How to make friends when you have no friends

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In response to my previous posts about loneliness and how to make closer friends, a reader emailed me to ask what they should do if they have literally no friends.

Below are some suggestions if you’re in this situation, or just don’t have enough acquaintances to follow the advice in the how to make closer friends post.

I think the solution is simple, but not easy. First, get in the same room with people you might want to be friends with. Second, introduce yourself to a lot of people. Third, try to get contact information for everyone you click with at all. Fourth, ask them to hang out. You might need to be in the same room with people you might want to be friends with many times before you click with anyone. That’s okay.

Let’s break it down further.

Find prospects

There are many, many ways to get inside a room with potential friends. Here are a few I have used or can think of.

1. Volunteer

Pick a cause you care about and volunteer. This will put you in close physical proximity with people you have at least one thing in common with. As a bonus, it’s lower pressure since everyone has an activity. That means if you don’t find anyone to talk to you don’t have to just stand alone in a crowded room.

2. Go to a happy hour/lecture/panel discussion/conference

Same idea. For example, scrolling through Facebook events I found out that the Madison Public Library is hosting a presentation on Alabama alligators and some other animal whose name I can’t remember. Clearly I don’t care all that much about wildlife, but I did take note that the library hosts discussions (which I do love).

3. Take a class

Same idea, but you also have an excuse to talk to people. Let’s say you have a question about the material and the teacher is busy. Or you took good notes. You could offer to share them. Again, public libraries often offer free classes.

4. Go to church

I know, I know. Me first, right? If there’s anything that hit home in Alienated America (whose author recently retweeted one of my posts about loneliness!) it’s that for most of the US, church and the Parent Teacher Association are the primary institutions for civil society. I also read forever ago that church attendance is associated with higher income and education. The plot twist is that religious faith is associated with lower income and education. The pews are filled with unbelievers and the trailers are filled with the faithful. Which means if you’re an unbeliever at church, you’re in good company.

Why might church attendance be associated with higher income and education? Because having a network is useful! The thing church has over the other opportunities on this list so far is that the whole point of church (besides God) is to make real friends. These are people who are supposed to bring you meals when there’s a death in the family.

If you’re put off by dogma, try a Unitarian Universalist church.

5. Go to trivia

Find a local bar with a trivia night and show up and ask to join a team.

6. Find a meetup

For everything from UX to hiking to beadwork, there might be a meetup near you.

Say hello

Okay. You’re in the room. Congrats. Now what? If the thought of introducing yourself to a stranger fills you with anxiety, I highly recommend The Charisma Myth.

I can’t summarize it because it’s been many years since I read it. But I will tell you some things I’ve learned about likability.

In my opinion and experience, likability comes down to making the other person feel good about themselves. “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Sex Worker Maya Angelou, rest in power.

Making people feel good about themselves starts with your own status. It feels more flattering to be liked by a high-status person than a low-status person. I’m not saying go to the beach cleanup in Prada loafers. But don’t appear lower-status than you are. Wear clothes that fit and aren’t stained or torn. Get a haircut. Brush those teefies.

The other big part of making people feel good about themselves is acting like you like them. This is much easier to do if you actually do like them.

That’s where being in the right room helps. You’re going to have a rough time if you’re a Democrat and try to make friends at a MAGA rally.

Make it your mission to quickly find something you genuinely like about everyone you talk to or might want to talk to. And when you find it, try giving them a compliment. I started a conversation with one of my favorite exes when I met him at the Birmingham for Ron Paul 2012 meetup by complimenting his Mt Rushmore but it’s Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Fredrick Hayek, and Ludwig Von Mises tee shirt.

Try to do the things people often do when talking to people they like. Smile, look them in the eye, ask open-ended questions, don’t talk more than 50% of the time, watch their body language for discomfort, boredom, etc. and adjust accordingly. Make it easy for them to exit the conversation when they want to. Make it a goal in conversation to discover something you like about someone or have in common with them as quickly as possible.

Questions related to the activity at hand is a great way to start. For example, if I’m visiting a church I could walk up to someone and say, “Hi, my name is Cathy. I’m visiting today. I really liked the sermon. Do you know where I can find out more about small groups?”

When I was a baby networker, I went to SEO and marketing meetups. Since everyone is there because of their job, it’s appropriate to ask where people work to start a conversation.

Introducing yourself to someone standing alone is far less intimidating to me than entering a group.

If you find yourself clicking with someone, try to get their contact information. Or, give them yours. Giving them your info doesn’t put them on the spot to give you their info, but leaves it up to them to follow up. One great way to get someone’s info is to offer to send them something relevant to the conversation. If you’re at church, maybe you want to send them a link to a devotional you think they’d like. If you’re at an SEO meetup, maybe there’s a Search Engine Journal blog post. Another tip: Ask for a favor. People love to feel useful and high-status.

If you don’t click with anyone, don’t get any contact info, or no one follows up, take heart. It’s not about you. It’s probably about them. Maybe they already have a group of friends and don’t want to put in the effort to expand their social circle. Maybe they’re like most people and aren’t putting enough energy into socializing. Or, maybe it’s the tools you’re using. Maybe you made a little too much eye contact, or talked too little trying not to monopolize the conversation. Just take little notes about what you tried and how it worked and keep running the experiments. You will get better at it over time. And, it’s a numbers game. The more you try, the more successes you’ll rack up.

Making friends is a lot like sales. You’re going to be much more successful if you believe in the product, which in this case is you. People are lazy and will, at least at first, accept whatever value you assign yourself. If you genuinely believe that many people would be very lucky to be your friend, many people will believe it too. And the truth is, many people would be very lucky to be your friend.

For some people, this is going to sound obvious. Duh, they think. I’m a great friend.

For others, this is a hard row to hoe. I’ve always been really self-critical in a lot of areas. (And probs not self-critical enough in others.) In many areas I have really high standards which I often don’t meet. When I look back on my life, I can think of instance after instance where I wasn’t as good a friend as I think I should have been.

It’s easy for everyone, but especially those of us who struggle with anxiety, to overweight our failures and underweight our successes. Success is the minimum, so we don’t remember or dwell on those. We berate ourselves for our failures because that’s what we can’t tolerate doing anymore.

It’s been helpful to me to purposefully set aside time to remember all the times I was a good friend to someone. And when I am a good friend, to pat myself on the back for it. Not because I deserve it. But because it works. The problem with overweighting my failures is that it leads me to believe that I am a person who usually fails. The problem with this self-conception is that research shows people will subconsciously act in ways that support their self-image. If I think I’m a failure, I’ll fail just to prove to myself that I see myself correctly.

On the other hand, if I think I’m a person who usually succeeds, I’ll succeed just to support that idea.

In this way, believing I’m a good friend actually helps me actually be a better friend. And overweighting the times I’m a good friend helps me believe I’m a good friend. And so begins a virtuous cycle.

If I can walk up to someone with a genuine belief that they’d be as lucky to have me as a friend as I’d be lucky to have them I’m going to have a much easier time connecting with them.

My last piece of advice: Start today. Studies show people usually get more socially isolated as they age. It’s never going to be easier than it is today. Plus, every day you wait is a day you’re not spending with the people who will give your life meaning. Your failures mean nothing. Your successes mean everything. You only get once chance at life. Go out there and shake a tailfeather.