Having friends is great, making friends can be tricky. Especially as adults.
When we are younger it is much easier and much more natural to make new friends, it is expected of us and we are constantly in situations that help us make new friends.
When we are adults, however, it gets more difficult and we can find that our number of friends dwindles as the years go on. This has also been a phenomenon noted through the Covid-19 pandemic and after, many of us are self-reporting that we have fewer friends now than we ever have before due to the pandemic.
So, how can we change this cycle and get things back on track for the better?
Through little changes to our behaviour and attitude, that’s all. Nothing too tricky and no courses need.
Here are 4 of our best tips on how to do it.
Make the first move
Children make friends because they go out there and make them. As adults, we tend to hang back more and want friends to magically come to us. If we want to make friends more easily, we need to get comfortable with being the one that makes the first move.
Ask your co-worker out to lunch, approach a stranger in a sports bar, talk to more people in your reading group, send someone a virtual friend request.
Whatever it is, be brave enough to reach out first and know that this can lead to great things.
Ask questions
Sometimes it is off-putting to new people when we talk too much about ourselves. If we want to make friends more easily, one of the best things we can do in conversations is to ask more questions. Be more inquisitive, care more about other people, and show them that you want to make an effort to get to know them.
It might seem like a small thing but it can really help.
Be authentic
The only way to make friends is to be your authentic self. If we play an act or pretend to be something we aren’t, people can pick this up immediately and feel the disingenuine vibes. The easiest ways to make friends are the ones that allow them to come to you, naturally and authentically. Don’t fake, don’t chase, just relax, put in the effort, and let people come to you just because they want to.
Don’t overpromise
When we want to make friends sometimes we say yes to every potential plan under the sun, even if they are things we would never want to do. All this does is result in disappointment on both sides whenever that inevitably doesn’t work out.
If you agree to loads of things you don’t want to do, you will either cancel or go and have a miserable time. Never of these things are conducive to making new friends.
Try and be genuine with what you want and only agree to things you really want to do.
Have good boundaries, be yourself, and go out there and have some fun.
