How to Make Friends in a New State
All too often when people are confronted with a change of venue, like when moving to a new city or starting college, they struggle with knowing how to make friends. Making friends can be extremely difficult for many people. Generally people assume that only introverts will struggle with this issue, but almost everyone will face this problem at some point in their lives. Many feel completely alone for weeks, and even months.
How to Make Friends
Many people are never able to connect with others around them and live lonely lives. But if you struggle with how to make friends , this is not your inevitable future. Learn to make friends in whatever situation you find yourself. It seems difficult at first, but the more you do it the more you will find that making friends is not as hard as you might think.
How to Make Friends in a New state or City
When you move to a new city, you may wonder how it is possible to feel so alone while surrounded by so many other people. You will begin to figure out that being surrounded by people is not the same as being friends with them. The great thing about cities, however, is that many opportunities exist for getting together with other people.
Many people think that they should follow their interests to find friends. This is a good strategy, but you have to keep in mind that you need to attend functions where you will be interacting with others with those interests. If you like to drink, you will be more likely to find friends while attending a Wildish Women happy hour event than you would by simply going to a bar. If you like reading, joining a book club would be a better way of finding friends than simply going to Barnes & Noble.
Take advantage of situations where you continually run across the same people. If another person is always in the Laundromat at the same time you are, go over and say hello. Chat with the mother you consistently run into at the playground with her children. Ask to join the person at the restaurant who is always sitting alone. Thousands of people live in cities, so eventually if you keep reaching out, you will run across someone with similar interests.
How to Make Friends – General Tips
In whatever situation you find yourself, the following suggestions are helpful when you are trying to figure out how to make friends :
Smile and be cheerful. Even if you are scared to death, smile at others. Fake it. When learning how to make friends you want to look as approachable as possible. Why would someone want to be friends with someone who looks frightened, angry, shy, or distant? Put a smile on your face and make eye contact with people around you.
Reach out to others. Don’t wait to have others approach you. Take the first step, say hello, and introduce yourself. Make an effort to speak to the other people who are sitting alone.
Make plans with others. After you have talked to someone, make sure you follow up with another specific time to be in touch with them. If someone asks you to do something, make it a priority to accept the invitation. If you reject their invitations too often, they will think you are not interested in pursuing a friendship.
Don’t drive others away. It can be tempting when you are so lonely to call people too often or constantly text them. Don’t be so desperate for friends that you end up driving them away.
Keep in touch with them. If you have made a good friend in college or high school, don’t lose touch with them over the summer break. Give them a call now and then just to see how they are doing.
Be interested in them. Listen to what they have to say and remember what they like. This is what a good friend does. When some people are nervous, they tend to talk too much about themselves. Don’t make that mistake. Ask others about themselves and come up with questions about what they say.
There are over eight billion people on this planet. Even if you feel lonely, there are many other people somewhere with your exact interests. Things are always so much more fun with other people. Learning how to make friends might be difficult at first, but in the long term it is definitely worth it.