This took me too long to learn. We're told over and over to "be yourself," but sometimes you have to make an effort to be like everyone else. I see in the author and in myself sometimes a weird sense of pride in having unusual opinions and tastes. This isn't going to win you any friends or impress anyone. If you're just waiting for someone to show up that shares all your thoughts, then you're going to continue to be alone.

As I like to think of it, “being yourself” and “becoming a friendlier more approachable version of yourself” are not incompatible.

Most people trying to make sense of the instruction don't know themselves well enough to be that authentic self, particularly those perceived as unpleasant. They almost always turn out to be aping somebody they knew, read about, or saw in a movie, and never questioned whether there was a better way for themself.

The best ways to your authentic self are to make things and help other people. The worse off they are, the bigger the difference you can make.

This is so true. Friendship and connection really does take work, and a lot of it is just being visible so people become comfortable with you and you with them. A community where you're actively doing something together is helpful as well since it takes away the pressure of the "goal" of making friends.

I remember years ago wanting to increase my friendship network, so I started going to meetups to meet people. Specifically, a few were meetups for people to meet other people to make new friends. What I found was it felt so much like dating. The events themselves were secondary and to me I felt out of place, like I was trying to impress other people or else sussing out other people to see if they were friendship material.

A few years later I took up swing dancing and started going regularly to classes and eventually (it took a while) I started going to weekly social dances. With swing dancing, I wasn't there to make friends necessarily. I enjoyed the dancing aspect. After a while, I realized I did make friends and felt part of a community. I recognized other regulars and felt like I belonged. It took a lot of work to get there, but a lot of it didn't feel like work because I found an activity I wanted to do each week.

Never a truer word said - get out and (initially) get uncomfortable. It's like money in the bank, it'll save up some nice social kudos eventually.

100%. I thought I was good at making friends becuase I always had a friend group I could do stuff with. Turns out I just had a hobby that forced me to show up at the same place 1-2 times a week with the same group of people. I continued that hobby in every new city I moved to and easily "made friends" there.

It's kind of silly but honestly a lot of friendships are just the people one sees most often.

What was that hobby?

Improv for many years. Recently its been MMA.

Hells yeah. Show up. People will eventually start expecting you. Then inviting you to things.

Then you’ll make plans. To do things together. And when the time to meet up approaches, sometimes you’ll feel like you don’t want to go. And that’s when you say to yourself “oh, you don’t feel much like going. How interesting. Now get off your ass and go do what you said you were going to do.”