Friendship Skills: The Next Step in Addressing Loneliness

"Loneliness."

Source: Virtual stories by Michelle/Unsplash

In my post "Taking Steps to Be Less Lonely" (hmm, surely I could have come up with a better title!), you learned some of the challenges of overcoming loneliness and some of the reasons why it's important to do so. I promised additional steps, so here we go!

Be mindful of the message your behavior sends to others.

The minute another person sees you, they've gathered information about you even though they may not even be aware of doing so. Their survival skills from thousands of years ago are checking you out to see if you're a threat to them. They're looking for signals that tell them whether you are a friend or a foe.

To connect with others, it's important that you're sending the message that you want to connect, that you're friendly. Regardless of what you are feeling or thinking on the inside, what you show to others is important. They look at you and make an instant assessment of whether you are open to meeting them or not and whether they want to get to know you or not. Some say it's about 30 seconds! Notice this for yourself: How quickly do you have an impression of someone you've just seen or met?

Imagine that you are very nervous, and because of your anxiety, your face is frozen, and your voice is high. Perhaps you speak quickly. Your body is tense.

When others see you, they pick up on your tension, and they feel uncomfortable. They don't want to be in a tense situation. When others sense tension, it's likely that they have a strong urge to avoid it. That means that they avoid you, and, well, you likely feel rejected, and it just adds to your discomfort. Interestingly, many times, if you acknowledge that you're nervous, then this self-revelation can take away the discomfort that others feel, and they may go out of their way to be friendly and helpful.

Practice a relaxed stance.

Nevertheless, it's important to relax your tension as much as possible. This helps you be more approachable so that others will be more comfortable in your presence.

Signal friendship with a genuine smile.

The next step is to show friendship behaviors. A smile is friendship behavior. But not just any smile. If you have a frozen smile plastered on your face, that won't work. Others are really good at noticing fake smiles, and they tend to distrust people who use them. Keeping a blank face doesn't work either. Blank faces are interpreted as angry faces or, at best, unfriendly.

A long-time signal of friendship is the closed-mouth cooperative smile. The smile needs to be a genuine smile, one that reaches the eyes (called a Duchene smile). You probably aren't aware of how you smile. Consider spending some time in front of the mirror. Look up the Duchene smile, and then see if you can create it, complete with the crinkles beside the eyes. This is your friendship beacon to others. If you'd like more information, here's a video about genuine smiles:

Voice tone matters.

Now think about your voice. Record yourself in your natural voice and listen. Is your voice tone monotonic? Is it high and squeaky or sing-songy? If any of these are the case, then you may want to practice using a melodic voice, one that varies with what you are saying.

Choose someone whose voice you admire as showing interest and friendliness and see if you can develop some of the same cadence and tone variations. You want to breathe deeply, have a lower voice tone in general but with variations based on what you are saying, and speak at a medium speed.

Feedback is a gift.

We often aren't aware of how we come across. Ask someone who is comfortable giving feedback to help you out—perhaps a family member, a therapist, a teacher, or a faith leader. Or a sibling. Brothers and sisters are often really honest. Honest feedback is a gift.

Practice.

Practice the closed-mouth cooperative smile, relaxed posture, and friendly voice tone. Then we'll add chit-chat. Yes, chit-chat truly has a purpose in forming friendships.