Practice your friendship skills

Relationship-building is a skill, and like anything, it can be learned

Most adults say they’d like closer relationships with friends — and more friends in general. We see statistics that people who have close friends at work enjoy their jobs more, and that people with close friendships enjoy better health as well.

The problem, of course, is that when you are busy building a career and/or raising a family, finding time to make and maintain friendships is challenging.

Or at least that’s part of the story. Another issue is that building and maintaining friend relationships is a skill. Like any other skill, it can be learned and practiced, but when people don’t know it is a skill, it is harder to develop it. So we let busyness become an excuse.

But that isn’t inevitable. You could practice your friendship skills today.

Be prepared

Two skills in particular will likely fit into normal daily existence. First, being a good friend requires showing interest in another person’s life. Part of this is asking people questions, so people can share a bit of themselves with you.

Sometimes these questions will occur to you in the course of normal conversation, but maybe not. So, before any social situation you will encounter today — the chit chat before a meeting, while you’re waiting to pick up your kids from soccer practice — brainstorm questions you might like to ask the people you’ll be around. Think about what people have mentioned is going on in their lives. Did someone mention a new project the last time you talked? A big event in the family? Can you connect a shared memory to something that the person is dealing with now?

Maybe some people are naturally brilliant conversationalists, but most of us aren’t. Brilliance comes through preparation. It also comes from asking good follow-up questions. You can kill a conversation by saying “oh, that happened to me once too” — even though that seems to show common ground. Instead, try saying “tell me more” or asking about more details of the person’s story. Eventually the conversation will turn to you. Or maybe it won’t, but so what? We all get bored with our own stories after a while.

Make your bids

Friendships are also built around shared time together. That often requires little bits of effort called “friendship bids.” These are low-key invitations, often best done by asking people to share in activities that they might need to do anyway. So, if the weather is nice and you’re headed outside for a quick work break, ask a colleague to come with you. If someone has put snacks in the break room, you could offer to bring one to a colleague — a bid that creates two interactions (or a longer one if the person decides to go to the break room with you). Invite another parent to walk with you during a kid’s lesson. If none of those seem like they’d work today, send a text to a friend scheduling a real get-together in the near future, like grabbing coffee next weekend.

Because these bids are low key, if the person says no it’s no big deal. Indeed, that is probably the biggest friendship skill to practice. Staying positive and recognizing that there are lots of opportunities and lots of people is the best way to seem like the kind of person others might actually want to be around.

In any case, if you practice friendship skills, you will get better at friendship skills. And that will naturally build and strengthen relationships. It’s not complicated, but it’s not automatic either. Today, you can take a step in the right direction.