How to Make and Keep Friends

This article is designed to guide you and help you along your social lives when you are in a spot of trouble. This should be used merely as a sort of rulebook and to get the most out of it, should be reviewed often to remind yourself of the important principles that you must apply in order to make friends. One of the most important building blocks of this is to achieve the goal of becoming a good conversationalist. A most important factor in making friends because without this, where would you start?

When you are in a conversation with a friend or colleague, what type of person are you?

1. A person that talks over the other and tries to get their attention
2. A person that constantly tries to change the subject to one of their own
3. A person that likes to boast and rant about their traits and achievements
4. A person that pretends to listen and gives cheap flattery to win over others
5. A person that disagrees with what the other thinks and argues their point

Every one of these types of personalities does not go well with being a good conversationalist. You must know that no one likes to be talked over, to be disregarded and to listen to nothing but you all the time. You must know that the one thing people want to talk about is not cars, or sports, or you, especially, and that the one subject they are most interested in is themselves. To apply this you could sincerely ask them about their how day went, their hobbies, their job etc. and only talk about yourself when asked, and only to a certain limit at that. Personality no. 2, no. 3 and no.5 all negate this one rule which is so important to winning friends and making you a likeable person.

If you are a person with personality no. 1, you must never forget that to be a good conversationalist, you must also be a good listener. A good listener often hears more about a person than someone that tries to pry and force information from that person. For example, listening to someone’s troubles and letting them pour themselves out to you would result in them softening up and eventually telling you what you want to know.

Personality no. 5, the one that disagrees and argues their point all the time, can be easily fixed. Just note the three things you must do. First, show respect, and that is not as easy as it sounds. Showing respect, as in listening and actually noting what the other person is saying, portrays you as an understanding person and one that is willing to discuss with the other what is actually wrong and what is right.