Having good friends is somewhat an investment for the future. Trying to have a balance between your personal life, work and family can leave you with limited or no time to get out and hangout with friends or make new friends.
Making good friends as you get older can be pretty difficult. Worse
still, the more it lingers, the more anxious you become about meeting new
people and eventually, you let it slip.
Read Is It Genetic Makeup Or Learned Behavior?
At the same time, as it can be hard to
take that first step in meeting people, once you have made the move you will usually
find things fall neatly into place.
The ways to make good friends with no
age boundary is listed below
These points may seem easy but could be really
difficult if you are an introvert or a shy one or someone who don’t just have
any reason to talk with people around you.
1. Overcoming anxiety
If you’re suffering from anxiety, then you need to get help as
soon as possible. There’re both government and non-governmental institutions
that can render help for anxiety patients for free. They’ll offers tips on how
to deal with, and even overcome the symptoms too.
Normally, we all feel nervous and
anxious when meeting unfamiliar faces, but once we get talking away, we will
calm down and begin to enjoy the conversation especially when we have like
minds or interest on a topic.
The most important thing in meeting
people, is just taking that very first step and chatting to people. To get
around this, take it up as a challenge by conditioning yourself to always take positive
steps towards meeting new people no matter their age.
2. You must break out
of your comfort zone
You’ve probably been in a particular
place or indoor for ages. You have to break out from this lifetime habit of yours.
The time is now to try something you would normally not do. It’s
time to go on that road trip you’ve planned since Adam. It could also be learning
a musical instrument or perfecting your voice training, even a cooking class. You
could volunteer for a job, etc.
Lifelong friendship can come out of least places.
3. Travel
I so much love travelling. It provides
unending opportunities of meeting people and sure making good friends.
Plan for your next vacation, heading off on holiday, gets you
around people and I mean a lot of people.
Apparently, everyone is in the same situation. All seeing new
faces. You’re all in a new location and you don’t know yourselves. Hence, it’s
an ideal opportunity to get talking to complete strangers like you.
Wondering where to go? Google places and
you’ll discover a ton of exciting places.
4. Volunteer
With reference to #2, all it takes is a
quick google search of places or organizations that are in need of volunteers. Trust
me, there’re tons of organizations you could function in as volunteer. For instance:
at a sporting event like motorsport races where they always need track
marshals, at disaster management agencies, emergency centers etc. These are
good places to find great and like minds while having fun and as well build on
your curriculum vitae (CV).
5. What are your opportunities?
Making new friends could be difficult as
earlier stated. You might need to create all the opportunities yourself.
It’s always best to start off from your environment. These are
people you’ve probably seen walk their dogs, at the play ground with their
kids, drive through or at work.
Take a step, approach your neighbors and get to know them. You could
invite them over for a coffee or tea and they’ll gladly oblige. You could also
take a step further at work and request your friend at work to invite his
friends over at your place or somewhere for drink and get to know your friend
friends. Tricky hun? But you just added to your friend list with ease.
You will
easily get along with them since they know you actually invited them via a middleman
who’s your friend. Wink!!
To make it much easier when attending a party, go with a close
friend with an agenda to make new friends. This works like magic especially if this
friend really know your need. Alternatively, at the party, take time to find
someone you have something in common with, and then offer to connect on socials
and build the relationship from there.
6. Frequent a choice place
Frequenting a place builds your confidence especially with the
staffs. Your face becomes familiar with them and often times, they’ll start a
conversation with you being a regular at their spot. You could take this up
from there and also use the opportunity you meet new people.
With time, your confidence will grow.
7. Meetup hookup
apps / sites
There are dozens of meetup and hookup
sites or apps that can help you find people that interest you. It’s as simple
as that.
8. Start a blog
Common, blogging? OMG!! Yes blogging. This
involves sitting behind a computer or mobile devices. It opens the world of
possibilities to you. You can find good friends from all over the world at
ease. This is so true because I can attest to this. Though you might not meet
them one on one for a long time especially if they’re not in your immediate
environment.
There are many blogging platforms you could start blogging on
like WordPress , BlogSpot, TumBir etc. Do some research before deciding on the
platform to settle with and you can always switch platforms if you don’t find
their services satisfying.
With their online community, within a
short time, you’ll have dozens of friends with common interest.
Before starting, pick a topic you’re interested in (niche), such
as movies, music, food, travel, self development, DIY etc.
9. Join a sports
group or don’t
Besides using sports to keep fit, it’s
pretty funny how sports are sociable occasions and you can use this to your
greatest advantage.
My best sociable sport is football. You make friends at such
events without even asking for friendship. All it takes is to associate
yourself with a club and boom – friends everywhere. Other sports includes,
tennis, cycling, cricket, etc. most often your conversations will be totally neutral,
it surrounds the game and probably history of the games/clubs playing. So a
little bit of knowledge of your favorite team will be an added advantage.
10.
Join a social media group/page
With
reference to #7, #9 and 11, there’re social groups you can join on various
social media platforms and connect with like minds of various age. All it takes
is to sign up on your favorite social media platform and get connected. After building
trust, you could invite them to a drink in a public place and get to know each
other better.
11. Join or start a book or film club
You can find plenty of such online and already set up or you can
start one. It’s pretty easy to setup.
Books and films or movies are easy choice
to get a tête-à -tête going, as you’ll hardly find people who hate movies.
For a test, ask someone around, it could
be a family member, friend, neighbor or colleague at work what films they like
and you will be off for several hours. Also ask about their favorite author and
you will get same response.
12. Gaming online
Besides physical socialization, there is
also what is called digital socialization and one of such best is online video
games. Note that they aren’t for everyone.
There’re lots of online gaming platforms you could sign-up on. For
instance: MMORPGs, it’s a role play online game and it’s a great place to
start. You can connect on this platform from any part of the world as they have
millions on their platform already. All it takes is an internet connection and
a sign-up.
13. Late night classes
This is one of the best places to find
people with same interest and probably same challenges as yours. They are
likely having a tight schedule or can’t
associate with people. So you could easily learn something new and meet new
people.
Go online and search for late night classes/adult training
courses.
14. Use
meet-friends apps
All you need do is go online right in
the comfort of your living room with your mobile device and you’re good to go. Whatever
information you need is at your finger tip.
There’s app for virtually everything, including the ones for
making real good friends no matter the age.
For instance: Peanut, is for mothers looking to connect. Their
slogan is “Meet as Mamas” as the site puts it.
Bumble BFF. This is very handy if you have
found yourself in a situation where you just don’t know anybody nearby.
Huggle is an other: “Discover people who go to
the places you go to”.
Stitch is for those over 50. It’s about
companionship, travel, and activities and can connect you with people locally
and globally.
So what are you waiting for?
15. Get a pet
Last but probably not the least, is
getting a pet. Pet is a good idea because they’re great companions. But this shouldn’t
stop here else it could become an issue.
So get your favorite pet: a cat, dog, a
pigeon etc. You’ll find other people have
same pet as you do or just loves your choice pet and pets are great
conversation started amongst pet lovers.
My choice pet is dog. As you can take dogs for walks, good
bonding in talking to them and can feature in certain meet-up hookup meetings.
Your age shouldn’t
stop you from meeting and making new friends.
No matter how old you are, you can still
make friends and bond with others.
To begin with, just keep things simple and avoid unnecessary
stresses (KIS).
Picture: Pexels
15 Ways To Find Good Friends No Matter Your Age
Reviewed by Civian
on
15:06
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Reviewed by Civian
on
15:06
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