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- Making friends as an adult can be challenging thanks to competing responsibilities, fewer built-in social structures and less practice.
- Below, experts share helpful tips for how to improve your social skills and make better connections.
A friend of mine has been hoping to make new friends as a 26-year-old. She’s made every effort to put herself out there: joined clubs, volunteered, initiated catch-ups. But every time she establishes a new connection, it wanes after a few weeks. She suspects that it may be because she pokes fun at people too early in the friendship.
“They get quiet and awkward,” she tells me. “Can’t handle my jokes.”
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Part of the challenge of making friends in adulthood is that it requires more effort. You may have competing responsibilities and are more selective about who you want to spend time with. In college, school or a first job, “there was a built-in cohort of people who were in the same spot in life as you,” says Linda Baggett, a clinical psychologist in Manhattan Beach. You tend to lose this as you grow older and need to be more intentional about hanging out with the same people over and over again, says Albert Bonfil, a psychologist based in Los Angeles.
You may also need to brush up on the social skills required to form and keep a connection in the first place, says Baggett, who adds that these skills get rusty when we don’t socialize frequently or feel anxious.
The Times asked psychologists to share tips for nurturing new friendships, with a focus on social skills. Here’s what they said.
1. Check your assumptions
To connect with a friend, you need to be able to be present and observant of what they are relaying to you, says Yasmine Saad, a clinical psychologist in New York City. But “what you feel internally will color the narrative you have” about the interaction, she says.
So, if you assume that people think you’re boring, then when someone doesn’t laugh at your joke, you’ll see that as reinforcing evidence for your internal view. But if you come into a conversation with an open mind, you might not take someone’s lack of laughter as personally.
“If you have a history of social anxiety, you may go into social interactions harboring some really strong assumptions about what’s going on,” says Bonfil.
These kinds of assumptions are distracting and can hinder the possibility for a friendship to form.
“They get in the way of your emotional expressiveness,” says Bonfil, “which is your ability to share your feelings or respond to other people’s feelings.”
The best way to counter this instinct, Bonfil says, is to go into social situations with the aim of collecting evidence that refutes these assumptions. In doing so, they become less compelling and less likely to taint your interpretations of future interactions.
“By developing interpretations that are grounded in the actual experience, you’re more likely to not let self-defeating thinking undermine your relationships,” he says. In other words, you won’t write people off so quickly.
You’re also more likely to remain emotionally regulated, Saad says, which “frees you to be more present and read people correctly.”
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2. Switch up how you socialize
You are bound to meet people who socialize differently than you do. You may relish in sarcasm while others may tend to be more earnest, for example. But that doesn’t mean you can’t gel with them.
When you make a sarcastic joke to a new friend, observe their nonverbal cues, says Bonfil. Have they gone quiet, fidgety, awkward? Take note of what they say. Did they express distaste for the joke?
“What I’m trying to do is facilitate some kind of a conversation, to use their cues to modulate how much sarcasm I use,” says Bonfil.
If they appear uncomfortable, switch gears and offer them another part of your personality, says Bonfil. Perhaps you are also caring or curious about other people’s lives. Lead with these other parts of you when interacting with that friend.
Adjusting how you interact with someone who socializes differently doesn’t mean reigning in your personality, says Saad. “Look at it not as limiting oneself but expanding oneself.”
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3. Listen, really listen
When speaking to a friend, are you often thinking of what to say next instead of paying attention? Chances are you aren’t actually listening.
“A lot of people are not as good at listening as they think they are,” says Baggett.
This is especially true if you’re overly preoccupied with how you’re coming off.
“If you’re anxious in social situations, you can miss cues or not listen to other people because you’re trying to think about what to say next,” says Bonfil.
Being genuinely curious about what the person has said makes it easier to carry on the conversation from wherever they leave off.
“If you’re really thinking about what they said, then you’re going to have all kinds of other things to say,” Bonfil says. “You might want to talk about your experience of the thing that they said earlier. Or you’re going to have some innate curiosity and ask them what they meant by X, Y and Z.”
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4. Embrace small talk
I hate small talk. I find it boring and worry it means the conversation is doomed. But Bonfil says small talk is simply a sign that you’re still getting to know one another.
“Relationships don’t start off deep and profound,” he says. “They start off very superficial.”
Small talk is a tool you use to learn about a person who’s still pretty new to you, he explains. It’s “supposed to be dull,” because you’re choosing topics that are safe, that generally sit well with people instead of rocking the boat too early on.
As you bat around innocuous topics like the weather, the latest football score or that TV show’s finale, you gauge how the person responds. It helps you build a mental image of how the person might be in a friendship, says Bonfil. Who knows, after several stints of small talk, you might have a new pal, or realize you have nothing in common.
Lulls and awkwardness in small talk are normal, says Bonfil. It doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong or that the person isn’t worthy of your friendship, he says. It just means it’s still a relatively new relationship.
Smile, take a drink, think about what they said so far and ask a follow-up question. The follow-up question will come to you if you have been listening and are curious about your friend, says Bonfil.
Keep five small-talk topics on hand that you can pivot to if you’re waiting for a new thread to follow during the silence. Here are some to get you started:
- What do you like to spend time doing outside of work/caregiving?
- Have you ever watched a film or read a book more than once? What about it appealed or resonated with you so much?
- What have you been excited about recently?
- What was your school like growing up, what were the kids and teachers like?
- Have you got any plans for your next vacation?
We meet somewhere in the middle, in the universal mind meld that is true friendship.
5. Share in moderation
There’s nothing wrong with ranting to a friend about something or bringing up a personal issue. After all, for a friendship to deepen, both parties need to be willing to show vulnerability, says Saad.
“If you cannot be vulnerable, then others cannot feel safe around you and open up to you,” and vice versa, she says.
But it’s important to avoid dominating a conversation, says Baggett. It can burn out a new friend.
If you are in the mood to vent, test the waters to see whether someone might be receptive to it. Baggett says something as simple as asking, “Would it be OK if I vent a little?” and waiting for their consent could do the trick. Then, share a little at a time and gauge how the person responds.
“If you put it all out there at once, there’s no way to course correct,” she says.
You can tell that a person wants to listen if they are leaning in, asking follow-up questions or maintaining eye contact.
“But if you see signs like squirming, looking away, glazed eyes, uncomfortable facial expressions, you can check in and ask if they are uncomfortable with what you are sharing,” Baggett advises.
Your friend may simply have limited bandwidth at that moment, “or perhaps the person doing the venting is turning a large percentage of the interactions into venting,” says Baggett.
You can avoid the latter by always making sure “there’s space for the other person to share too, so it’s balanced and they don’t feel like they’re hostage to your story,” says Baggett. So, after your rant, ask your friend about how they are doing. Or, for the next catch-up, turn the focus toward doing a fun activity together.
Timeleft gives you limited details about your fellow diners prior to meal, but that’s part of the allure.
Remember
The best way to improve any social skill is by practice. So, keep initiating the catch-ups, accepting invites for casual hangs, attending those after-work dinners and chatting with acquaintances at events. If you run into a speed bump or feel your anxiety levels skyrocketing, there are psychologists and specialize in friendships and social anxiety who can offer you personalized support. (Before they nudge you back out there to practice, practice and practice some more.)
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