Making friends as you get older is hard. Personally, I long for the days when you could just walk up to a fellow kid at school and be like “hey, we’re friends now” and you would be friends for like years.
As adults, it’s not so easy, and it’s kind of scary — but it doesn’t have to be! As renowned French philosopher René Descartes used to love saying, a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet. And look how stable he was.
You know the best place to meet strangers in a chill and easy setting? Uber Pool my guy. Not only do you get to where you need to be, but you get to play a lovely little game of chance to see what kind of fascinating human you’ll share the ride with. Stunning stuff.
To help you make friends with your next unwitting companion, we’ve compiled a handy little guide.
Learn the dying art of saying “hello”
Seems easy at first glance, but pal, the perfect hello is hard to come by, and even harder to master. One must be direct, but not too direct. One can’t be so loud that the recipient of your greeting is startled, but you shouldn’t be so quiet that they don’t even register the hello — or worse, think you’re not even talking to them; that you’re just talking to some voice in your head. They can’t know about the voices yet, so make sure to be direct.
Eye contact
Again, there’s a balance with this one. Too much and you’ll scare them away. To avoid them cancelling mid-ride and getting out of the car early, you wanna try and achieve the perfect balance of eye contact to no eye contact ratio which leads to the harmonic state of “hey, I recognise you as a human and I care about this conversation, but I’m not going to follow you home and murder you”.
Avoid divisive subjects to begin with
Look, there’s a time and a place to talk politics, religion, and whether onions belong on top or underneath the sausage in a bunnings snag. If you hit it off with your new pal, then by all means, dive into the deep stuff on friend date numero 2. For now, keep things fun and amicable. Maybe you could discuss flat earth? That’s harmless! And totally not real! Nothing to see here, Deep State observers haha.
Play Connect Four
Connect Four is the best game ever conceived. It’s perfect. It’s the game that can be played anywhere and by anyone. So when in doubt, whip out the portable Connect Four and enjoy the good times.
It is far better to be interested than to be interesting.
Look, the problem most people make when trying to make friends, or win anyone over in any capacity for that matter, is talking too much about themselves. It’s an easy mistake to make because everyone’s favourite subject is themselves. Use this to your advantage! Instead of waffling on about your study abroad, ask your new pal about what they did at uni and whether they’ve travelled. No one likes the person who keeps rambling about themselves, and conversely, everyone likes the person who actually listens and makes people feel heard.
Now run along and enjoy your time with your new Uber Pool bestie.