Struggling to make new friends? know these simple tricks.

When one reads the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, one thing that stands out is how every human being prioritises one thing “ belonging and importance”. Be it self-actualization, self-esteem or love and friendship, one thing that glues them all together is human desire to be the centre of attention. Self-admiration and attention-seeking behaviour is ingrained in human genes. But what this has to do with friendship and socializing?

As Dale Carnegie mentioned in his book “How To Win Friends And Influence People”, that more socializing people have one thing in common, they admire others and take interest in people rather making themselves interesting.

That is when they talk with people they make the centre of attention. This serves the benefit of getting more people around you.

After reading Carnegie book I decided to apply some of his suggestions from chapter 2, to be as much interested in people as I would be. It was a task that as an introvert would have killed me because I am shy and try not to talk with people and taking a task where I had to put efforts to approach people was frightening.

But as it is said, “ what’s easy is not memorable and what is memorable is not easy”.As mentioned, I tried to present myself as a person more interested than interesting.

Here are some of the results that I think are worth sharing for with people trying hard to make new friends.

What was my most difficult task?

My most difficult task was to keep the conversation going. Usually, it happens that people stop talking to each other after two or three questions if they do not share common interests. For my task, I chose people that had no common thing with me. their interest were diverse and their ideas about life were different. I tried to take interest in theor interest, no matter how hard it was for me to grasp the idea. Such as a talk to a guy in an event and he was from a philosophy background, I am from hard science subject finding common ground between the two was most difficult.

what constitutes a good conversation starter?

For me, the best conversation starter was “ I liked your shoes”. Yes that is it, I said it and believe me it went from shoes to clothing lines and from there to technology and then at the end we exchanged contact details to catch up later. You can choose your starter question but remember it must be simple and admiring, as people love to hear good about themselves.

what kills a good conversation?

As we are constantly surrounded by new and ever invasive technologies where social media friends are more in than actual humans are, constant access of mobile was a killer of a healthy conversation. Although for most of my experiment I tried to make “real friends” and tried to start a conversation with actual people. I believe that starting a conversation on social media or texting app is easy as compared to doing it physically because it demands constant attention and active participation.

My advice to people struggling to find new friends?

My only and most important advice would be to actively try to know people. People post their problems and excitements on social media and they are screaming for attention, give them what they want, inquire about them and you would see people will start gathering around you. try not to be fake and exaggerating, do not glorify yourself and take more interest in people emotions than their actions. Show empathy as that is one powerful tool that never fails to win friends.