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The Shy Person’s Guide To Making New Friends

Improving your social life is a lot easier than you think.

4 min readAug 13, 2020

Having grown up with social anxiety, I used to find it extremely difficult to make new friends. Deep down, I was afraid that other people would judge me for the insecurities I saw in myself. So naturally, I thought I was better off alone.

But over the past couple of years, I’ve managed to change my life for the better. I’m now extremely confident and find it easy to create meaningful relationships with anyone I meet.

And if you want to do the same, you can start by adopting the following strategies that will exponentially improve your social life. Each of these insights changed my life and relationships for the better. I’m sure they will do the same for you, too.

Give Someone A Compliment.

About a year ago, I was having a conversation with a girl that I met on a flight from Vancouver to Calgary. We were about the same age and seemed to get along really well.

As we collected our stuff from the overhead lockers upon landing, she turned to me and said that I “have an amazing smile.” Those few words made me feel incredible.

As we walked together towards baggage reclaim, we exchanged cellphone numbers and…

This is so true. When I stopped caring about my awkwardness and thinking too much about how something I say would be perceived, I suddenly was able to speak openly with complete strangers and made many new friends. Thank you for sharing these super helpful insights!

That's the trick I have found which works every time. Being genuinely interested in the person you are talking to makes them feel that you are paying attention to what they are talking.... which in turn makes them genuinely interested in you.

Nice article.