How to win a Friend..

Making new friends can be an intimidating experience, especially if you are shy or don’t have a lot of opportunities to interact with people on a daily basis. If you are determined to win new friends, however, there are several things you can do to improve your chances.

Step1..

Start conversations in places where you are likely to get a friendly response. This is especially important if you are afraid of rejection or too shy to start with random people. If you belong to a gym, regularly attend church or are part of your child’s PTA group, you can use these situations to start conversations and see where they take you.

Step2..

Don’t limit yourself to face-to-face contact. Whether because you are too shy to go out into the world or because you live far away from the city and have few opportunities to talk to people, the internet can offer significant help in gaining new friends. If you have a special interest, look for forums or chat rooms that cover that topic. In many cases, the groups are organized by location, so you will end up interacting with people in your area, who you can always arrange to meet later.

Step3..

Try to relax. Smile, establish eye contact and break the ice with an innocent question such as “What time is it?” or a compliment “That’s a great sweater. Can I ask you where you got it?”

Step4..

Give the other person a chance to talk. Rather than talking about yourself a lot and risk boring the other person to death, ask a simple question and let him or her take over the conversation. Good listeners are scarce, and people will certainly appreciate the chance to talk about safe topics such as work, family or hobbies.

Step5..

Remember people. Friends are won over time, by repeated conversations, meetings and things in common. Try to memorize people’s names, faces and details from previous conversations, so you can start off with that the next time you meet.