How do you make friends?

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I'm not really shy at all. I have tried talking to people but it doesn't work. I've tried talking to people in clubs and straight up running up to people and talking... but it never goes anywhere. How do you make friends?

I gave up trying years ago.

But back when I was trying I would find someone else who had no friends and talk to them.

If you want to make friends with somebody, listen to what they have to say. If you really agree with what they're saying, agree with it enthusiastically, though with some restraint. If this interest involves going somewhere to share that interest, you could say that you'll accompany that person.

Then, as you continue to talk about that shared interest, you can start talking about your family (but don't say how they've screwed you, unless the other person talks about how they've screwed him/her). And maybe your childhood. You could have a laugh over a shared memory.

That's how I've made friends. I've identified with the person, and I've had shared life experiences.

I think that if you can find a common purpose, you will have found friendship, because I think they are essentially the same thing.

I like this.

The only friends I ever had approached me and made friends with me but I'm not good with keeping friends.
It never occurred to me to initiate a friendship. I don't know how and I have no inclination to do that.
I wondered why I didn't have friends and I wanted friends but I thought they would just come to me and somehow I would get friends.

I don't really initiate. I'm very passive. I don't particularly look interesting or anything and people are not interested in me. So I'm mostly alone. But some people start talking to me sometimes. That's the only way I can make friends. At the moment I'm almost friendless.

I find it easier to make friends with people who share a common interest with me. It gives us something to talk about. Real friendships will grow beyond that, but I need a common interest to have a starting place with someone.

I also need to share certain *values* with a potential friend.

For example, I am a very basic person. I wear simple, comfortable clothes, don't really "do" my hair, never wear make-up, and I am very thrifty. I would find it near impossible to be friends with someone who frequents the spa.

So, when I am looking for friends, I try to find people with common interests and values.

That's mostly the way it is with me, especially not initiating. But, provided I'm interested enough, a person only has give me one clear signal of invitation, and I respond or reciprocate. Another way of putting it is that I initiate by first waiting for a signal of permission - it's a kind of passive proactivity. It shows up even on WP - I've started about 6 topics all the time I've been here, but I've made over 6,000 posts, the vast majority of which have been because I've responded to the signals (the questions) from other people. I think I've only once initiated contact via PM, but around 20 people have initiated contact with me via PM, and I've responded to a select few of those, and a few times there was a clear common purpose and the resulting correspondence was long and rich. I first met my partner in the same way, and that has turned into an excellent relationship.

I don't see myself as looking interesting, but my dedication to mastering a few musical skills has interested quite a few people in real life, who occasionally approach me to join them in some musical venture or other, and without that I don't believe I would have had many friends. Common purpose. Of course it involved talking, but because we were all interested in the musical things, the social aspect pretty much took care of itself. We tended to find out about each others' personalities as a more or less incidental thing, apart from applying a little mutual filtering to ensure we were all relatively harmless people.

So really I don't think it's necessary to learn how to initiate, though it's probably great if you can. Just get reasonably good at some special interest that at least a few others also like to dabble in, let them see what you can do, and be ready to respond positively when the the kind of invitations you like start to come in. In my case I didn't contrive it to happen like that, it just happened to me by accident, but it worked.