Friendships are great for our mental health, but it’s not always easy to befriend someone. In this guide, how to make friends as an adult we’ll look at some strategies to help you start and build a friendship. You’ll also learn about a method that’s been scientifically proven to build a bond between two strangers in under an hour and how to use it in real life to become friends with someone.
How to Become Friends with Someone Quickly
1. Show that you are friendly
Even if your conversation skills are good, you are unlikely to make friends with someone if you appear unapproachable.
- Making confident eye contact
- Using open body language, for example, keeping your arms and legs uncrossed
- Smiling when you greet someone or say goodbye
- Daring to be warm towards other people; try to assume they will like you
If you Feel Nervous, It May feel Hard to relax and be friendly. But remember that nervousness is a feeling. It doesn’t have to determine your actions. Just as you can feel bored but still work or study, you can feel anxious yet still socialize anyway.
2. Start your Interactions with small talk
When you use small talk, you are sending a reassuring message: “I know basic social norms, I’m open to interaction, and I’m friendly.” Small talk may seem like a waste of time, but you only have to do it for a few minutes. Think of it as the first step towards becoming friends with someone.
Once you’ve established a basic level of trust, you can move to a deeper conversation. You will probably find it easier to talk to someone if you already know that you have something in common. If you want to make more friends, start by joining groups or meetups based on your interests.
3. Disclose things about yourself
Mutual self-disclosure builds liking and rapport. In one study, the more participants disclosed about themselves to a partner, the more socially attractive they were perceived to be.
When someone asks you a question, give enough detail to keep the conversation going. For example, if someone asks, “What did you do at the weekend?” a very short answer like “Not much, really” doesn’t give the other person anything to work with. A more detailed answer outlining a couple of activities you did would be better.
If you worry that others will judge you, it can be hard to share your thoughts and feelings. If you work on improving your confidence and self-esteem, self-disclosure may feel more comfortable.
You don’t have to disclose very personal information to someone you’ve just met. It’s best to start with slightly personal opinions or information. You can venture into deeper topics after building trust. For example, “I get a bit nervous at large events like this,” or “I like movies, but I love books because I find it easier to get lost in written stories” give others an insight into your personality without oversharing.
4. Encourage others to share about themselves
When you talk to someone, aim to have a balanced conversation. It doesn’t have to be exactly 50:50, but you should both have an opportunity to share.
To encourage someone to open up:
- Ask open questions that invite them to give answers beyond “Yes” or “No.” For example, “How was your trip?” is better than “Did you have a good time on your trip?”
- Ask follow-up questions that invite them to share more details, e.g., “And then what happened?” or “How did that work out in the end?”
- Use brief utterances like “Mm-hm” and “Oh?” to encourage them to keep talking and show that you are listening.
- Adopt an attitude of curiosity. Allow yourself to be genuinely interest in the other person. This will make it easier to come up with things to say. For example, if they mention their college course, you might wonder whether they are enjoying it or what career they hope to have after graduation. Focusing on the other person also has the benefit of taking the focus off yourself, which can help you feel less shy.
- Give the conversation your full attention. Don’t look at your phone or gaze at something else in the room.
5. Find things in Common
People tend to find other people likable when they share some similarities, such as hobbies and beliefs.
Try introducing a range of topics when you want to connect with someone. You can usually make some educated guesses about what someone might like to talk about within a few minutes of meeting them. If any of these potential topics overlap with your interests, try introducing them into the conversation and see if you can find any common ground.
For example, let’s say you love animals. You own a dog, and you volunteer at your local pet shelter.
You’re chatting to a new acquaintance, and they mention that although they now work in marketing, they used to work in a pet store part-time when they were in school. You could make an educated guess that they probably like animals, so steering the conversation around to this topic could pay off. If they didn’t seem interested, you could then move on to another subject.
When making friends online, join communities that are based on your interests. Make it easy for someone to start a conversation with you by sharing a few things about yourself on your profile.
6. Be Agreeable
Agreeable people are more likely to experience “friendship chemistry”—a feeling of “clicking” with a potential new friend—than less agreeable people
Agreeable people:
- Are slow to criticize or condemn other people
- Do not play devil’s advocate unless the other person is clearly interest in having a debate.
- Ask questions in good faith when they want to learn more about someone else’s perspective or experiences.
- Are generally optimistic and friendly.
- Are not pedantic
Remember that being agreeable isn’t the same as being a pushover. If you need to get better at defending your boundaries or standing up for yourself, check out our guide on what to do if you’re being treated like a doormat.
7. Use Banter and Jokes to Bond with someone
Research shows that sharing a humorous moment can increase closeness between two people who have only just met.
You don’t need to be a gifted comedian to use humor in a conversation. You just want to show that you can appreciate the lighter side of life or appreciate the funny side of a situation. Don’t rely on canned jokes or one-liners; they often come across as clumsy or as though you’re trying too hard.
8. Match the other person’s energy level
People who feel a sense of connection to one another often behave and move in a similar way. This is called “behavioral synchrony.” But mirroring someone else’s movements can be difficult and can become awkward, so trying to mimic someone when you’re talking to them isn’t a good idea.
Instead, try to match their overall energy level. For example, if they are in an upbeat mood, smiling, and speaking quickly about positive topics, try to behave in a similar way.
9. Ask the other person for their advice
When you ask for advice about a personal situation, you can disclose something about yourself, which invites them to disclose something in return. Asking for advice also gives them an opportunity to share their personal experiences and opinions in a way that feels natural.
Make sure you are truly interested in their advice. Don’t pretend to be enthusiastic or make up a backstory for the sake of it, or you may come across as fake.
For example, let’s say you are unhappy in your job and you’re thinking of retraining in a new profession. If you’re talking to someone who has mentioned that they retrained as a nurse in their 30s after a decade working in IT, you could ask them for advice on choosing a new career.
They might open up about what they liked about nursing school, how they choose their college, and what they most enjoy about their new vocation. How to make friends as an adult From there, you could start talking about personal goals, values, and what you want most from life.
10. Ask for small favors
You might assume that doing favors for someone else will make them like you, but it can work the other way around: research shows that helping someone in a small way can make us more inclined to like them.
For example, when talking to someone, you could:
- Ask them to lend you a pen
- Ask them to look something up on their phone
- Ask them for a tissue
11. Share a meal
Research shows that when people eat together, they have more positive social interactions and perceive each other as more agreeable.
If you’re talking to someone and its nearly time for a coffee break or meal, ask them to eat with you. For example, you could say, How to make friends as an adult “I could use a coffee after that meeting, maybe a sandwich too. Would you like to come with me?” or “Oh look, it’s nearly lunchtime! Would you like to have this conversation over lunch?”
12. Spend quality time together
It takes around 200 hours of shared quality time to become good friends. The more often you hang out, How to make friends as an adult the more quickly you’ll become friends. But don’t try to rush the process by pressuring someone to hang out all the time. In general, hanging out once per week is often enough when you’re getting to know someone.
Shared experiences are also key to building long-distance friendships. You can hang out online, for example, by playing a game, watching a movie, or taking a virtual tour of an attraction.
When you meet someone, you click with, take the initiative and exchange contact details. Follow up within a couple of days and ask them to hang out. Pick an activity that relates how to make friends as an adult to a shared interest.
Stay in touch between meetings. Talking over text, social media, or on the phone can help build and maintain your friendship. This article on how to become friends with someone over text might be helpful.
The Fast Friends Protocol
Scientists at Stony Brook University in New York have designed a method where two strangers can build a close connection in less than 60 minutes.
What researchers call the Fast Friends procedure will not only help you build deep relationships quickly, but it also helps you know what to say next in a conversation. Professionals such as police, interrogators, and psychologists have learned how to build trust and befriend strangers rapidly based on these findings.
The Fast Friends procedure works best when you’re talking to someone one-on-one and face-to-face. This means the procedure is perfect to use when you meet friends over a cup of coffee, while traveling, or at a party. You could even use this method how to make friends as an adult with people that you have known for a long time to strengthen your existing friendship. The best part is that you can use it with anyone, including business colleagues, an old friend, or even a relative you’d like to get closer to.
The Fast Friends Experiments
At Stony Brook, researchers have tested the Fast Friends procedure again and again and have found that it’s an efficient way to feel comfortable with someone. It’s shown repeatedly that this procedure to make someone your friend works and that it has long-lasting effects. Different variations of the original experiment have shown that the Fast Friends questions are even successful in creating cross-cultural friendships and increasing intimacy within a couple.
Part 1: Establishing the Relationship
Strangers are randomly put into pairs. Each participant is handed 3 sets of 12 questions. Participants in each pair take turns answering and asking the questions. They’re encouraged to be as honest as possible without making themselves feel how to make friends as an adult uncomfortable.
The questions are increasingly intimate, with more “shallow” questions toward the front of the deck and more “intimate” questions at the end.
This process takes around one hour. Once they’re done with the 36 questions, they’re sent their separate ways and are asked not to contact each other while the experiment is still going on.
Part 2: Creating Intimacy
During this next meeting, the couple is asked to repeat the process described above, but with a different set of 36 questions.
Again, they’re asked to not contact each other until the experiment is complete.
Part 3: Friends or Just friendly?
The participants are given the chance to collect contact information from their partners. More often than not, participants want to keep in touch how to make friends as an adult with their partners and see them again after the experiment is over.
If you came into this experiment to make a friend, you were almost guaranteed to leave with one. The participants weren’t just cordial or friendly to each other; they wanted to keep in touch and continue their friendship because what they experienced simulates the same experience that otherwise takes months or years for friends to go through.
Some of the questions that the Researchers used:
The first set of 12 questions the researchers used was shallow and basically scratched the surface. The questions are design to get the participants warmed up:
- Would you like to be famous? In what way?
- What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
- When did you last sing to yourself or to someone else?
The second set of 12 questions used was to let the participants become How to make friends as an adult close friends in a less superficial way:
- What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
- What is your most terrible memory?
- If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly. Would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
The last set of 12 questions is where the real friendship building happens. These are questions that even best friends don’t always ask each other. By asking and answering these questions, participants get to know each other fast:
- What things are too personal to discuss with others?
- If you were guaranteed honest responses to any 3 questions, who would you question, and what would you ask?
- Do you believe in any sort of God? If not, do you think you might still pray if you were in a life-threatening situation?
Of course, the researchers didn’t start the questioning with philosophical questions about their beliefs because that would scare participants off. How to make friends as an adult The key to using the Fast Friends procedure is to ask intentional. Questions from the start, disclose information about yourself to establish trust, and then dig deeper to get to the good stuff.
