How do you make friends? and other friend questions

[Ghost1986]

this will be the first thread i start. the subject is how do you make friends?

i my self dont seem to have too much control about how i make friends. no matter how much i try i can not seem to willingly make friends. on the other hand though, the friends i do i have just seem to attach to me. it has been this way my whole life. i join groups and clubs but they dont seem to raise or lower the likely hood of a friend getting attached to me.

how do you view your friends?

i tend to view mine as expandable . i have had several people i have cut ties with just because they are no longer useful. this has changed a bit in the past few months but i still keep in mind that i can always cut some one off when ever i feel like it.

when your with your friends do you really feel your with them?

weither iam with friends or a random group of people i all waws feel as if iam a separate part of the group. iam with the group but i dont see my self as a part of it.

i think i put this in the right place

 

[EditorOne]

The only people I'm really comfortable around are the people I went to school with a long time ago. This has no applicability for most people today, because schools are bigger almost everywhere, but at the time and place it affected me I went through 9 years of elementary school with the same group of 30 kids, and four years of high school with those 30 and another 70. Not many additions and subtractions to the group, lots and lots of time spent together.

To a lesser extent I'm comfortable around people I've worked with for a long time. Ditto the guys in the fire company.

Insufficient evidence for a valid conclusion, but it might be that simply knowing someone really, really well, so that you know what to expect from them under a variety of conditions, and they know what to expect from you, is one of the foundations for friendship. They don't have to be of a particular type like INTP or anything else, they just have to be a dependably known quantity.

I'd not hesitate to show up at the house of anyone I went through school with and ask for a meal or a room for the night or money for a bus, or otherwise present myself as a limited supplicant. I'd have no trouble starting up a conversation with any of them should we accidentally meet. There are some I stay in touch with via email, and it's pretty much a continuation of a 50-year conversation in those cases. I'm not sure it can be labeled friendship, but it's perhaps worth noting.

Like others, I've never worked at deliberately acquiring friends.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

I'd not hesitate to show up at the house of anyone I went through school with and ask for a meal or a room for the night or money for a bus, or otherwise present myself as a limited supplicant. I'd have no trouble starting up a conversation with any of them should we accidentally meet. There are some I stay in touch with via email, and it's pretty much a continuation of a 50-year conversation in those cases. I'm not sure it can be labeled friendship, but it's perhaps worth noting.

Woah! 50-year conversations... as a 22 year old, that concept kind of blows my mind. The longest I've been in touch with a friend would probably be for 5 years, if you don't count my brother. Would you care to elaborate?

As for making friends... I embrace my weirdness sometimes. I just launch right in, asking them about something interesting I've seen. My strong point is talking about things I already know a little about... my strong point is not small talk. And I feel awkward making small talk. So as fast as I can I get into really interesting/deep topics.

How do I view my friends? My close friends I hold in very high esteem, and I feel that I do a lot for them when I can. But I have plenty of people I would call "friends" who I also think are expendable. I think you meant to write 'expendable' instead of 'expandable'.

But the idea of expandable friends is very interesting. It'd be an attitude where you always believe that your friend can become a better friend, and can lead to other good friends.

 

[sagewolf]

I do, actually, try to make friends with the people around me (who I'm fairly comfortable around), but every time I do, I know they're thinking that I'm being weird (in context-- weird for me) and they're a little awkward around me, which makes me uncomfortable. I stop trying after a few minutes. I don't really know how to start a conversation, which also works to my detriment. As a result, I'm not really that close to anyone, so I'd say that when I go to college I'll probably lose contact with the people I know now.

If I ever do find a really good friend, though, who I click with easily and who I can trust with anything, I'll keep in contact with them no matter what. Friends are brilliant things to have.

 

[loveofreason]

Brilliant. I am fixing the concept of expandable friends firmly in my mind.

We have had a couple of goes at understanding this whole friendship thing, the threads were quite interesting if you want to search for them.

Oh, it was a half-joke -but maybe some bitter truth in it? - from the irc: definition of friendship... "sharing something missing." Anthile, thanks for sharing the pic that inspired that.

hmmm.... so friendship...

I might be a little closer now to understanding something about it. "How do you make friends?" is pretty meaningless to me without understanding what a friend is or what the experience of friendship is like. Obviously the word still gets used to cover a very wide range of associations, and sometimes I use it loosely to connote something that doesn't meet my narrowing definition...

oh, the pitfalls of language!

But I don't think you were looking for this discussion in your OP? Just advice about how to form social bonds? I think the sense of isolation remains strongly for many of us, regardless of outward circumstances.... so are you wanting to form more of those bonds? The ones that remain essentially unvalued and leave you feeling empty?

Or are you wondering if it is possible to create the kind of connection that defeats internal isolation?

Sorry for the rambling, I'm more than a little fried at the moment...

 

[Ermine]

this will be the first thread i start. the subject is how do you make friends?

i my self dont seem to have too much control about how i make friends. no matter how much i try i can not seem to willingly make friends. on the other hand though, the friends i do i have just seem to attach to me. it has been this way my whole life. i join groups and clubs but they dont seem to raise or lower the likely hood of a friend getting attached to me.

how do you view your friends?

i tend to view mine as expandable . i have had several people i have cut ties with just because they are no longer useful. this has changed a bit in the past few months but i still keep in mind that i can always cut some one off when ever i feel like it.

when your with your friends do you really feel your with them?

weither iam with friends or a random group of people i all waws feel as if iam a separate part of the group. iam with the group but i dont see my self as a part of it.

i think i put this in the right place

I'm not sure how I make friends. I just talk with people I find interesting. I seldom ever find myself emotionally investing in people for a couple reasons. One, they don't seem like they want to investing in me (they don't invite me to hang out with them, or contact me like they do their other friends) and I can seldom relate with anyone enough to make an investment. Plenty of people like me, but I never seem to connect. I can't tell if it's my lack of investment, or my insecurities, or if we truly don't have much in common.

And perhaps it's because I've moved a couple times, but I can't seems to hold on to a friend for more than a couple years, apart from my sister. It might be due to this "lack of investment" cycle, but it's almost like I can't comprehend long term relationships. All I know how to do is be a social vagabond.

 

[EditorOne]

"Would you care to elaborate?"

Sure. As a 59-year-old, I'm still talking to people I started kindergarten with. :-)

 

[Minuend]

I don't make friends

Where I live now, I have 1 friend. I still keep in touch with three other friends from high school. But they live far away, so I rarely see them. I spend most of my time alone. And I kinda like it. I feel very energized. It's just so wonderful to do whatever I want, or act however I like, without needing to think about what others think and feel. It's quite tiring to have to think about everything I say, so that I don't offend anyone. And it's tiring to not be able to say what I think, without people looking at me weirdly.

But if I'm bored, it's not that fun to be alone. Good thing I'm rarely bored. I always have something to read (usually the internet) or do.

The friends I have had, have been the ones contacting me. In high school that was a good thing, since I was lacking self- confidence. I'm still shy and all that, but I'm more accepting towards myself. Kinda (I use that word a lot, I know). They've told me afterwards that they thoght it was impossible to become friends with me, I was hard to reach. Fortunatly, they didn't give up.

Good friends can be energizing. And I think it's more interesting to debate things in person. In forums, things quickly get interpreted the wrong way.

 

[EditorOne]

I didn't answer the original question. Apologies.

We're INTP. Knowledge and thinking we can handle. If you want to make friends, you need information about people. (In my case it came simply through proximity over an extended time.)
There are other ways. You can strike up a conversation with anyone by asking what they did over the weekend. Is that what they do every weekend? Does it appeal to them? Why? It's small talk but it gives you information on what they gravitate to with their personal time. Use the information to see if you want to talk to them again some time.

I'm not going to have much reason to talk to someone who arranges flowers on their own time. If they are into history, I can relate a lot better.

In short: Ask questions that let other people tell y ou about themselves and what they're passionate about.

Resources: "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was published by Dale Carnegie in 1936 and it's almost a cliche. HOWEVER the book is less manipulative than its title makes it seem and it does, in fact, make the point that most people talk most easily about themselves, and that you can use that tendency as a springboard into a relationship if you want. That kind of resonates with some of the things others are talking about and around.

I am not sure what friendship has to do with usefulness or however it was phrased. The idea that it's a utilitarian relationship doesn't work for me. Friendship means being there for someone even when they are being an asshat. It's only one degree down from family and home. ("Home" defined as "The place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

:-)

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

Friends have always been temporary experiences for me. My life has gone through so many changes over time. 5 different primary schools, 3 different colleges and at least a dozen jobs. Sometimes making friends came easy and naturally, sometimes it didn't happen at all and it usually had something to do with my behavior going in. There was nothing concious about it, sometimes I just went into a situation open and willing to engage others. That's all it took. Humor of course, went a long way.

 

[bdubs]

I have a grand total of 5 friends that I have gained over the course of (tommorow)19 years. One is a friend that I have simply known my whole life. My mom has been friends with his mom since college.

My second, (chronologically) I met in gradeschool. He was the "new kid". A transfer student in 6th grade who was joining a class of 60 that had been together since kindergarden. For whatever reason I felt compelled to talk to him on the first day of class that year and we became fast friends.

My third, I made during a chess match freshmen year of highschool. In between moves we began to learn about each other. He eventually introduced me to my 4th and 5th friends later on that week.

As far as how long I have known my friends, 3 of the 5 have only been friends for 5 years. We have since graduated from highschool. I hope that we will be able to stay close.

My friend from gradeschool has been friends with me for 7 years although we have not seen each other for 5.

If I were to draw any type based conclusions about my friends, I would say that they were ESTP, INFP, ENFP, ENTP, and INTP respectively. (I'v only had the INFP and ENFP actually take a test).