How To Make Friends as an Adult
This week, in a twist on the usual episode, Savvy Psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendriksen presents an audio excerpt from her debut book, How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety.
Ellen Hendriksen, PhD
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How To Make Friends as an Adult
Almost everybody struggles with it. But no one talks about it. What is it? How to discreetly sniff your own armpits in public? How not to buy the free sample after you just ate three of them? Not quite; it’s the mysterious process of making friends as an adult.
As a kid, making friends is easy—you’re buddies with the neighbors or the kids you see in class every day. But after Pomp and Circumstance plays for the last time and you’ve tossed your mortarboard, you’re thrust into a new world of adulting where everything, including friendship, gets more ambiguous. But fear not—you’re not alone, and here is what you need to know. I hope you enjoy it.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The three ingredients for turning a stranger into a friend
- The one ingredient that’s more powerful than shared interests or personal commonalities
- How many conversations it takes before someone considers us a friend
- How many confidantes the average American has (it’s lower than you think)
- How perfectionism sabotages making friends or getting closer to acquaintances
- The true definition of popularity, and how it’s different than what you experienced in middle school
If you liked the excerpt, you can pick up a copy wherever you like to get your audiobooks. If you prefer to read with your eyeballs rather than your ears, you can do that, too, with the ebook or a good old-fashioned hardback wherever you buy your books.
About the Author
Dr. Ellen Hendriksen was the host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast from 2014 to 2019. She is a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD). She earned her Ph.D. at UCLA and completed her training at Harvard Medical School. Her scientifically-based, zero-judgment approach is regularly featured in Psychology Today, Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and many other media outlets. Her debut book, HOW TO BE YOURSELF: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety, was published in March 2018.