How to Make Friends
Get out there. If you landed here because you searched for how to make friends, please note that though the following article is well-considered and filled with excellent points, they all boil down to this simple adage: Be among others.
There’s more to it, of course. There are behaviors (those small talk prompts we discussed) and mindsets we can get into later that will help. But humans are programmed to socialize. Making friends is in our code. It only requires us to (trigger warning) … mingle.
OK, But Isn’t There Another Way?
Online friend apps like Bumble BFF or Yubo are great for finding your people. But once you find them, at some point, you have to go somewhere and be together at the same coffee shop/taco stand/police station. When you’re asking about how to make friends, you’re talking about IRL friends, not the people in your Fortnite raiding party. Maybe you are friends with the people in your Fortnite raiding party, but if they live on another continent, then they’re friends without benefits.
We’re talking about real friends. Friends you can shake hands with. Friends to whom you may serve a dried-out, over-cooked burger in your backyard. Real-life people who can sit on your couch.
But there’s more than that when you make friends. It’s not just about the “real” of IRL. It’s the real of authenticity. Sure, that’s a trendy word right now and reeks of clickbait. But it’s not. Ever since Alexander Graham Bell called a friend, we’ve been living an increasingly virtual life. For 127 years, the virtual has encroached on the actual until we hardly even think about how much of our life is simulated.
To Make Real Friends, Find Your People
Perhaps you have made a ton of friends online. If you game with them, work with them, or talk with them regularly, then they are definitely real friends, existing in the virtual. But if you want to bring this same level of chatter into your walking world, you’re going to have to go where people are.
Your search for how to do this probably turned up a slew of articles advising you to find a book club or volunteer — valid ways to get out there and get into a posse. However, what these articles mean to tell you is to find your people. If you don’t know who your people are, think about what you’re into or the places you aim your attention. For instance, your humble author is into reading, collecting books, fountain pens, whiskey, high-end pencils, music in all its forms, cajun cooking, and tabletop gaming. I aim my attention into these fields and if I were to look for the most common targets of my regard, they would be music, cooking, and writing instruments.
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These are passions, but they’re also tribes. Anything you’re into indicates a whole tribe of people also into that thing. By finding these people online, you can go on to find them IRL. Which is way better than any random book club.
Let’s take an example from my passion for tabletop gaming. My wife and I are huge board game freaks (Code Names is our jam). It took me about a split second to search for and find “gaming groups near me.” There are a few stores in Chicago and its burbs that host game nights. But I really scored when I used an overlooked resource: Eventbrite. I searched “tabletop gaming” and my screen loaded with page after page of events and groups.
Finding Your People Makes It Way Easier to Make Friends
Because you speak the same language. You jump over all the parts of making friends where you have to feel each other out and look for common threads and yadda infinitum. You already share passions. You own the same games. You’re almost friends already.
Try This IRL Right Now
Sure, there’s more to making friends than simply showing up at the same place. And meaningful friendships take time. But you will never get there if you don’t get out there.
Go here for a step-by-step guide that will take you through the friend-making process, which is much, much easier than you think.