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Top Tips For Maintaining A New Friendship

Hello again!

It’s Matt here, and as promised, we’re going to have a look at some more Top Tips for Making Friends. Although, this time, we’ll be focusing on the art of keeping our new buddies.

I’ll give you a heads up on some of the themes we’ll be focusing on, because there’s two key elements to keeping your friends. One of these elements is “effort”, by which I don’t mean you have to run a marathon each day, more just that you might have to respond to texts occasionally. 

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Thankfully, in 2019, there’ll be no sending Hedwig out to deliver messages because communication is pretty quick these days.

Communication is the other key element, which leads on from the first theme of effort. Although, communication comes in so many forms, from text messages, to speech, to body language.

So in regards to the first theme of “effort”, every type of relationship requires effort. But you need to be prepared to put a bit of effort into a friendship when it first starts. When you first meet someone and you don’t know them that well, you’ll have to spend a bit of time getting to know their preferences. I don’t mean whether they like cheese or marmite in their sandwiches – although that knowledge might be helpful if you ever go on a picnic in the woods – just simply stuff like, would they prefer a “good luck” text before their big job interview, or do they need someone to cry down the phone to while they’re putting their makeup on?

You’ll always have to put this effort in, but it will get easier the more you get to know them. Particularly once you find out about their favourite sandwich filling.

Keeping in touch with your friends is very important. It lets them know that you value them and that they are a priority for you – without you needing to say these things out loud. Regular communication will also help a friendship to develop, you’ll discover things that you have in common and before long you’ll be meeting for a cheeky lemonade after lectures.

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Although, some important rules for keeping friends, and showing that you value them: Be on time! If you’re running late, send them a text to explain – and don’t let it become a regular thing either, if that time isn’t ideal for you then rearrange for a time which is easier. 

In fact, if you’re the one who arranges the meetings, you can discover things such as how often this person likes to meet up, where they like to go and how long it takes them to get there, so you can prepare accordingly. This puts you in control and it will give you some essential experience about what works and what doesn’t, for when you next meet a new person in class. 

One thing to remember is that friendships grow slowly. Your new friend might not always be available, and you don’t need to meet every day. Just giving them the opportunity to chat with you or to hang out with you will leave a positive impression and help the friendship to grow on its own.
There are a number of ways to be proactive and meet new people. Try volunteering with a local charity. This is a good way to gain working experience, add something great to your CV, and meet new people to practice your new social skills.

Humour is often a good resource to use. It doesn’t matter if you’re not the next Russell Howard, sharing your favourite joke is a good way to show you have a sense of humour. The bad jokes can often be the best. Even if they don’t descend into fits of laughter, they might just smile and appreciate the joke – and once you’ve made them feel good, they will associate you with positivity and happiness, which is good for a developing friendship.

Photo by Elle Hughes from Pexels

Being a good listener is key to making friends. Listen to what they are saying and ask questions. They’ve got a cat? Ask what the cat’s name is, or how long they’ve had it. People like to talk about themselves – so keep them talking and show that you are interested. 

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And of course, choose positive friends – particularly people who are friendly and supportive. They’ve texted you to say they are excited for pizza later and that they’ll bring over that film you said you loved? Great start, keep hold of them. Avoid anyone who puts you down or won’t return the effort – you don’t have to be friends with everyone. 

There are loads of ways to make friends or improve your social skills, and you will discover what works best for you with practice – but hopefully the stuff we’ve discussed in the last couple of articles will come in useful. 

Photo by Prateek Katyal from Pexels

Let us know how you get on! See you next time :)

M
 

Follow Matt: @Matt_jl_24

 

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