making friends with complete strangers - C or D

classic!!

except there's always these weird social barriers, like: if you're the same sex (particularly for males, not so much for females), you can get a little worried the other person thinks you're hitting on them; if you're of the opposite sex then the same problem is often there.

so it's particularly classic if you meet someone and you're both completely aware that it's just a great personal chemistry.

"like: if you're the same sex (particularly for males, not so much for females), you can get a little worried the other person thinks you're hitting on them; if you're of the opposite sex then the same problem is often there."

yes!

i mean, yes, that is a problem!

by the same token you have to be wary of talking to women sometimes on the way home in case they think you wanna harrass them.

but sometimes the vibe is so cool, that it works out ok. i met this guy who lives in my city on myspace (ha!) completely by chance. he's a short film director and we got talking about movies and the like. he offered to lend me his copy of the director's cut of donnie darko (within about 3 days of us meeting on the internet)... so we went for a quick drink to do the exchange (i lent him frank black & the catholics "show me your tears"), got along fantastically well, and have since met up quite a few times and become very good friends.

he's going through a divorce right now, and at first i was concerned that he might want something more than friendship, but we had a good talk about it, and neither of us are the type to potentially fuck up a good thing by sleeping with a close friend.

i do feel really sad that two guys who meet randomly and get along great have to worry about the whole sexuality thing. it seems unfair that the same thing doesn't bother girls (mostly).

well we might meet again, who knows. he lives nearby-ish.

Excuse me miss, do you happen to know the way to AAAAARRRRGGGHHHPEPPERSPRAY? Thank you.

a friend of mine actually asked two women for directions the other week but they just totally ignored him. they then started walking in the same direction he was (in front of him though) and thought he was following them and said they would call the police. he was really upset about the whole thing.

that's horrible!! i guess i could have been freaked out by meeting a stranger off the internet, but i think i'm probably a pretty trusting person by nature, and i tend to just follow my intuition in these types of situations. and in this case, my intuition was right. it's definitely harder for guys. i'm sure if it was girl approaching a guy for directions, he'd be only too happy to offer assistance.

titchy, i hope you run into the aussie guy again. maybe you need a kind of neutral line to introduce the idea of being mates - like mentioning a local bar you go to, and asking him if he wants to meet you and some friends for drinks. did you find out how long he'd been in your part of the world (wherever that is) for? because if he's relatively new to the area he'd probably really appreciate an invitation to join you for a drink.

hes been here (london) for about a year.... yeah youre right about prob appreciating an invite, but its too late now ruby! (its okay though, i will just get drunk again next week and talk to someone else!)

sometimes I think you live a life of repression

i prefer suppression.

if you run into the aussie guy again, you may want to keep that preference to yourself ;)

i think most people are complete strangers, until you make friends with them, on the whole...

inc. on Facebook?

http://www.gyeah.com/ezine/ramblings/2001/Sept2001/images/perfect_strangers.jpg

It's classic but so tricky! I started talking to a girl on the train last week who was awesome and was thinking to myself that I would love to hang out with her but asking for her number would have been so awkward. I have to say, the one time I did it I wound up with a harmless but annoying semi-stalker for about a year so that's probably colored my opionion of the whole thing.
One the other hand, my best friend in LA meets and becomes good frieds with strangers all the time. Maybe some people are just better at it than others. I should ask her for some pointers.

i don't see why making friends should be such a big deal when people pick strangers up at bars all the time. i often wish i wasn't so sketched out by talking to strangers because when you meet lots of friends through friends the whole circle gets kind of incestuous and sometimes you want to hang out with someone that has nothing to do with anyone else you know.

i am terrible at 1) asking people's names 2) remembering them.

tehresa OTM

I do this all the time, it's classic. It kind of helps that the area of London I live in has a very villagey feel, with a lot of the same people drinking in a lot of the same pubs, and I've lived around here for years and regard a few of the pubs as an extension of my front room. So my housemate and I have this whole load of local pub friends, just through hanging out and watching football matches and stuff. Booze plus football = great social lubricant when it comes to making random friends.

It helps that there are now a lot of music students in the area, so the place has this slightly transitory but open feel that helps as well. Still, there are very few of these people I'd ever phone up or arrange to do anything with, but if we see each other in the pub we'll always end up sitting and drinking on the same table.

xpost - youre right. it shouldnt be such a big deal.

For about a year or two, I used to have long phone calls about every month or two with a kid I met on a plane.

Like Matt, I also have football-watching pub-people that I see very regularly, chat with, say hi to if I pass them on the street when not actually engaged in pub/football banter, will see most weeks, will have conversations with, probably know a fair bit about, would never ever consider getting in touch with them outwith these times. I've never even thought of them as friends ever, but I guess they might be considered to be such.

ilx in a nutshell, eh?

i think making friends with random strangers probably ends up with better results, for two reasons:
1)you're attracted to each other on the basis of just actually liking the other person, as opposed to "oh, they're friends of x, so i should probably be friends with them" etc.
2)if they turn out to be a dick, you can drop them from your buddy list without constantly having to deal with them at group social events

making uneasy acquaintances with people on the internet, C/D, S/D, OPO etc

so far so ambivalent (winky)

the facebook step is the biggest step

i have randomly made friends with strangers
but i more often just randomly have conversations with strangers and leave it at that. sometimes we exchange email addresses though and aquaintance is furthered.

i need some friends

give it a couple of weeks!

seriously though i clicked on this thread because i really enjoy making friends with complete strangers. my mom does too.

by make friends i generally mean "have an enjoyable conversation and experience goodwill toward" not like become close and personals forever after.

total classic. I love striking up conversations with randoms, especially with someone who piqued my interest when i overheard them talking. Somehow though, I still find it more difficult asking someone to be friends than i do asking someone on a date.

i am terrible at 1) asking people's names 2) remembering them.

― That one guy that quit, Sunday, July 1, 2007 1:32 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just before parting ways, smile and say "it's been a pleasure to meet you ... by the way, i'm Lee". The other person will almost always respond with their name. As applicable, you could also say "good luck with <whatever they mentioned they had plans for>" or "i've enjoyed talking you" before offering your name.

To "have an enjoyable conversation and experience goodwill", take a genuine interest in the other person's life, listen intently, ask interesting questions that can't be answered with "yes" or "no", about things you sense they are most passionate about. When talking, show you understand what s/he is trying to convey; pick up on not just the words but also the emotional undercurrents underlying them. Add something of value to the conversation before bouncing it back for a response. Don't be afraid to be vulnerable; it can make the other person feel more comfortable with you.

i am TERRIBLE at remembering names!!!!

Just before parting ways, smile and say "it's been a pleasure to meet you ... by the way, i'm Lee". The other person will almost always respond with their name

I'm horrible at being that other person. It's usually more like "...by the way, I'm Lee." "Alright, see ya around!" Don't know why I'm so bad at this.

i need some friends

― death and darkness and other night kinda shit (crüt), Monday, March 10, 2014 10:24 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've become better at making sure I introduce myself to people I don't know in group situations. I hate that thing where there's a medium-to-large group of people where some are strangers and others aren't and there's this almost unspoken ignorance of that fact, so I almost always try to say hello and tell them my name. Whether I remember theirs is another story. I'm pretty terrible at it.
It's a little something I noticed Gordon Ramsay do when I met him - he enters a room, says 'hello everyone', and then anyone he works with, he says 'nice to meet you, I'm Gordon'. For a celebrity I think that's really charming - you know who they are, but until they've acknowledged you exist, they're still a TV personality and not a human being. Compared to other famous people I've met and worked with it was very courteous and refreshing.

Yeah at some point I just decided not to accept that asking someone's name and/or introducing yourself was supposed to feel awkward. There's kind of a shared myth that it's "supposed to" be? But I thought, fuck it. Now I shake everyone's hand and say, very brightly, "HI! I'm not sure we've met!" and so on. It works great.

It's only awkward if you want it to be.

This made me lol in public bc all i could think about was that thread where lee626 explained how to take a shower
Just before parting ways, smile and say "it's been a pleasure to meet you ... by the way, i'm Lee". The other person will almost always respond with their name. As applicable, you could also say "good luck with <whatever they mentioned they had plans for>" or "i've enjoyed talking you" before offering your name.

To "have an enjoyable conversation and experience goodwill", take a genuine interest in the other person's life, listen intently, ask interesting questions that can't be answered with "yes" or "no", about things you sense they are most passionate about. When talking, show you understand what s/he is trying to convey; pick up on not just the words but also the emotional undercurrents underlying them. Add something of value to the conversation before bouncing it back for a response. Don't be afraid to be vulnerable; it can make the other person feel more comfortable with you.

hoo boy

I think I need to make more/different friends because when I feel aspirational it's hard to really change myself when I'm working within the same group

That's reasonable, and also why I haven't lived in my hometown since I was 18. Do it!