Friends

A real friend is there to help you if you have a serious and disturbing problem. Often it is the people you think will not help, that actually do. This is because people can be very charming and part of charm is making huge promises, very charming people often make false promises.

Togetherness

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” A real friend is with you, two people being together so they are not alone and lonely. This actually does not even need anyone to talk, they just have to be there. It is not one person wanting to have power over the other person.

It is about not being alone.

It’s not about one person wanting to be better than the other person, they’re both together and it isn’t about a hierarchy. One person is not competing to be better than the other.

Making Friends

Friendship is 95% mutual empathy, joint connection in emotional connection, making each other laugh, making each other feel good, support, advice, praise and affection. This empathy can happen when are similar to each other. It Is words, feelings and acts of consideration.

Being together and wanting company. Empathy means want to be with someone.

It is only 5% accountability of doing things for each other, when we really depend on them for our urgent core needs.

How to make friends

People want to be friendly with people who are like themselves. ‘You and me of the same blood’, ‘peas in a pod’ and so on.

So you need to learn how to be just like the person you’re talking to.

Childhood development with making friends

Jordan Peterson says that from a childhood development point of view, parents need to make sure their children know to control themselves so they can do what the other person wants, and not just what they want to do.

They need to learn this between the ages of 2 and 4. They need to be able to control themselves so that they can do what the other person wants and make sure they can have the same frame of reference as the other person they are talking to.

If they can’t do this then they can’t cooperate with others and so they can’t get on with other people in the world.

Life will be very hard for them, because other people won’t interested in them and if they can’t cooperate from the same frame of references other people, other people won’t have an interest in them, as they won’t be of any use to other people.

Be fun

People want to be with other people who are fun, to do this just be fun, the embodiment of fun and energy of fun.

If you just talk about your problems all the time, people don’t want to be loaded with that.

Of course you need to be right for the situation, being fun is for party times. There’s times to be sympathetic, compassionate and so on.