Feeling friendless? Don’t drown in self-pity. Use these basic lifesaving principles to help yourself and others.
One summer afternoon, at the close of a wonderful youth conference, a young man approached me and asked, “What can I do to make people like me?” The tears in his eyes were evidence that he often felt alone and friendless. I’ve thought a lot about his question, not only for him, but for any young person who has a hard time fitting in.
Not all of us can be the homecoming queen, the class president, or the starting quarterback. These honors seem to come with a set of friends as standard equipment. Society makes a big deal out of those positions, leaving the rest of us, in the world’s view, in the “average” category. However, if you’re reading this article right now, you’ve already shown that you’re anything but average.
One of the hard lessons to learn in life is that there are some things you can control and some things you can’t. If you want a short recipe for being frustrated and miserable, this is it: focus on things you can’t control. While you may not be able to “make” someone like you, it is possible to make yourself more “likable.” The way to do that is to focus on what you can control. Here are three things you can do, even when you feel like there isn’t a friend in sight. You can be curious, you can be clean, and you can be Christlike.
You can be curious
Our world is drowning in a sea of self-centeredness. You can make yourself quite unique right away by leaving this ocean of selfishness and choosing to be curious about other people. Some well-meaning teenagers spoil the chances for successful friendships by talking too much about their own interests and activities. They may even act loud or obnoxious in an effort to convince others that they feel good about themselves. Usually, the result is just the opposite. It reminds me of a verse in Proverbs: “A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards” (Prov. 29:11).
Instead, calm down and be quiet. Be a listener. Ask questions. Be interested in others, and more people will be interested in you. Someone once said, “A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.”
People who are curious spend a lot of time observing. Watch the people in your school that you most respect. (Not the most popular, but the most respected.) What do they do? How do they take care of themselves? How do they treat others? Perhaps you could try to adopt some of these qualities as your own. If you do, you will eventually become and attract that type of person. Remember, the goal is not just to have more friends but to have friends of high standards. Elder Robert D. Hales once said, “A true friend makes it easier for us to live the gospel by being around him” (Ensign, May 1990, 40). Look for friends who make you want to be better, and be that kind of friend too.
You can be clean
We often use the word clean in a gospel context to mean purity. In this case, we are using it to mean physically clean as well. This is another thing you can easily do. I remember one young man from my school days who would have avoided a considerable amount of teasing if he had simply washed his hair regularly. This was something he could easily control! But he didn’t. Most of us can shower and practice basic hygiene by using deodorant, brushing our teeth, and combing our hair. We can be sure our clothes are clean and fresh. You should always strive to be clean.
President Spencer W. Kimball suggested we take a close look at ourselves:
“You might take a careful inventory of your habits, your speech, your appearance, your weight, … and your eccentricities. … Take each item and analyze it. What do you like in others? What personality traits please you in others? Are your dresses too short, too long, too revealing, too old-fashioned? Does your weight drive off possible suitors? Do you laugh raucously? Are you too selfish? Are you interested only in your own interests or do you project yourself into the lives of others? … What do you do to make yourself desirable? Do you overdo or underdo? Too much makeup or too little? Scrupulously clean both physically and morally? … What are your eccentricities, if any? I think nearly all people have some. If so, then go to work. Classify them, weigh them, corral them, and eliminate one at a time” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 295).
In driver’s education classes, students are constantly warned about “blind spots”—places where other cars may be hiding that you can’t see, even with your rearview and side mirrors! It might be a good idea for each of us to find an adult we trust and ask for help in identifying our personal “blind spots.” It could be your parents, your bishop, or your Young Men or Young Women adviser. Simply ask, “If you ever notice anything that I’m doing that might make it harder for me to make friends, would you please tell me about it?” It might take some humility, but it might also help you see some things that will help you. I value the people who will love me enough to be honest with me about the faults I can’t see and with kindness and sensitivity let me know how I could work on them to become a better person.
You can be Christlike
Regardless of how others treat you, you can always treat others with kindness and dignity (see For the Strength of Youth, 9). Of course, compromising your standards to make friends or to be accepted by another group should never be an option. This will cause you to lose self-respect and the respect of others. Be alone temporarily if you have to, but be Christlike. Remember the words of the prophet Enoch, after the Lord called him to be a prophet:
“Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?” (Moses 6:31).
Enoch was worthy of his calling even though he was not accepted by the people. If gaining friends ever means abandoning your standards, then it’s definitely not what you want. Sister Ardeth Kapp said, “Never before in the history of the Church has there been such a need for young women who are willing to sacrifice popularity if necessary, suffer loneliness if required, even be rejected if needed, to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Ensign, Nov. 1988, 94).
Being Christlike guarantees that you’ll have the most important friend of all: the Savior. He knows what it’s like to be misunderstood, lonely, and rejected. And that means he knows how to help us when we feel that way. Alma tells us that Jesus suffered “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind” so that he would know how to take care of us in our infirmities (see Alma 7:11–12). President Ezra Taft Benson gave us a list of the benefits of turning our lives over to God (look closely at the ninth item):
“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lose his life in the service of God will find eternal life (see Matt. 10:39)” (“Jesus Christ—Gifts and Expectations,” New Era, May 1975, 20, emphasis added).
Jesus was the most selfless person who ever lived on the earth. And if we’re going to be Christlike, we’ll need to adopt that trait too. Once you’ve worked on being curious, clean, and Christlike, then forget about yourself and think of others and their needs. Somewhere out there, you’ll find yourself—and you might just find a few friends as well.
Thank you for this Bro. Bytheway,
While I may have left my youth status years behind, I never quiet left my social anxieties and awkwardness. It seems that at every turn Satan is there to remind me that “I am incapable of making friends” and like a good (or maybe not so good) little natural man, I’ve listened. This blind obedience to one who doesn’t deserve it evolved at one point where I began to believe that if I am meant to have friends, the only friends I should have are those that are willing to seek me out.
You can imagine how well that went.
So, I’d like to thank you for reminding me that this fight is going to take action and hard work on my part. I do in fact need to be more curious, seeking out those children of God that I see on a daily basis and learning more with my ears instead of my eyes alone. I’ve put on weight, and blamed the world for their avoidance, another gentle reminder that I need to return to my healthy activities. And one thing that I, and everyone reading this, need the most is a more Christ like demeanor in my search for true compassion.
I know that things need to be worked on one piece at a time, but also without work there is no progress. So, thank you for this Bro. Bytheway, I pray that I can live up to The Lord’s standards.
Brady
I really sympathize with this comment. Thank you for sharing your experience Brady. And how wonderful to know that even as we’re faltering and struggling so much we’re still able to glean and grow from our experiences so long as we remember to turn back to our Father and the path He has laid out for each of us.
This is a timely answer to the world today and the problems we can face at any age. Thank you for sharing! We all need guidance in our lives.
This was a really great article. In high school, I didn’t have many friends so I made an effort to be more popular. It worked. By the end of my senior year I had a large group of friends and many in my senior class knew me and liked me. Several guys liked me too! But I didn’t like myself and my effort to make friends put a strain on my relationship with my family. Also, the friends I had were mean to me OR (even worse) were nice, good people who did not encourage me to live the gospel. I made a hard decision to cut off my friends–it was better to be a person with no friends than a person with bad friends.
Slowly, I started making an effort to have a good relationship with my family and I eventually met my BEST friend, my husband and I’m friends with myself! I like the person I have become and I don’t criticize my appearance or the things that make me happy! It seems silly, but I was always criticizing myself as a teen. I have to be a friend to myself.
Even so, I’m continuing to look for good friends and become a better friend to the people who reach out to me. Having friends makes me more patient and a better person. This is fantastic advise for people like me who are trying to find good friends who support my values
Thank you so much for this article. I wish I had KNOWN these things in High School. I am a convert to the Church. I joined in 1977. I come from an unfortunate family background. I lived with roommates who knew how to do these things, but not for me. They moved out. I moved out. I moved on. Fifteen years later I had a wonderful friend in RS who actually taught me. I will forever be grateful to my NOLA who took the time to teach me the principles and then let me watch her do it for others so I could learn more. This is a brilliant talk. I’m going to print it out and put it in my journal. It is so wonderful. Thank you!
I could have been that kid once. I was very introverted and lived in a small town with a small branch with no active LDS peers. Holding to church standards did a lot to isolate me from my peers at school and I felt very alone. At youth conferences and dances, I wasn’t part of anybody’s circle of friends, nobody reached out to me, and my ability to reach out to them was weak to say the least, so even there I felt alone.
I’m not going into details, but the change for me happened when I came to know, not just in my head as a fact, but to really know in my heart that God loved me personally. The one who made the whole vast universe knew me personally and loved me and cared about my happieness even though I was a 17 year old nothing. It blew me away, and when I really knew that, I didn’t need other people to validate my worth with their friendship. I was free to reach out to others without fear of how they would react, I was focused on them and not me because I was fine. I was happier and found it easy to connect with others, LDS or not, and build friendships. The night I overcame all that was also the night I wound up meeting my future wife, and if I hadn’t had that breakthrough I likely would have never came up to her and asked to sit by her.
I can relate to this even though I am 74 years old.