Thesun asks: I need a friend. Where can I find them?
Hi Thesun –
What a great great question. We need all the friends we can get. So it’s terribly important to find them, and definitely good ones!
So here are a few suggestions:
1) Many people are embarrassed to admit they need a friend, or that they don’t have enough. So your bravery in asking your question is already a great sign. The truth is MOST people are looking for new friends. So wherever you find yourself, there’s a really good chance there’s a potential friend there.
2) Most humans are nice. But people often find that the best friends are people they share interests with. What do you like to do? Are you into sports, or movies, or music, or video games, or model-making, or… just about anything you enjoy can be made more fun with a friend. So if you can find someone who likes those things, they’ll probably like to do them with you!
3) What do you spend your time doing? Are you in school? Do you have other activities? If so, everyone else doing that is experiencing the same stuff you are – the funny teacher, the tough coach, the great weather, the horrible food – and you can make friends just by getting conversations started about what you share.
4) If you tend to spend time alone, try to get out more and engage in some activities. When Handsome started high school, he didn’t have a lot of friends. So he tried out for a school play and got a part. And I’m not kidding when I say that he made friends in that play that he’s kept for decades. Do a play, or join a team, or work for the school paper, or join a youth group at your place of worship, or get a good part-time job where you’ll meet people – all of these are great ways to make friends!
5) Are you really good at something in school or work? Maybe you can offer to help someone who’s not so good at that. Not only can you make friends that way, but you’ll prove yourself to everyone around to be a really terrific person.
6) Parties. For shy people, or people without enough friends, parties can be really hard. But parties are the one place we go where we know everyone has come just to socialize. Now I know that not everyone there is interested in making new friends; some will just want to hang with the friends they have, or seek out someone they’re attracted to, or even make business connections. But it’s easy to find who’s looking for a friend – it’s the person standing alone. The person standing by the food trying to look really interested in the chips and forks. And there’s a funny thing about this – so many people are scared about approaching someone like that because they can’t think of what to say to them. Handsome used to worry about that, till a friend of his suggested “Why don’t you say ‘Hi, how are you?’” So simple, and so gigantic!
7) The Internet. I mostly don’t like things on the Internet that offer ways to meet friends. But that must sound silly, because you met me here, and we’re friends now! But we know that there are creepy people who use social networking sites to meet youngsters, and that’s pretty scary. So if you want to try to meet people via Facebook or some other sites, I’m not going to tell you not to, but just be SUPER-careful. And if you’re under 18 years old, be sure to have your parents or some other adult check out any information you send out. And if you meet anyone online who wants to meet in person, DEFINITELY have some adult you trust help you out with that one. I’d far rather you spent a bit longer making a real friend than finding a bad one quickly.
8) Ah, I’m so predictable. If you’ve read many of my answers to other questions, you know very well what I’m going to say last here. When Harry Truman was the U.S. President (in the 1940s to early 50s), he said a lot of funny things that got famous, and one of them was “If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.” What he meant was that the world of politics is very difficult, and most people in it were untrustworthy. But there’s a reason he chose “a dog” for what a real friend is. Thesun, we are the best! You can never find a friend better than a dog, anywhere! We are loyal, we care, we’re protective, we have endless amounts of love, we are sensitive, and we are oh so playful! I don’t know if you can get a dog where you live, but if you can, it’d be great. And best of all, we are such good role-models. One way to make great friends is to BE a great friend, and dogs will teach you all about that.
So those are my best suggestions. But please remember, it’s fun to have a lot of friends, but it’s worth so much more to have one or a few great ones. Really having someone you can trust is worth everything.
Good Luck!
Shirelle
