TRANSCRIPT
People have asked me a lot, “How do I make friends? How do you make friends? How do we do it?” It’s so hard to find people where I share really deep common ideas. It’s hard to find people that I can really connect with in important ways. And they’ve asked me, “You’re traveling, you’re out in the world a lot. How do you meet people? How do you make friends? How do you just come to a random place you arrive at and make friends with someone who really shares common ideas with you?”
Well, I have learned, for starters, to be a good listener who is curious about other people and really listens to what they have to say. Because what I have realized—and it’s true for me too, but it’s true for pretty much everybody I know—is that when I am curious about someone, they tend to like me. When I’m really curious to listen to what they have to say, what is their point of view, what is their life history, what are they interested in, and I really want to take it in and get to know them, people are drawn to me.
And what I find is that when people ask me questions, when they’re genuinely curious about me, when they want to get to know me, that when they want to hear what my history is, what I’m interested in, what is my point of view, and they really listen well and they really take it in and they’re not judgmental of me and not critical of me—doesn’t mean they agree with everything I say, but they’re respectful enough to really just take it in and listen—I’m drawn to them. And I find that I want to be friends with them.
So for me, when I’m out in the world, a lot of it is just being curious, being open, asking a lot of questions, and listening. And often I find I can make friends pretty quickly with that behavioral outlook.
Another thing that I find is when I look for people out in the world who I want to be friends with, I try to go toward people who are kind, people who are warm. Not necessarily people who are nice, because a lot of them, people who are nice, are just kind of fake. But underneath it, I want people who are kind, people who are more honest, people who are sincere. And what I find is the more that I have become that way myself, the more that I have a radar out for people who are like that—kind people, people who are direct, genuine, authentic—and I’m drawn to them.
And often I find that when I find people who are like that—kind, genuine, direct, honest, authentic—I can form a connection with them because I can meet them halfway. And I’ve really worked very hard to embody those characteristics in myself, in a sincere way, not a fake way, but a sincere way to really actually be present within myself and be myself and express it.
Now, another thing that I try to find when I try to make friends in the world is I try to find people who are fun, people who like to be adventurous, people who like to do things. Now, when we get onto the deeper level, though, I ultimately—what I really want to get deeper friends—I want to find people who do share more common values with me. And those are the kind of people that are people that I can actually, on a long-term basis, spend a lot more time around.
And for me, that’s not always so easy to find. I find a lot of the values that I share, the things that I think about, my deepest thoughts about life can be kind of unusual. They can sometimes even go against a lot of society’s values. So one thing I find is out in the world, I’m not so quick to just start trumpeting my ideas, kind of like I tend to do on YouTube. YouTube is kind of a different place where I can share more of a real me in front of a camera for an audience of people. But out in the real world with people, when I do this, sometimes it kind of works against me. I get people who get actually offended sometimes, and when I say certain things, they just really don’t know or don’t agree with me. It really actually can rub them the wrong way sometimes. And what I’ve learned again and again and again is, well, it’s not a very good way to make friends.
So from what I find—and it’s pretty important to me—and this is underlying a lot of what I found has been a very good part of nurturing my skill set at being better at making friends, is to really be friends with myself on the inside. To have a more stable, secure, honest, self-loving relationship between me and me so that actually I’m not so needy when I go out in the world. I don’t actually have to share every single side of my personality and find that perfect person who meets me halfway in every single side of me. What I find is that I can give myself a lot of the love and friendship that I need to sustain me so that when I do find people who could be a friend, they don’t have to be perfect.
So basically, what it comes down to for me is that I have become a lot more tolerant of people, also being gentle with other people, not being judgmental of them. Yes, inside of myself, recognizing, you know, maybe I don’t agree with everything they say, but not necessarily having to jump on it and argue with them. I found a lot of times if I argue with people, they pull back. This is stressful. This isn’t kind of what makes me want to spend more time with this person.
Another thing is if I can be tolerant of them and accept that, you know, we don’t necessarily have the same ideas on everything, but recognizing that this person has actually a lot of value in my life in certain ways, and those are the areas where we can be friends. And maybe if there’s 20 different sides of my personality, maybe this person only has 12 areas that we’re the same, and maybe we’re different in eight different areas, and that’s okay. Because a lot of times in my life, sharing twelve different areas of, you know, common value in my life is a lot better than having nobody.
And that’s where, again, I think it can come back to us having a relationship with our own internal selves to ultimately, in some deeper way, meet those friendship needs in our own self-therapy, self-healing, self-conscious, self-reflective, self-aware relationship with our self privately. And this can actually make it a lot easier for us to have more friends in the outside world.