I recently discovered something called Dunbar’s Number. Basically, it says that everybody has a maximum limit of 150 concurrent stable social relationships. Then I discovered this study which states “that humans have an average of about 150 relationships at any given time.” My first question was “who the hell has 150 relationships???”. After I finished sobbing in the corner about how my number doesn’t even resemble the so-called average of 150, I recovered my shattered self esteem and started thinking.
Like most people, my number has been steadily shrinking as I’ve lost some friends over the years. I mean, everyone has had friends whom you learn is an asshole, so you kick that piece of shit to the curb … but that’s different. The real kick in the groin comes when you lose a friend you don’t want to lose, and it sucks even harder if you can’t even figure out why.
Studies show we all lose friends as we get older. In fact, we lose about half of our friends every 7 years. No matter where we stand on the asshole spectrum! It’s no wonder then that more than 2 out of 3 Americans feel lonely at least once a week. Why is this the case? I blame technology. We’re so inundated by habit-forming social media that give the illusion of closeness while actually making us content at observing our friends traveling to exotic places and winning at life while sitting at home binging Netflix in our underwear. Your friends even have more friends than you do! How is this possible, you ask? Back to haunt our lives outside of math class, this is just the work of the black magic fuckery that is statistics. It turns out anyone, no matter how popular they are, will always find that the average number of their friends’ friends is higher than their number of friends.
So why am I telling you this? Because like many of you, I have suffered this problem and have some solutions. As an immigrant introvert who’s moved often for schools and work, it’s been really hard to find new people and make friends. Life’s been hard as a nomad, and I just want to make your lives easier.
So without further ado, here’s a list of some things that have helped me.
5. Be a “yes man”
And yes, I do mean like in that movie of the same title. In Yes Man, Jim Carrey plays a face-contorting naysaying goofball who’s down on his luck and attends a help seminar that changes his life. From then on, he can say only “yes” to all requests and opportunities like some sort of bizarre automaton with a compulsive disorder and of course, this leads to kooky antics. This guy needs to be your North Star.
When you’re an introvert, saying “no” is easy. You don’t want to go out so you say no to plans. Or you agree to avoid awkwardness but with the understanding that you’ll have some unforeseen obstacle that’ll prevent you from fulfilling your social obligation. But the problem is, you’ll lose friends more quickly that way. When you keep saying no, you might really be saying, “Sorry friend, but I’m not able to go because my introversion dictates that I make some time for myself. And while this is no indictment of your value to me as a friend, I don’t think that I’ll have the energy or wherewithal to fully appreciate your company right now.” But what your friend is hearing is “I keep canceling plans with you and/or don’t want to hang out with you for the last 3 times now. You can keep inviting me, but I’ll probably say no so you should probably not.”
Essentially what I’m saying is that you have to go out there and be willing to try new things and be open to the possibility you might embarrass yourself or be uncomfortable. Do you remember the last time you thought about someone else embarrassing themselves? Exactly. Nobody will give a second thought to your screw-ups and foolish moments. And by the way, this is backed by science. So start saying “yes!” You can do it. The opportunities are everywhere. You don’t have to do it all the time; just pick your battles. But you can’t keep refusing everything because it’s a hassle or uncomfortable. Remember that if you keep doing the same things, you’ll likely not get different results.
4. Don’t overthink it
Now, that’s all good and well, but what if you don’t have people asking you to events and things all the time. After all, you’re no insert famous person here.
Chances are, you know who you are by now in life. You know what you like and you know what you don’t like. If you’re introverted, first and foremost be mindful of your own limits and make sure to take the “me time” needed to recharge. This will help you in allocating time to dealing with other people.
The biggest thing to do is to put yourself out there! Go to optional work events, reach out to sorta friends whom you haven’t spoken with in a while, sign up for amateur sports leagues, martial arts gyms/dojos, and meetups. Volunteering is awesome. You can meet tons of new people, make a difference, and get that warm fuzzy feeling that might make you healthier and happier (see tip #3 below). The thing about the fear of rejection is, it’s often worse than the actual rejection. Worst thing that can happen is you learn from the experience and you can rinse and repeat. If it were easy, everybody would do it.
Don’t be disingenuous to yourself but be the person you’d want to be friends with. Nobody wants to meet someone who talks about their cats all the time, even if their cats are a big part of their life. First impressions count for a lot so put your best foot forward. The name of the game when meeting someone new is getting to the let’s hang out again level, not the let’s be BFFs & help each other move level.
Like with job hunting or dating, it’s kind of a numbers game. Just make as many connections as you can, no matter how superficial or fleeting. The more people you meet, the easier it’ll get to meet more and you’ll eventually meet someone you can hang out with more frequently.
3. Give until it hurts
Remember that sharing is caring but giving is living. Now, you might be saying, “Why the hell are you talking about giving in a post about making friends?” That’s a fair question. But the fact to the matter is, giving is a psychological trick to make yourself happier and get people to like you.
We’re social creatures and as such, empathy is one way that nature makes us want to contribute to others. Perhaps this is why studies show that being generous boosts your own happiness and overall health. Would you want to befriend a happy generous person or an unhappy selfish person?
And I’m not suggesting you give people money to be your friend. Although if you are, I’d like to sign up :) No, I’m suggesting you give, however you can, whenever you can. In Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he unveils the principle of reciprocity. Reciprocity states that people feel an obligation to give when they’ve received. For example, a study discussed in the book demonstrated that diners will give a bigger tip based on the mints received with the check (1 mint = 3% more, 2 mints = 14% more, 2 strategic mints = 23% more). Of course, if you somehow don’t have spare dinner mints to give out to everyone, you can always ask for a favor. People who grant you a favor appear to like you more, as they will be more likely to grant you more favors in the future. This is the Ben Franklin effect.
Furthermore, giving intelligently seems to provide you more success in business and life. As noted by Adam Grant in his book, Give and Take, givers seem to build more supportive networks, they inspire the most creativity from their colleagues, and they achieve the most successful negotiations.
So by all means, give until it hurts! After all, people like people who give them stuff and studies seem to indicate that it makes you much better off anyway.
2. Fake it ’til you make it
Yes, it’s hard to meet new people. It’s even harder to make them like you. And all of this is like playing on expert mode when you’re an introvert. There’s so many factors to consider that even finding someone new becomes like solving a complicated math problem.
It is hard to meet new people. It can be tempting to change who you are and do different things but you have to remain true to yourself. Yes, you should venture outside the comfort zone and try new things. But there’s a limit. If your new acquaintance wants to hang out and watch the game, just go for it even if you don’t know who’s playing. But if they get their ya-yas from smoking blunts and kidnapping Congressmen to take selfies with them, you probably shouldn’t venture out of your comfort zone on that one.
The old adage holds true. If you’re not confident, if you don’t know what you’re doing in this “friends” business, you’re not alone. Just try your best and pretend you know what you’re doing. Even posing confidently can actually increase your confidence so act confident. There’s a reason that practically all networking events serve alcohol. Even big wigs get nervous about meeting new people.
One tip is to pretend like you’re already friends and do what you would do as a friend. If this person is your friend, what would you do? Wouldn’t you be interested in hearing what your friend would say? Wouldn’t you want to know more about them and invite them to things? This all comes naturally if you’re already their friend, and guess what? They’re already friends in your mind. Just act natural and be chill. And try to remember this: “if you look like you’re hungry, you’re gonna starve” — some guy on Reddit.
1. Find common ground
Suppose for a moment that you did go out with your new friend from before and you kidnap 2 strangers. Aaand let’s say you lock the kidnappees into a room with knock off games like Rock Band. If they play together for just 15 minutes, they might become fast friends who band together and smear shit all over the walls and escape (yet another reason that the kidnapping spree was a bad idea). Studies show that this might actually happen (well the friendship part) since strangers who share experiences like playing a game together exhibit friendship-levels of empathy after just 15 minutes.
When I look back on the friends I’ve made (I had to use both hands to count them all!), all of them were made through connections via common interests and activities. Now in college, this looked more like a couple kids sitting around a bong while Phish plays in the background. And now, years later, well… at least the music has changed.
Now, I want to be emphatically clear. I don’t advocate doing drugs (wink wink, but seriously). You don’t have to smoke weed to make friends. But as the science shows, any shared interests and activities might make it easier to overcome that initial awkwardness, doubly true if you get high AF together at [8]. It also gives a pretense for meeting and you can easily part ways after you burn all the evidence. Another bonus is that smokers are easier to spot and you have an excuse to talk- “can I borrow a lighter?” (even if you have one, you sly dog you), “do you want to blaze?”, etc.
This has worked out organically for me and my friends. If you’re starting out with a blank slate, venture out into social events and sign up for things like volunteering events and meetups. But we know it’s often an unfruitful, exhausting pain in the ass to go to events surrounded by strangers who seem to already be friends with each other. If you’ve ever wondered if there’s a better way, there’s an app for that.
That’s why we made our app, playdate. It removes all the bullshit other apps make you do so you don’t have to spend your valuable time swiping through people who might be compatible friends (how would you even do that??). You can set all your parameters once and get a play date whenever you want. And like a real play date, you just meet and play and then go your separate ways. If you’re interested, please check out the app!
