Making Friends for Life

The need and desire for Friendship in our Lives is a legitimate and Honourable quest. Making Friends can be daunting or confusing. Here are a few useful ideas that I’ve learned about friendship.

Human beings want and need to communicate with each other. That’s why we have such an enormous need of companionship. Friendships can be developed everywhere but the problem is that we often make early mistakes in first contacts and end up not becoming friends with new people.

The causes of failed friendships and failed new relationships are often caused by what is known as “Mental Projection”. Simply put, “false beliefs” about the person we are talking to and hoping to get on with enough to have a friendship or relationship. Added to that, other problems such as lack of confidence and self esteem can throw a mighty spanner in the works too.
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Friendship is a valuable and fulfilling experience that can last a lifetime if we are lucky. Other times they come and they go and we live and learn. friendship is never about controlling another person it is about learning about and from another person who we value.

It is when we fail to believe in the value of another person that problems occur. When we meet someone for the first time we know nothing about them, we may feel something and wish for further acquaintance but we must first work on that. Misconceptions about ourselves and especially the other person lead to problems that manifest themselves in the form of Mentally Projecting ideas onto the person. We haven’t got a clue who they really are, we want to sincerely know them but we are impatient. We begin to fill in the gaps of knowledge about the person automatically and with error. This leads to the other person forming wrong opinions about us. They react to us as if we might be a little too presumptuous or even arrogant when we assume that we know them too well – after a fifteen minute conversation.

We don’t do this on a very conscious level, it’s more like an automated response system that we have developed to combat being seen as dumb or stupid. Our brains want to interfere and put its penny’s worth into the situation. In so doing it gets in the way.

Example; You meet a person in a bar or club. They show interest in you and shake hands or simply say, “Hi”. You both begin to exchange small talk – jobs, music and where you live etc – this information is just “small-talk” it isn’t the real thing talking to you. After a while the other person, showing more interest in you, offers his or her ideas about you. ” you said you’re in computers,right?” – “Yes” you respond. He, jokingly, but not quite knowing why, replies ” okay, so your a Geek then?” he grins and you don’t. Its an old joke and no longer funny. But who the hell is this guy to say you’re a geek?
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Your response is to try and joke back by stereo typing his life-style. Or you attempt be serious and show interest in his or her job and ( this is where mental projection comes in.) begin to “fill in the gaps” about their life and work. You use pre-knowledge about that life-style or job type. You may know nothing about it, but your brain has it all tucked away as random bits of useless information to be used for moments like these. This where we screw it all up. We are heading off down the wrong track immediately.

Humour has it’s place in life and also in meeting new people but it has to be used sparingly and carefully when with a new acquaintance. Think about it, humour can be self-depreciating, sarcastic or dark , black humour, dry humour or down right unfunny and hurtful. The last one is where the joker is the only person laughing.

We must always remember that we don’t know anything about the people we meet. We can be reminded of this in our current friendships too, we often learn something about old friends that we never thought existed.

Our natural desire to complete the picture about another person’s life is a strong mental force that we need to become aware of and learn to harness it. It can kill a relationship in a two minute exchange. Think of Mentally Projecting ideas onto others as a “friend blocker” that you want to keep in its cage.

How to Ask Questions to get Real Information about People.

You can only ask a meaningful question after you have listened to what they have to say. A conversation is a two way thing, always ack and forth. Questions – Answers. Monologues are boring and intense. Too easy to listen to and an enormous strain on the ears and brain – we tend to stop listening to people after the first two minutes. We do this so that we can digest what has been said.

We may be really interested in what the other person is saying, but they might not want to stop talking. Our lack of self esteem can interfere and we don’t feel strong enough to interject and say something ourselves. If we learn to listen actively, we discover that our mind will formulate questions that are worth asking. Unfortunately, television has conditioned us to listen passively, we listen to the main point and ignore what we presume is the “blurb” in the dialogue. We miss most of what is being said while watching T.V. and fill-in the rest and interpret for ourselves. This gets carried over to real life. Therefore conversations become watery and lack the real art of conversation. When you listen properly, you will discover something very refreshing occurring in conversation. You will find it easier to formulate interesting questions that will in turn create more interest in the other person. They will answer your questions and then probably ask you a question. Being active in conversation gives you the confidence to ask any question you please and therefore leads to you having the position of being able to lead the conversation. To lead the conversation is an art, it doesn’t give a person the right to dominate and turn it into a monologue.

Ask more questions and see how the other person’s interest increases. It all seems very simple and it is. unfortunately we are all very prone to allowing our weaknesses creep into our relationships and dealings with other people who we would love to get to know better, but end up destroying rather than creating friendship.

Practising the art of conversation with interest in the other person, active listening and well formulated questions will develop into a habit of lifetime. It will serve you well in business and personal friendships. Never imagine that you are at fault for not having lots of friends and acquaintances, it is normal to have only one or two good friends and maybe know several people who you meet occasionally. We don’t have the capacity or time to service ten friendships properly let alone have four or five good friends. When that does happen, your lucky and rare. It’s the result of four or five people who meet and practice an activity together.