<p>I guess this is going to be my last question for a while on this board, now that I got many things figured out.</p>
<p>So the question is this: How can I turn mere acquaintances, study partners, etc, into actual friends who actually care about me, talk to me before I talk to them, invite me to do things with them, etc?</p>
<p>You have to give them a reason to. Are you interesting? Funny? Attractive? Wealthy? Creative? Sociable? Relatable? Talkative? Positive?</p>
<p>^tobaccoNchocolat…Why would wealthy, creative, and attractive be among the other traits for friendship? I am just wondering why these three would be necessary in making friends in your opinion.</p>
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<p>Well, none of them are “necessary” - neither are any of them exclusive - but they certainly help. Otherwise, I’m not going to bite on why possessing those qualities might make a more desirable person to spend time with.</p>
<p>You cant do anything to make people be your good friends. It just happens. You can try to get someone else to be your friend, but if you force them to be your friend, its not good. It usually takes alot of time.</p>
<p>seriously
friendships don’t happen at will. they just happen, and you’ll just know.</p>
<p>Anyone else notice kollegekid’s lulzy “Location” thing?</p>
<p>I had a bunch of acquaintances last year that seem to have turned into real friends this year. I think it’s because I made more of an effort to see them in different contexts. We used to just see each other once a week when our club met. But I’ve invited people over for movie nights, out for lunch, etc and so forth and now they invite me out, too, and we have more of a relationship like what you’re describing as what you want. </p>
<p>Maybe they wanted to be my friend to begin with and for some reason I wasn’t approachable enough until now, I don’t know, but that was all I needed to do.</p>
<p>Oh snap, we just went over a chapter explaining this in my Soc class.</p>
<p>Okay. So. You’re acquaintances make up what would be called a “secondary group” by sociologists. In a secondary group, what is important is your status, a relationship that can be described as a sort of “means-to-an-end” type where what is expected of you is determined only by your role in that group (your study partners from this secondary group expect you to contribute to discussions, ask questions, etc.). The main difference between primary and secondary groups is that primary groups consist of socioemotional memberships; that is, others demand all aspects of your self as opposed to only expecting a certain role from you. Primary groups tend to be small and long-term, with an informal nature of social control, a relatively closed boundary, and a competitive unity socialized by sympathy in which members seek a place in the thoughts of others. They feel a sort of allegiance or bond to common standards (everyone essentially behaves the same and desires the same things in certain major respects, disregarding personal quirks etc.). </p>
<p>So, now that you know what you’re looking for, all you need to do is pick out the qualities of a primary group and attempt to find or create opportunities in which you can establish these characteristics. </p>
<p>From here, it’s back to the same old advice everyone usually gives. You need to meet up with people outside of your usual secondary group functions (meet up to watch a movie instead of just seeing them at work). Create a sense of intimacy by spending more time with them and learning about their statuses (according to my Soc book, learning other people’s statuses (social, occupational, etc.) makes it easier for people to interact because each status is accompanied by certain expectations about how they are supposed to behave and how others should behave towards them). This explains why so many clubs do ice-breakers - they’re partially effective (the context makes it seem forced and superficial, and so it’s really only good for learning people’s names and establishing talking points imo). </p>
<p>That was partially me studying for my exam tomorrow, partially to explain what would otherwise be trite advice and therefore make it perhaps a little more possible to follow.</p>
<p>Also, don’t quote me on any of this until you’ve cross-referenced a reliable source. I still may or may not fail this exam.</p>
<p>^ Thankyou for that post…You remind me one one of my kids that will use me as a sounding board when we are discussing something and later inform me that he had a good study session.</p>
<p>"Are you interesting? Funny? Attractive? Wealthy? Creative? Sociable? Relatable? Talkative? Positive? "</p>
<p>I’m a good listener during conversations… I’ve always been told to listen to others more than talk.</p>
<p>"friendships don’t happen at will. they just happen, and you’ll just know. "</p>
<p>Well, it never happened to me once… What am I doing wrong?</p>
<p>I disagree with “friendships just happen.” They just happen if you just so happen to be putting yourself out there and you are naturally sociable and outgoing, but if you’re not you need to put a conscious effort into it. I would presume that OP is one of those people.</p>
<p>I would say I’m an outgoing person, and get along with people well mostly.</p>
<p>What do you mean by conscious effort? I’ve never had friends in my life (no joke, I’m serious) so I don’t know what you mean.</p>
<p>And what are some behaviors that turn off people?</p>
<p>Just as with dating and everything else, friendships require somebody to make a move plus an appropriate response to happen.</p>
<p>If let’s say there’s someone who could possibly be good friends with you. If you never met that person, then you’d never be friends. Now, suppose you meet and become an acquaintence. Ok, great, that establishes an opportunity for you to become friends, but how do you know that the other person would make a good friend? If nobody makes a move, nobody finds out, and the acquaintenceship remains. So, someone has to test the boundaries and push it further. If that fails, too bad. However, if it works out well, you’ve started your first step in having a new friend. Keep on doing it more, and you’ll eventually bond.</p>
<p>Before I figured this out, all the friends I had actively did all of this. I had very few friends, but they have quite a few. What they all had in common is that when I was strangers with them, they approached me for some small talk (eg. hey, that was a cool lecture, wasn’t it?). Once we knew each other’s name, they surprised me by offering to grab lunch, go to a party, etc.</p>
<p>Sure, you may say: wait, you’re not friends yet. However, it’s OK to push the boundary. If some nice person invited you to lunch or a party, would you actually reject? If yes, you’re simply a bad person (sorry, but that’s the harsh truth). If not, understand that everybody else may think like you too!</p>
<p>So basiscally, treat cool acquaintences as friends by doing a “friend-like” action whenever appropriate. If some acquaintence extends a friend-like action to you, reciprociate instead of turning it into an awkward situation. Finally, be a cool, likeable person that everyone enjoys being around. They usually listen to others, make others feel good, and have positive attitudes that spread to everybody.</p>
<p>Alright, I’ll try that. So I have to approach the other people first before they approach me?</p>
<p>Or would simply doing my work and being myself and waiting for people to come to me be a good idea? I was reading in another thread about making friends and the advice I heard was to be yourself by doing what you want to do without worrying about others too much.</p>
<p>The point is that someone has to make the approach, and if the other person doesn’t make the approach, you better be the one making the approach.</p>
<p>Of course, you should stand firm and keep your personality, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t approach others. Otherwise, if everybody followed that rule, you wouldn’t have any friends. So, you should continue doing what you want to do, but if you want to have friends, you better make it happen.</p>
<p>However, if let’s say you’re the academic type and you meet this crazy partier who can’t respect your academic priorities, then you shouldn’t change yourself to make that person like you.</p>
<p>So, while you should always be yourself, you should always give people chances and opportunities to connect with you if the others don’t extend it to you. Not everyone will eventually become friends, but at least you will have a lot of friends, which is what you want, right? :)</p>
<p>I think rymd brings up the best point. Forced friendships aren’t genuine friendships. Real friendships form when neither party tries. Whatever happens, happens.</p>
<p>Also, it takes time. Reach out in a friendly but not overly-intrusive way, and be patient.</p>
<p>Sure, a great friendship will fall into place, but something needs to spark it. It’s kind of like a bicycle: once you start peddling, it starts to go forward. If the conditions are right (eg. downhill, great bicycle), then the bicycle goes forward very easily. If the conditions are bad (eg. uphill, bad chain, crooked wheel), then it takes a lot of effort to make it continue going forward.</p>
<p>A great friendship happens when you give that initial push, and the rest fall into place like a bicycle going downhill. A bad (forced) friendship is when you have to continually put in an excessive amount of effort to maintain it.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, someone has to make it happen. If you only have a couple good friends, it means that they probably did all the work in making it happen. In fact, until a few years ago, I actually took the philosophy that all friendships automatically fall into place. Looking back at things, that’s not the case. What’s actually been the case is that the few friends I had previously all did something that made the friendship fall into place. Eg. my best friend from elementary school was nice enough to give me a chance by asking me to play with him. My friends in high school took risks by inviting me to do something small (eg. joining a club, figuring out a project, etc.). Since I wasn’t aware of the initial effort they put in back then, I thought it happened magically. So basically, naturally -> yes, magically -> no.</p>
<p>^
Hmmm good point, I never really thought about friendships in that light before. Definitely true.</p>