Friendliness with strangers.

Every time we listen to someone about a secret to their success, one of them is to have real friends. Friendships for sure is a bed we could fall onto, whenever we are feeling overwhelmed. But no one has mentioned how to find such beds. How to have real friends and find solace in the friendship.

We would have found a friend only if we didn’t have to start by talking to strangers. But absurd as it is, you make friends out of strangers. And no one for sure has been taught “How to talk to a stranger with a possibility of turning them into a friend, without sounding desperate for the friendship”. There is not a thin line between wanting a friend and being desperate for one. And even though it might not be evident to us, how we have been desperate for someone’s attention. The stranger or the possible friend gets it very well. Like how we detect someone’s desperate attempt to convince us, and how we are so quick to judge someone oversharing as desperation. People get it too especially when they are not seeking our friendship.

Returning from such conversations with strangers, we are always wanting to change the way we introduced ourselves. Or sometimes are sad about how even after giving your best, you have not been able to convince them enough to call back.

Sometimes, you even get the insight that you are too cold to be approached. Or you never try to stick to people, you don’t make efforts. But making efforts to make friends is not your style. You want to have friends who stick with you without any effort. Other times you realize how badly you wanted them to give you friendly eye contact. So how we should talk to strangers is a question we can never get off our heads.

How to talk to strangers with the possibility of turning them into a friend:

1.) Don’t try to convince them:

You are likely going to piss them off if you try to say things with the hope of validating them. Convincing people have the least to do with the desire to convince. The thing with convincing is that when we try to convince, we become what would give us validation. We try to be something we are not so that we would at least be able to hold onto their attention.

But you can’t fool people, you can’t hold people’s attention with the presentation of your personality. The more you be yourself, the more attention you would be able to hold. when you learn to talk to strangers without the intention of convincing them, you convince them.

2.) Don’t talk about your past or other friends:

Your past makes them seem like you don’t have any space left for them in the present. You are so occupied with your other friends or your past that you are carrying them everywhere you are going. This is the biggest piss off for someone who is imagining to be friends with you. There is no harm in talking about your past when there is a relatable element there, but doing it just so that you two have something to talk about could be annoying for the other person.

3.) Don’t base your friendship on negativity and back bitching:

If you two have nothing to talk about, and so you have found some gossips to share. The gossips at the beginning of a friendship is not a good starter. Because in the beginning, it’s all about building trust. And the last thing you would want to do to build trust is to talk negatively about others. Because it gives away the message that the person cant trust you with his/her things. You could be someone to talk to, but not someone to share his stuff. If you are seeking a real friendship, this would not be a good help.

4.) Don’t pull off your barrier altogether:

You would remember the day when someone was way too friendly with you. Did you trust that person, didn’t you think that it was very abnormal of someone to share personal stuff on the very day we met. Every relationship builds with time, rushing into building something would only lead it to be wrecked. Trust the process and yourself to build a strong bond with someone. The less time you take to make something, the more fragile it would be. The more time you have given to build it, the stronger it will be.

5.) Don’t be afraid of making efforts out of fear of being desperate:

Not being desperate has always been on everyone’s list. But the worse is when you hold yourself back out of the fear of being desperate. Strangers like being approached, as much as you would yourself want to be remembered. Sometimes the line between desperation and coldness merges and we get entangled between them. Either we are being so desperate that we nudging them unnecessarily and other times we hold ourselves back so that we don’t appear desperate. The key is to be as organic as we could be. Remember that the thoughts that convince us to be more organic also pushes us towards falsehood. Don’t try to be authentic but simply be.

Originally published at http://sanarajarsite.wordpress.com on January 18, 2021.