A month ago I moved to a brand new city where I knew literally no one and have been building
community and friendships from the ground up.
It has been way more difficult than I have imagined.
I've had to continuously confront this reality that not everyone wants to be our friends,
but also why that is a really good thing.
In this episode, I'm going to share what it's really been like for me, building new relationships
in a brand new city because it has been way harder than I thought.
And why not having everyone wanting to be my friend has been an incredible gift as well.
I'm hoping that this episode sets you free, that you actually feel not alone, that you
actually feel not awkward, and that you don't feel rejected anymore.
I'm hoping to reframe some things for you based on how I'm thinking about it.
I'm so asher a friendship coach who spent the past 15 years sharing over 500 meals
of strangers learning exactly what it takes to build incredibly rich friendships to help
you level up yours.
And here I am in a brand new position of being forced to build a new community from scratch.
And let me just set the tone for it because something happened on my flight down here
as I was moving.
I sat next to somebody who has lived in West Palm Beach her entire life.
And I said, tell me, what do I need to prepare for?
She didn't know anything about me other than I'm new.
And this is the sentence that came out of her mouth.
She said, well, I'll be honest, it's really hard to make friends in West Palm Beach.
Everyone already has their established friendships, their clicks, their groups.
So it's really hard to find your way in.
That's what she said.
And in that moment, I could have decided one of two things I could have said, cool, why
am I doing this?
Might as well turn around quit before I even start or I could say, and this is the choice
I did, challenge accepted, it's no problem.
I'm not trying to fit in, I'm trying to build something brand new, brand new friendships
that haven't existed, a brand new community that may not have existed.
And the way into that is by finding people with like-minded values, hobbies, activities,
in order to then cultivate more meaningful relationships.
And I say that because the mindset I chose to take impacted the data in evidence I collected.
Let me tell you about the difficulties I've had so far.
I've joined a gym that does group fitness classes.
And that's not something I normally do.
I usually like to lift alone at the gym, but I was like, I gotta put myself in an uncomfortable
situation because I need to build community, dang it.
And so as a result, I'm then in this environment and I'm like, okay, well, everyone here
like fitness, so this shouldn't be hard to start conversations, wrong, actually very wrong.
I have met so many people at this gym specifically and none of them care to have a conversation
at all.
It's not like I'm doing it inappropriate times, okay?
It's like before class, as we're stretching warming up, mingling, or after class when there's
a couple extra minutes.
Nobody's like pushing me aside because they're in a hurry.
They're just not interested in having conversations with me.
And I find that, and at first I found that really weird.
But then I took time to think about it and I was like, actually, I don't- that's not a rejection.
You know how people are like, rejection is protection.
I'm not gonna sprinkle, you know, glitter over it and be like, rejection is protection.
But what I will say is, I'm actually really glad this has been happening up front because
I'm not here to force my way into someone's life.
That is setting myself for failure if I need to act desperate and I refuse to do that.
I'm looking for people that are also looking for quality friendships and are fine with
having a little bit of small talk and banter and want to remember my name because I remembered
theirs.
And you know, starting from that, so I'm not complaining about it.
I'm just sharing.
It was more difficult than I expected.
But one thing I did find was, it became really easy for me to become friends with some
of the coaches there because I was like, they care about the community, they're caring
about leading the class.
So this should be an easy way into it.
And so I've been able to form friendships with some of the coaches and that's been really
beneficial because I don't need to have friends to work out with.
I just want to know that I am able to make other people feel seen when I'm there.
That's my goal.
I don't need anything from anybody else and that's like the lens I've been thinking through
this with.
Quick pause for a second.
If you're currently questioning a friendship in your life thinking, is this time for the
friendship?
And what do I do?
I don't know what's happening.
I made something that I think's really going to help.
Most adults were never actually taught how to evaluate our friendships.
So we stay too long in the wrong ones or we walk away from the right ones.
That's why I created a free guide called 12 questions to ask before you end a friendship.
It will walk you through the exact questions that you need to ask and think through on your
own to figure out whether a friendship needs repair, real conversation, or it's time to let
go altogether.
I've spent the last five years working as a friendship coach and my insights on relationships
have been featured in Bloomberg, Newsweek, Success Magazine, and more.
So if you want clarity on a confusing friendship in your life, grab the free guide using
the QR code you see on the screen or the first link you see in the description below.
Let's finally get some clarity on where we stand with those friendships in our life.
Again, with that evidence of like, oh, nobody wants to be my friend.
I could have seen it and been like, that's why I shouldn't do group fitness, that's why
I shouldn't even be here.
Nobody wants to talk to me.
Well, it's not all about me.
So I'm not going to count that as evidence that I'm not worth having friendships.
I'm counting that as evidence of, okay, I am actually getting closer to finding the right
friends.
Another thing I found more difficult and that's made me realize that people may not want
to be friends with me is that I'm not in the same stage of life as a lot of people in
the area I'm in.
And just people who are married with kids, I am either of those things.
So I have a little bit of a niche at which I am living in.
And so as a result, people who have kids don't necessarily want to be friends with single
people because they can't go on play dates or else that's the assumption they make.
I have lots of friends back at home who have kids, that's no issue, but you have certain
rhythms of life.
You're looking for people who have those same rhythms in life.
So I'm not bothered by the fact that parents with kids who have to do drop-offs every
day and whose lives revolve around their kids' sports are an interested in becoming my
friend.
That's not a problem.
That's clarity for me and that's a gift because I'm learning exactly the type of friends.
I'm looking for exactly what their lifestyle looks like here.
It's very different here.
The lifestyle and how people live here in a beach community is very different than what
I'm used to back in the Northeast.
A really hilarious thing happened to me when I went to a bar a couple Fridays ago because
I don't have any established friendships or people I'm hanging out with consistently yet.
I go to bars by myself.
I have a tradition called Fun Drink Friday where I had a different bar up and I start chatting
with the bartenders telling them I'm new, making small talk, and maybe talking to the
people next to me if they're open to a conversation, which I can only find out if they're
open for a conversation by trying and a lot of people don't try because they're like,
what are they rejecting?
What do they do?
That's great.
You don't want someone who rejects you to be your friend anyways.
You want someone who's actually looking for someone to see them and have a conversation
with.
Okay.
So I go to the bar.
I find the last seat at the bar that's open, the entire bar is full and it's like couples
or like, nobody's there by themselves is what I'm trying to say except for me.
And this woman, about 30 minutes into like my dinner drink, this woman who is sitting
to my right turns to me and goes, do you have friends?
And this was hilarious because what she meant to say was, do you have friends coming because
we're about to leave and we can give them our chairs.
But instead what came out was, do you have friends?
And instead of choosing to take a fence to it, I laughed and I was like, actually, here,
no, because I'm brand new.
I just moved a couple weeks ago.
Then this started an amazing conversation between the three of us that ended up being about
what I'm doing here.
What am I looking for?
And now these people are literally friends who text me and they're like, hey, what bar
are we going to this Friday?
Like they're joining in on the fund of my adventure of Fund Drink Friday.
Shout out to Pam and Mike.
And so that's what I'm saying is like, I'm putting myself in environments where I'm
not hinging on, I need to have a conversation, I need to make a friendship, I need it.
Like I'm just putting myself in environments where I'm like, what's the best that can
happen?
Yes, I could get rejected, but that's not the best, the best that could happen is I'd
make a new acquaintance that could then turn into a friendship.
That's the best thing that could happen.
And so again, that original weirdness ended up being a really good thing.
Being rejected by people not wanting to talk to the gym has been a good thing.
So like if I had stopped after that one bar experience, I would have missed out on what happened
next.
Because then the next time I went to a bar, I sat down and the bar was relatively empty.
Okay, so there were two seats open to my left and two seats open to my right.
And sat down, I'm getting a drink, you know, getting dinner, not much conversation other
than with a bartender.
And then somebody walks in, sits down right next to me because it's like, where do you
sit now?
There's two open on each side.
So they just sat next to me.
And so I make a joke with them at risk of being awkward and at risk of being rejected.
And I turned to them and I say, someone's finally not afraid of me.
He starts laughing, we end up getting in an amazing conversation for two hours all because
I was willing to risk it and make a joke from the beginning because I had this mindset of
not everybody is for me, not everyone wants to be my friend.
And that's okay.
I'm just looking to find if there are people that are.
And guess what?
He did want to be my friend.
And now we chat often and it's really awesome because it's just like, I'm not putting parameters
on the types of friends I'm making.
Yes, there's certain environments I want to be in.
But I'm like, I'm trying to build whatever community comes my way.
There's certain values that I'm going to stand by, but I'm also not going to like blow
people off.
I want a rich community of people in every stage of life, every walk of life to walk
with me through life as well.
I'm just using people with like-minded values as the foundation for that before I branch
out.
So I visited a couple of churches before I landed on the one that I am choosing to be a
regular attendee at and again, I could have stopped the search early after the first experience
by the third or fourth time that I went to one.
Not only did I find the pastors who would go out and chat with people afterwards, I was
like, hey, I'm new here, I made it clear, hey, I'm new, I'm looking for community.
And then they were so intentional wanted to get to know my story in order to plug me in
with a small group that ended up being right for me.
And I'm so glad that I didn't stop at the first couple of tries and just gave up because
it's like, you know how maybe you've gotten food poisoning before, you don't just decide
you're never going to eat again because you had a bad experience.
The same should be true in our friendships.
Just because everybody isn't for us doesn't mean there aren't people that are for us
and doesn't mean that there aren't people who do want to be our friends.
So that's the difference is being able to decide is being able to fight for finding friendships
and choosing to go first and choosing to not let our mind limit us and stop us and not
let the fear of rejection hold us back.
I'm happy to report that I have been making friends.
Are they mean are the super deep friendships at this point?
No, but I do have plans with some of the people that I've met to connect within the
next month.
I've prioritized it.
I put a deadline on it to show them, hey, I care about fostering this relationship
with you if you are down.
Let's grab coffee.
Let's hang out.
Let's play pickleball.
Let's do this.
I'm having a good time because I am freeing myself from the idea that not like I don't
have to be friends with everybody and not everybody needs to be my friend.
Yes, it's going to be hard to find people that are for you when you're starting from scratch,
but it's not impossible.
I knew I had data to prove like this is going to be a journey and it's going to be
a worthwhile one because in college, when I ate 250 meals with strangers on my college
campus in order to make friends, about 10 of them became really close friends.
That's not a lot when you put it in perspective, like that ratio is very small, but it was
worth it because I learned how to become an incredible friend and I was freed from this
mindset.
If I need everyone to like me, I need everyone to be my friend.
I need to feel secure with other people because I don't feel that way anymore.
I am securing who I am.
I know what I'm looking for and I know the value that I bring to other people's life
if they choose to have a relationship in friendship with me and I want you to know, you
are worth that to.
You are worth finding and building incredibly rich friendships.
I believe in you.
Let's do this.