My family is rather introverted, and we tended to only do things together as a family rather than seeking out friendships. When we joined the church, we had ready-made "friends" at church and I never really had to learn how to develop friendships.

I've been out of the church many years, and have family about me so I'm not lonely, but I've never been good at making friends outside the family. I get along great with everyone at work, but I don't have friends outside of work.

I was talking to a co-worker a couple of days ago and she told me how she went through some sort of therapy and that part of it involved advice on how to make friends. So I will pass on what she said, and invite anyone else to add to that if you like. Now these are rather on the girly side of things.

1) Don't keep waiting for someone to invite YOU to do something with THEM. Do the inviting yourself. Same thing goes with speaking, I guess. Don't wait for the other person to speak to you. You can speak first.

2) If someone invites you to do something with them and you feel like they might make a nice friend, then RECIPROCATE sometime fairly soon afterwards. Again, don't make the other person do all the inviting.

3) Do something light and unstressful. Like invite a neighbor to come over for tea, and then just chat. Keep the conversation light and look for common interests.

4) Ask them to help you with something. Really! Something easy I guess. But the idea is that it will make them feel good to help someone and then they might also logically feel like you might be someone that would help THEM out too.

I haven't done ANY of these yet, so I don't have more examples, but it seems reasonable.

Anybody have any helpful stories, practical tips or ideas of things to do to launch a friendship?

That's the key. You have to be proactive.

One thing I realized is that you can make a LOT of friends just through ONE person. If you meet someone, that person likely has a number of friends and you could have a whole new circle of friends just through one person. I'm kind of introverted but I've made a lot of friends through the network of other's friendships.

Seinfeld where Jerry tells Ramon sorry but he only has three friends and he doesn't have room for more? As you get older you'll find that you only have time for a smaller number of people. The rest are either just acquaintances or strangers.

This is very true.
Having lots of friends is hard work and some people are cut out for that effort and some people aren't. It's worth identifying wether you want more friends because you think you should have more friends or because you actually DO want more friends.

The more basic rules are

You have to be around people.
You have to DO things with people.

Some of really need to start at the beginning :)

I seem to be attracted to the needy and borderline mentally ill, or the needy are attracted to me and the off-kilter amuse me.

In any case, I'm going to try to just make friends with people who are like what I aspire to.

Working on it.

laperla not logged in Wrote:
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> In any case, I'm going to try to just make friends
> with people who are like what I aspire to.

This is what I did during the period when my first husband and I were (very amicably!!!) divorcing.

I hadn't reached my twentieth birthday yet [See??? I can "talk Mormon" just like the LDS church does!! :D ], and I had NO real idea of how I was going to negotiate my future (beginning with the next few years), when I began thinking this through.

I started by figuring out what and "who" I wanted to be...and then I started seeking out people who already "were" whatever that was.

It took me awhile (several years) of very actively "trying" before I started really clicking with my newly-developing (and often very pleasingly surprising) life.

But I "got there"...and then I kept going...and going...and going...

And now I am "where" I am, and I am STILL "going"...

If I had been told, or intuited, "where" I would be now, back then, I couldn't even have imagined how amazingly wonderful my life ahead would [eventually] be.

You can't imagine what you've never experienced before...or been told about...or read about...or heard in a song...or seen in a film......yet you can, step by step, LIVE your way into a life which you could not have previously imagined, but IS vastly better in every way.

The life that I have now is ten thousand times better than the MOST "perfect" life I could ever have imagined back then.

And I am so grateful that I began by connecting with people who---each in at least some ways---"were" what I aspired to be.

Thank you for your great post, laperla!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2014 07:27PM by tevai.

I also had a lot of trouble socially, too: with self-esteem, connecting with people and having actually meaningful conversations with “diverse” people, and having conversations without competing with others. Anyway, I found the following YouTube channel and the video lessons helped me a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/user/YourCharismaCoach/videos

The lessons were not a quick fix, and can take a lot of practice, but I experience a lot less fear and am very happy with my conversations and with people in general, now.