Micro-Connections: How Small Interactions Can Build Friendship

If you're looking to make friends as an adult, this video is for you. Hello, my name is Rachel Havocaust. I'm a mental health writer and advocate, and in this series, I'm going to help you build friendships as an adult, which is something that I have had to do after getting divorced and also something I've struggled with as someone who has social anxiety and generally has really dealt with a lot of insecurities in my life. My last couple of videos, I talked about why we might struggle to make friends as an adult based in research and the first way that I like to invite people to start to make friends.

So this is tip number two for making friends as an adult, which is stay curious, stay open. What does that mean, Rachel? Okay, so staying curious means being open to the idea that anyone that walks down the street could be a potential friend with discretion and obviously safety. If you want to be able to build relationships with people, you kind of have to be able to have a conversation. Oftentimes we don't know how to have conversations with people, especially strangers, and that can inhibit us from having a connection with someone that maybe would turn into a friend.

I like to invite people to stay curious when the stakes are low. We use this like a rehearsal so you can start to practice saying, saying hi to someone that you've never talked to before and then engaging in a small, low state conversation to build those social skills. Stay curious when the stakes are low. What does this mean? If you're at the airport, if you're sitting on a bus, if you're at the coffee shop or in line at the checkout for the grocery store, start to talk to somebody knowing that this is someone you're probably never going to see again.

Which means if you fumble over your words, or if you don't ask a good question, or if you freeze up, it's okay. Not someone you're probably going to see over and over. That might be saying at the airport, hey, where are you traveling to? Or if you're in line at the checkout, hey, I really love those shoes. Where did you get them? Instigating small, low stake conversations with genuine curiosity. This is the big part. You want to lead with genuine curiosity. And this micro connection becomes a rehearsal for future friendship building.

So once we feel safe to start to engage in these micro connections, we can start to bridge the gap between acquaintances and real friendships. That means that sometimes those curious opportunities or moments could build into something else. So sometimes I might be sitting next to someone at a coffee shop, and if I'm genuinely curious in the book they're reading and I build a micro connection with them. This person might not become my next best friend, but maybe they'll introduce me to a bookstore where they got this book, and I might go to that bookstore and meet somebody there who shares a similar interest.

This is why genuine curiosity is so important. Because we want to come from a place that is true for us. So if we're sent down a road somewhere different, it's still down the road that is in line with who we are and what we value. Alright, that was tip number two. Check out my next video for my third tip on how to make friends as an adult.