Some of my best friends are people I’ve met in really random ways. There’s the guy who used to ride the commute shuttle with me - our first conversation happened after a homeless guy stopped in front of me at the bus stop and asked for my opinion on his jacket. NO JOKE. I mean, who wouldn’t want to know the person who drew that kind of interaction, right?
There’s the mom who my daughter insisted she wanted me to talk to, so she could have a playdate with her daughter. I worked up my courage and introduced myself as she was walking past my car. Five years later, and we are closer than our girls are.
But I’ve had some misses, too. The one lady I thought was really interesting but who didn’t seem to feel the same about me. The one who I started to get to know and then she moved away. The one who really wanted our kids to be friends, but she gave me a really creepy feeling, and I admit I dodge her whenever I see her around (which is uncomfortably often).
It is so easy to make friends when you are 4, or 8. Right? “Hey, do you want to play with me?”
Yet it feels so hard when you are 33, or 48. “Um, hi, I think you might be cool and I’d kind of like to know you.”
AWKWARD.
This week’s podcast is all about making it feel a little easier to make those first connections with new people. Because what I’ve discovered is that we can actually learn a lot about how to make friends from how our kids do it. Our adult brains just want to over-complicate the whole thing.
So check out Episode 50 now for some ways to un-complicate making friends as a grown up, and get more confident about saying hello to that cool-looking chick at the park. And then have the courage to try again if that connection doesn’t work out.
Links for this episode:
