A lost art.

As I was laying awake last night, praying for sleep, a strange thought popped into my head. I believe that it is harder than ever to make friends. And then I started thinking about how most friendships are formed. When most of us first made friends, it was through some form of forced interaction. Think about it. When you first went to school, you weren't there by choice, you were forced to go. Those that made friends through sports, another activity where you didn't get to PICK who you were with, the people you made friends with, the people you went to battle with, you were forced to be with those people.  As you got older, once more, forced interaction, but a little more freedom.  The vast majority that went off to some sort of secondary education made friends at school, but once more, those friendships were formed through some sort of bonding experience through forced interaction of sorts. I mean, you didn't HAVE to walk through the halls and introduce yourself to people, but once more you didn't pick who you were surrounded by.  The people you met in class, you made friends through shared experiences because you were all forced to be in that one room together.  It is a bond-creating environment, these are the most conducive environments for friendships to be formed, going through similar experiences and trials and tribulations gives everyone an opportunity to create a lasting friendship.

Unfortunately, you have to grow up.

When you grow up, your forced interactions become extremely limited.  Pretty much, there is your work environment and that's it. You are no longer forced to interact with a large number of people. That's part of being an adult. You get to make your own choices.  However, this can be limiting. In this day and age, by the time you are an adult, you have been inundated with all the negative stories about people to the point where every stranger could possibly be a nice guy that you may get along well with, but he could also be the one who wants to invite you over, roofie you and wear your skin as pajamas.  It's a fine line. How do you go about making new friends in this environment?  First off, it's intimidating making that first move. How do you approach people? One on one? Or would you feel comfortable approaching a group of people? Where would you look to find new friends or expand your social circle?  I mean, you can always kind of "glom" on to friends of friends and try to expand your social circle that way, but that has it's own set of problems. For one, you don't want to be seen as that quasi-creepy loser that just attaches themselves to people in a group before really getting to know someone.  I mean, you can also just randomly friend request other people's friends on facebook, but once more, that kid of throws you in the socially awkward quasi-stalker status. Now, they say you can make friends with people with common interests, but how? How do you strike up that conversation without them thinking you are strange?

Sometimes forced interaction does have it's bonuses.  Maybe you should  just ask if someone already has their own pajamas?