Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes

by Jessica Pan

“Nobody waves—but everybody waves back.”

We’re told that we can engineer conversations to be more emotional and interesting by understanding that we all have a “Surface Self” and a “Deep Self.” The Surface Self talks about the weather, facts, what we had for dinner, our plans for the weekend. The Deep Self talks about what these things actually mean to us and how we feel about them.

Since I turned thirty, all of my closest friends in London had moved away, had babies, or moved away and had babies. Introverts tend to value quality over quantity when it comes to relationships, and after this exodus, I was left with no friends. I had not thought to stockpile them in case of a drought. Where do you go to make friends when you’re an adult? No, honestly, I’m asking: where do you do this? There are no more late-night study sessions or college social events. And while meeting friends at work is the obvious answer, your options are very limited if you don’t click with your coworkers or if you’re self-employed. (Also, if you’re only friends with people at work, whom do you complain about your coworkers to?) I don’t volunteer. I don’t participate in organized religion. I don’t play team sports. Where do selfish, godless, lazy people go to make friends? That’s where I need to be. Nearly all of my closest friends have been assigned to me: via seating charts at school, college roommates, or desk buddies at work. After taking stock, I realize that mostly all of my friends were forced to sit a few feet away from me for several hours at a time. I’ve never actively reached out to make a new friend who wasn’t within touching distance. With no helpful administrators, just how do we go about making friends as adults? Is it possible to cultivate that intense closeness without the heady combination of naivety, endless hours of free time on hand, and lack of youthful inhibit...

“My biggest piece of advice is make the first move and also make the second move,”

According to Richard, radiating charisma is actually easy and can be done in a couple of simple steps: ask an open-ended question (not something that can be answered with a yes or a no), listen to someone’s answer, and then show how much you care about their response by asking them a meaningful follow-up question: How did they feel about that? What was that like? What appealed to them about that? And then, crucially, you validate their feelings: “I work as a dog walker and hang out with dogs all day.” “What’s that like?” “It’s amazing, and I love it. Dogs are the best.” “Yes, they are. That does seem amazing. I would love it, too! You are brilliant.” That’s it? That’s all charisma is?

It’s taken me a long time to really believe, to know, that loneliness is circumstantial. We move to a new city. We start a new job. We travel alone. Our families move away. We don’t know how to connect with loved ones anymore. We lose touch with friends. It is not a damning indictment of how lovable we are.