Find Joy. Seek Truth. Be Kind.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Silver - Make New Friends

Making friends seems like it should be easy, doesn't it? Some how it isn't always. Maybe you're shy, or quirky, or just quiet. Maybe you're new to town and haven't found your niche. Maybe your best friends moved away, or you had a falling out with your not-favorite-any-more-friends.

You could complain about it. It can be quite satisfying to complain. I do it a lot (just read this blog!) But, complaining doesn't really make it better. In fact, complaining about not having any friends is often counter productive to making new friends. So what's a person to do?

Get out there. What do you like to do? Go do it. What do you have to do? Do it with a smile, and ask for some company. What do you have to offer the larger community? Everyone has skills and talents that can be used somewhere. Consider joining an activity group, a social action group, a volunteer organization, a charity group, or a church. These are all great places to meet people who share your interests, passions and intentions.

I've posted about this before. I'm on several on-line lists for homeschooling, parenting, etc... and at least once or twice a year some one posts about the difficulty in finding/making/keeping friends. This may indicate that I hang out on line with some pretty socially inept people, but I don't think that's the case. I think that having a community is a very real human need and that it's difficult to find that community if we don't fit societal norms. It's up to us to find or create our own community.

1 comment:

Sue VanHattum said...

As a single parent, working full-time, I've had a difficult time making new friends. I know lots of wonderful people online, but it would be good to have some closer friends close by.