparent as possible with your friends. They’re your friends after all, why wouldn’t you be? A lot of people tend to overlook this, but our friends are the most important thing we have in life. I don’t blame people for overlooking this though, since when you’re constantly surrounded by others you don’t really think too much about it. However, those who have had no friends at one point know how miserable life can be without them. That’s why they’re so important.
Since they’re so valuable, why would you even consider lying to them? Plus, your friends will respect you even more if you’re transparent with them. There’s no reason not to be. You also shouldn’t take out your own problems on them. We all hate that one guy who does that. Another thing that you shouldn’t even consider is talking bad about your friends behind their back. I get that they may have flaws, but so does everyone else. Help them work through them instead of making fun of them for it behind their back. That’s what an honest person would do after all.
Deepen Your Connection
This one won’t exactly happen overnight, but it’s by far the most fulfilling tip on this list. It’s also a culmination of every over tip here, since they will naturally lead to a deeper connection. Apart from them though, there are other ways you can deepen your connection with your friends, so let’s take a look at them.
One of these ways is checking up on your friends. A lot of the time you never know what someone is going through, which is why just asking how your friends are doing can go a long way. It also shows that you’re a real one, who will stay by their side and won’t leave them behind. This will build the foundations for an incredibly strong friendship. It also leads nicely into the next tip…
When the time is right, you should start having deeper conversations with your friends. These conversations can be about many things, like what you value, what your dreams are or even the classic conversation about girls (those ones can get crazy deep). Whatever it is, just make sure you properly listen and engage with the conversation. I’m sure you will though, those conversations can be really valuable.
For my last tip, we’re gonna have to head over to the next section, so let’s go.
Make Memories
That’s right, my final tip in the whole guide is to make memories. If you’ve read through this whole guide and have managed to make friends, then I want you to do one last thing. I want you to get out there with your friends and make some amazing memories, you deserve it.
The real beauty of friendship is found in memories. The possibility for them when you’re with your friends is endless. Memories are one of the main reasons that I value friendship so much in the first place. For me, they’re where true happiness comes from and are irreplaceable. That’s why life is so miserable with friends, you have no chance to make memories with amazing people. Just remember that memories can’t be forced, so just let them happen.
So please, get out there and make some amazing memories before it’s too late.
Making Friends – Final Thoughts
Now you should see why friendship is such an important thing to have in life. Nothing can replace a good friendship, absolutely nothing can do that whatsoever. Friendship being so important is also why the growing loneliness epidemic sucks so much. It’s such a huge problem that almost no one is talking about. It’s ruining many people’s lives and making them truly miserable.
If you’re lonely, you can’t lose hope yet. You can still do this, you can still make friends. Why would you wanna give up when you have so many years left in your life, you can still do this. The reward is worth the risk.
