You would like to have more friends. You would also like to have more influence with other people gained through rapport, a feeling of emotional trust and connection, in which other people sense you are on the same wavelength as them. You may be frustrated because your efforts to gain more friends and influence them via rapport have been unsuccessful. You can learn new techniques for improving your friendship skills and your ability to influence others.
Step 1
Make an appointment with a doctor or a therapist and get checked for medical conditions that may be preventing you from making friends, such as attention deficit disorder or bipolar disorder. If you are diagnosed with a medical condition, a physician can prescribe medication and psychotherapy to control your symptoms. You can contact online support groups, such the Attention Deficit Disorder Association, which can connect you with peers for friendship and sharing strategies to improve your socializing skills.
Step 2
Read books and take classes on making friends and achieving influence with them. One classic is Dale Carnegie's book, "How To Win Friends and Influence People." First published in 1936, and revised in 1981, the book contains numerous common sense, easily understood recommendations on how to create friendships and present your views in ways that other people can understand and accept. The U.S. National Mental Health Information Center provides a free downloadable PDF booklet, "Making and Keeping Friends: A Self-Help Guide," which has many suggestions for activities that you can engage in which will help you meet potential friends, and also provides information about what behaviors are appropriate in friendships.
Step 3
Join groups for people who share your hobbies and special interests, and attend their online and in-person events. Rapport develops most easily from shared interests, so if you have a passion for gardening, visit local, state and national gatherings and connect with your fellow enthusiasts. Professor Michael Jindra's 1994 study, "Star Trek fandom as a religious phenomenon," described how huge networks of friendships, love affairs and marriages developed from common science fiction interests among fans of a popular movie and television series.
Step 4
Take online and in-person professional networking and sales classes. Networking and sales training focus heavily on connecting quickly with people you have just met, rapidly establishing rapport with them. One helpful book is Jeffrey Gitomer's 2006 handbook, "Little Black Book of Connections," which offers many useful techniques for linking with people in business contexts and establishing influence on their decision making.
Step 5
Sign up with a therapist or life coach who specializes in improving relationship and social skills. If your attempts to make friends repeatedly fail, you may have grown up in a home where the adults who raised you were abusive or did not know how to make friends themselves. One book that can assist you in determining if counseling would help is sociologist Jan Yager's 2002 text "When Friendship Hurts."
References
- Attention Deficit Disorder Association
- "How To Win Friends and Influence People"; Dale Carnegie; reissued edition 2009
- U.S. National Mental Health Information Center: Making and Keeping Friends: A Self-Help Guide
- "Little Black Book of Connections: 6.5 Assets for Networking Your Way to Rich Relationships"; Jeffrey Gitomer; 2006
- "When Friendship Hurts: How to Deal With Friends Who Betray, Abandon or Wound You"; Jan Yager, Ph.D.; 2002
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