Oscillate said:
It's a new semester at school. This is always the hardest part of the year for me because I never know if I'll make friends in my classes or if I'll be on my own.
My problem is making friends, whether guy or girl, but I want to focus on guys because without guy friends I can't comfortably move on to girls. And the problem is building rapport I think. When I'm talking I don't know what to talk about, I don't know anything about sports or cars, there is always awkward pauses, I can't be myself like I can with other friends. Because my other friends don't do small talk, we are immediately past that, always.
But I know I need to get better at this, I just don't know how to do it.
And another thing, how can I let someone know I want to stop talking to them without it being awkward or rude? Because I have to pay attention sometimes, but I don't want to come off like all I care about is school.
Oscillate,
It's good that you want to improve your social circle and perhaps calibre of friends!
My suggestion is to observe what other people in your class do. In order to develop a social intuition, I suggest you watch how others handle conversations, preferably people who you can tell are good in conversation, and basically copy what they do. In the meantime, if you see some guy and he looks like a cool guy you want to get to know, then just start asking him questions about himself. That's the easiest way to get someone to keep talking and want to be friends with you. Ask him questions about himself/deep dive like what classes he is in, why he chose the Major he chose, his family life, interests, etc. Even if you don't know about something, you can ask him to teach you about it. If some guy came up to me and foundout my passion is learning about girls and learning pick up, I'd be really happy to give them the knowledge I've acquired, simply because it's something I enjoy discussing! By asking people questions about themselves, you can see what topics they really seem interested in/react well to, and that will help you determine where you should try to steer the conversation going forward.
Once the professor/teacher starts talking in class, people usually aren't talking (except the people at the back) so just focus on your work, and if the person you're trying to be friends with suddenly starts talking to you just tell them you're trying to focus and they can tell you later/after class. They'll respect that and it's not rude, as long as you are warm and kindly tell them that they can tell you whatever it was they wanted to tell you later. Usually I'll say, "One sec" then once the prof stops talking I'll reengage quickly and they'll usually say a joke and I'll smile/laugh a bit then focus back on the lecture.
Might be a bit confusing for someone not used to this kind of thing, but my best suggestion is to just start talking to people and read over Chase's post about how to make friends. You also want to expose yourself to the person you're trying to befriend more frequently and if they are really into say, football, tell them that you should go toss a ball around sometime or offer to help them improve. For example, I love soccer/football and if someone offered to go in net for me so I could practice my shot, I'd be really receptive to that and I would invite them to spend more time with me because it's something I really care about and they're sharing that time with me, so it's cool!
Anyways, hope I helped!
Garrett
