the easiest way to make new friends (at any age)

Last week, in the context of initiating interactions with people, I asked you all the following 2 questions:

What's currently holding you back from going first with others?

What would "taking more social initiative" look like for you?

And out of the many insightful responses you all shared, here's one from Josh that stood out...

"What’s holding me back isn’t knowing how to initiate, be positive, introduce myself, or hold a conversation... I can do that reasonably well when the situation arises. The bigger problem for me is that I genuinely don’t know where to start, in terms of putting myself out there in the first place!

I spend most of my time at home. I work for myself, which I’m grateful for, but it comes with the curse of being tied to my laptop, which is easiest to work on from home. The only times I go out are to the Post Office or the gym. Otherwise, I rarely get out.

So my question back to you is this: do you have any advice on how to get myself out there in the first place?"

Here's my response...

The easiest way to meet new people and make new friends, if you don't want to approach strangers on the street, is to find an activity (or place) that you like in your local area and go there once or twice a week.‍

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By place, it could be:

- restaurant

- cafe

- library

- gym

- etc.

An activity could be:

- dance classes, martial arts, poetry classes, improv, volleyball etc.

But in case you're thinking "well of course Lewis, this is pretty simple advice" I want to now explain why this works because no one ever does.

By going to the same place weekly, roughly at the same time and potentially interacting with the people you meet there, you're ticking off 4 aspects of the friendship formula.

- Friendship = proximity + frequency + duration + intensity.

- Proximity = the amount of physical space between you and this other person.

- Frequency = the amount of times you see this other person.

- Duration = the amount of time you spend with them.

- Intensity = both of your abilities to satisfy each other's psychological needs either verbally or non-verbally.

The best analogy for the friendship formula is the foundation of a house. If the foundation is weak, the house will collapse. So too if your friendship formula is weak, the friendship will end or won't begin.

In short: for important relationships, apply the formula. To end a relationships, inverse the formula.

(Quick note: duration and intensity have an inverse relationship with frequency. If you see someone less it can be more intense and the interaction can last longer when you finally see them.)

So as simple as this seems, I can assure you this stuff is social skills gold because in my 10 years of experience in moving to new places, within or outside of my country, and trying to build friendship groups from absolutely nothing, this stuff not only works but it also helps you take the pressure off socialising.

Because let's face it...

Starting interactions with strangers is daunting; who knows whether they'll respond positively or make up some boring excuse that they're too busy to talk to you!

But if you go to an activity, you're all gathering together for the same purpose.

You all have the intention to be in this place. Which means other people won't default to questioning why you're initiating a conversation with them.

No.

They've chosen to be there at this time. They've chosen to be in the social arena.

Dude. Let that sink in.

People have gone to this place to interact.

Better yet, if you start the new hobby of going to a particular activity (martial arts let's say), if you ever travel to a new place, you simply find a martial arts class in the area and BOOM! You're now exposed to a host of new people who are locals within days of arriving and whom you know have similar interest to you.

Now you have no need to approach random people on the street and beg them to like you.

Essentially what you're doing here is you're creating your own luck simply by exposing yourself to other people and putting yourself in social situations where luck has the opportunity to blossom.

Because here's something to think about...

Although there's a loneliness epidemic in our world nowadays, people are out there.

They're somewhere. You just got to go where they are in order to expose yourself to them and demonstrate you're non-threatening, you can be trusted and you vibe. (As we covered last week).

Finally, the opposite idea to this in our day and age is that in order to be liked by other people you have to hold yourself with an ever present mysterious allure so people feel constantly pulled to be in your presence.

Wrong.

Don't make yourself unavailable if what you want to do is meet people. Guys, think about it, why do most romantic couples meet each other at work? It's because they're ticking off the 4 aspects of the friendship formula. The intensity of their interactions is high. The amount of time they spend with each other is high. The the amount of times they see each other is a lot. And the physical proximity between them both is very close.

So expose first, then be mysterious (if u want to) later (lol).

But let's face it...

If you don't know how to regulate your social anxiety before you go to such an activity or how to start a positive, friendly interaction from nothing while you're there, you might as well have just stayed home.

So if you want to learn more about how to do both of those, you can join the waiting list for the upcoming "Go First" programme which'll teach you exactly how to make socialising at such activities (and any other social situation) not only fun but worth your time in terms of the abundance of new friends you make. (Plus you'll get first hand access to the programme when it drops and behind the scenes insights along the way 👀🥷🏼).

Join for free here.

That's all for now.

Until next week,

Lew

P.s. here's the visuals of the week.

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