The Pick-up Artist’s New Challenge

Ordinarily when going out on a Friday or Saturday night, your mission is to have fun with your crowd, blow off steam and meet people. Acquiring these new acquaintances is a game of tact – from the way you dress, how you carry yourself, being armed with witty one-liners, an up-beat energy, and whatever other personal tricks you use. Usually, we employ these devices in the pursuit of romantic interests – however, life after college pushes our pick-up artistry to a new dimension. Platonic friendship.

When you graduate from college, you leave behind built in social networks that you can tap into with ease. Meeting people in class, through a club, or in the Greek scene are friendship-catalysts of the past. You move to a city and into an apartment, knowing only the other people from your academic past that picked the same location and your co-workers – quickly understanding the historical dichotomy of isolation in an urban space.

Being social ceases to be a mere pastime and leisure activity – but now encompasses new responsibility and the need to champion new hurdles – making friends.

Perhaps at first glance this seems trivial. But think about who you know and consider to be a good friend – odds are that you met every one of them in high school, college, graduate school, at work, on an intramural team, or through one of these outlets.

To extend and expand your social network after you've finished school takes a great deal of effort – how do you make new friends – and good ones at that? It is not as though on a Friday night at a bar, you are going to walk up to a stranger and spin: “Hey there. You seem like a fun person, and I want to be your friend.” That is the epitome of awkward, and I’m embarrassed for you.

New friendships take effort, finesse, and looking in the right places. When a friend, friend of a friend or co-worker is having a party – go. Join an intramural team and grab drinks afterwards. A distant family acquaintance just moved here and knows few people? Take them under your wing, or at least give them a shot. A social situation with some sort of attendance-filter on it – such as a party thrown by even a distant acquaintance – completely changes the atmosphere, mood, and people’s willingness to be friendly to fellow partiers. Think about how you act and how you engage strangers at a house party versus at a club.

Let’s be honest. Making friends as a 20 something is not an easy accomplishment, but likely a gradual process that takes numerous casual encounters just to jumpstart. This is a far cry from when you were five and could walk up to any another bumbling infant, introduce yourself and ask if they want to be your friend. Bam! Done. Even have your parents to set up your play-date social calendar. Nearly foolproof at five, but not so much at twenty-five.

Developing platonic friendship is a tricky game, and mastery only comes if you can avoid being a complete creeper in the process. Transforming your social scene once in the real world is challenging, frustrating, and awkward – but just like new romantic pursuits – you have to create opportunities and be prepared to artfully use your bag of pick-up tricks to turn a stranger into a friend.

Wake Up and Smell the Rejection

If your rendez-vous is curtailed or flat out cancelled in the name of exhaustion, and there is no immediate post-slumber call, text or reschedule, wake up and realize that you are getting a courtesy, white-lie brush off.

Its simplicity makes it ingenious and bewildering – no one wants to believe it’s anything other than the absolute truth. It is an easy and indisputable go-to excuse. We all can commiserate with being exhausted and wanting nothing more than to curl up in bed. And besides, you don’t know the details of their week – maybe they legitimately need to pass out.

Odds are that genuine sleep-deprivation is the exception rather than the rule. The key indicator of the utterly-exhausted-but-sincerely-wants-to-see-you would be rescheduling for the near future when they could be functional and fun again.

Consider your own emotions. The way you automatically smile from simply getting a text from someone you like; the mystery and excitement of what another date will hold; and just that indescribable jolt of positive energy as a result of merely having someone that you are into and that is interested in you too.

Now, if you were tired – would you bail? Or would you suck it up, take a nap, drink coffee, or even just soar on natural, nervous- excited energy? If you are into someone, and especially if it is new, it is inconsequential if you’re sleepy because your desire to see the other person counteracts your drooping eyes.

So, if someone won’t overcome their mild to moderate fatigue to see you – snap out of your delusional coma and realize they aren’t into you.