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How to Be a Friend to Anybody

Simple tips to use when meeting somebody new

Brandon Bell
6 min readNov 18, 2020
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I think we can all agree that we humans crave some type of interaction, whether it’s face to face or over a zoom meeting. Hearing another person’s voice that is focused on you is a great feeling and it makes you feel like you’re cared for.

Meeting people for the first time can be challenging when trying to strike up a conversation or develop a good vibe with them. People who are strangers to you can come across as intimidating sometimes but everyone has a soft spot or at least a part of them that is willing to open up.

At my job, I realized that more customers asked me for help when I said hello to them first rather than me not saying anything to them at all. It was a fun little experiment to do at work that helped the time to go by but what I realized most about this experiment was that people will feel more comfortable with you once you make the first move.

This goes for romantic relationships and new friendships as well. Everyone could use a boost of encouragement once in a while. That’s why we have some of the friends we do now, they encourage us to be better people and let us know that we’re not going through life’s challenges alone.

So, how do we make more friends like this? It all starts with being comfortable being uncomfortable. This may sound a little confusing but take a minute to read it over and understand what it means. The only way you will get more comfortable with doing new things in your life is if you’re willing to get uncomfortable.

New experiences are hard to deal with because we’ve never done them before, this is why you need to keep doing them over and over again until you find them easy to do. Let’s go over a few tips you can use when talking to strangers for the first time and developing friendships.

Say “Hello” Like You Really Mean It

Being nice will take you a long way with any of the relationships you have now or in the future.

As an introvert, I used to find it very difficult to say hello to people I didn’t know. I thought that it was unnecessary and a bit embarrassing. Once I started doing it to somebody new every day, it became automatic and…

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Brandon Bell
Brandon Bell

Written by Brandon Bell

A young adult who’s writing is geared towards self-improvement and self care. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

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