I’m a men’s dating coach. I help men find women partners for whatever kind of relationship they’re looking for. Regardless of whether they want a girlfriend or a bunch of one night stands, I help them build the habits and lifestyle that will lead to those results on autopilot.
I often find that they need more friends overall, so I guide a lot of them in that area first.
These clients almost always ask me why I tell them to socialize and make more friends.
“I don’t want more friends. I want a girlfriend,” they would protest.
One of the very best ways to attract a woman is to show her that you have a healthy social life, and that other women like and trust you.
It’s often a prerequisite.
As I’ve written in Chapter 19, How to Become Popular, in my book, Never Lonely: The Uncensored Guide on How to Attract and Be Loved by Women, if you want to become popular with women, you need to learn how to become popular with people overall.
Anyone who is experienced with dating a lot of women will tell you the same thing, especially when it comes to the topic of befriending women. Joe Elvin writes in his piece about dating out of his league:
When women notice you surrounded by other women, they assume you’re probably a cool guy. At the very least, you’re probably not creepy or dangerous. Most mass murderers don’t have female friends to hang out with.
I used to go to the bar with my equally desperate buddy to pick up chicks. Most of them wouldn’t talk to either of us. Nowadays, I like to make female friends and invite them to the bar with me.
Other women are far less guarded in this scenario so it’s much easier to drag them into the fun. Once you’ve seen how this works, you’ll never want to have a lads’ night out again.
As I say in my book, this strategy has worked extremely well for me. When I was out with a bunch of girls, meeting new women was exponentially easier. One gorgeous woman even approached me asking, “Why are you always surrounded by pretty girls?” You can probably guess what that led to (it was sex).
When we were kids, making friends was easy.
Environments like school, student organizations, and extracurricular activities gave us an excuse to talk to other people and develop camaraderie.
As adults, we might have something similar if we work with other people, but it’s different.
We learn to keep business and pleasure separate.
We learn to keep our work lives and personal lives separate.
There’s a lot more compartmentalization getting in the way of interpersonal relationships.
Ossiana Tepfenhart recently wrote a piece about third spaces, in which a comment by Day Merrill, MA summarized this point very well:
The older you get the more purposeful you have to be about making and keeping friends. The natural places for immersion into a large enough group to find a few friends (school, extracurricular activities, workplaces) diminish over time. The shift from letting friendships develop to making them happen requires action.
What actions can we take to purposefully make friends as an adult man?
First, let me reiterate the following point Ossiana makes about third spaces (or third places):
Almost every town has a park, a library, or a church to go to.
The list definitely doesn’t stop there. There are bookstores, shopping malls, shopping centers, bars, clubs, lounges, pubs, barber shops, cafes, shared workspaces, gyms, climbing gyms, basketball courts, trails, language exchange events, grocery stores, bowling alleys, arcades, community centers, museums, volunteer groups, meetup.com meetups, and so on and so forth.
Pick a few of these kinds of places and visit them regularly.
I like drinking so I chose bars. I’m at the same few bars almost every weekend. I also go to the gym multiple times a week.
I know a lot of people who are at these venues every time I go. These people are my community.
If you don’t drink, you still have a lot of options to choose from. Even if you don’t think you will like something, just try everything until you find something at least tolerable.
That’s a venue-centric point of view. Another way to approach this is to find a group first.
For example, I’m in an online community of people in my area who practice polyamory and ENM. We have regular meetups at various locations.
Search for groups that are interested in the hobbies or lifestyles you’re interested in.
If you don’t have any hobbies, try out a bunch of them until you find something you like. Better yet, join the relevant groups first and ask people for advice.
And if a group doesn’t already exist for a hobby or interest that you have, start one. Exercise those leadership muscles every chance you get.
When you are at these places or with these groups in person, be social.
Use the social skills and conversation skills I teach in Never Lonely: The Uncensored Guide on How to Attract and Be Loved by Women and you’re guaranteed to have the people there, women and men, think of you as a trusted friend.
You can use those skills to make others feel good about themselves, to make them feel seen, and to make them feel understood.
Do that, and they will never forget you.
The main downside I have experienced while doing this is the guilt from having them remember me very well, but I don’t remember them because I was too drunk when I met them.
Just don’t drink too much.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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