A lot of people I have been speaking to recently have been telling me that they wish they could meet new people and have more friends. So this lead me to think about society these days. It’s no secret that many artists influence the society we live in, furthermore, we tend to subconsciously conform to the norms of society. A term I’ve seen a lot in the recent months-years has been the “no new friends” slogan or “keep my circle tight” etc etc. Of course it is necessary to have your go-to friends whom you can confine to but you don’t have to limit yourself to just socializing with the same couple of people all the time. Humans seem to be having more and more trust issues caused by disappointment from their peers, so they try to limit their friends to have less disappointment, makes sense? Wrong. The issue with this is even the closest people to you, the people you thought would be there forever, sometimes are not, and sometimes let you down. And then what? You’re left with next to no people around you.
Humans are relational beings and we must rely on others to function properly and happily. We crave interaction in many ways. Ignoring this will simply lead to a loneliness issue, which can spiral to depression, etc. It’s also no secret that we’ve begun to fill the void of loneliness by actively being on social media and our phones. This clearly can’t be good for our physical and mental health, as well as our real life social interactions.
Additionally, having the same small group of friends can be nice, but also may be limiting to your personal growth. You almost begin to blend into one personality, one opinion, one being. Also I’d like to mention again the conformity theory, (google asch experiment if you want to learn more) people want to feel accepted so they will shape their opinions and thoughts to please the individuals that surround them.
Having many different friends in diverse groups allows you to explore the different and unique sides to your personality. It enables you to learn and discover new things and opinions you didn’t know you had.
Having graduated almost four years ago I am feeling now more than ever that I need to widen my group of friends as some of my dearest and closest ones have moved out of town (miss you babes).

SO on to a more positive note; here are three ways I thought of meeting new people and (hopefully) making new friends:
1. join clubs or groups
2. ask a work friend out for a drink (or a tea)
3.social media (as silly as this sounds, I’ve made friends through mutual follows when I decided to get out of my comfort zone and send them a message to hang out in person)

If you’re still here, thanks for enduring my little rant of thoughts. Of course I have generalized my arguments and I know some are very lucky to already have those “day one” friends as well as many other good acquaintances. (I’m also aware that some are perfectly happy with their 1-3 friends and that’s cool too, do you, boo). These are my personal thoughts and feelings, so my hopes for the new year would be to meet new, inspiring, and positive individuals.

Until next time,
Stay kind.