The ability to build relationships is ultimately based on your overall comfort interacting with other people. If you’re consistently spending time with others, and having positive interactions, it’s a lot easier to do social things successfully.
For the most part, people want you to succeed when you interact with them. They want comfortable, relaxed interactions and try to act in ways that create them. There’s less of a need to self-protect, if they’re feeling safe.
Your goal in most interactions is to make people feel secure and confident. Here’s how you do this.
Between interactions, you want to demonstrate continuity. Remembering details of conversations like someone’s name and the happenings of their life make a huge difference because you’re letting them feel like the main character in someone else’s story. This is really important because if someone feels validated by you, they generally will want to spend more time with you.
Also, brag tastefully. Although you should aim to spend more time listening than talking, having interesting stories to share about yourself keeps you cool. Think about the cool things you’ve done and are aiming to do, and share them. This allows others the space to relate to you, and bond over shared interests and experiences.
Related to this, you want to match their tone and body language. Doing this shows a level of social awareness because it makes them feel that you are like them. People generally like themselves, so things you can do to remind them that you relate are great.
Another element to this is showing appreciation for someone’s effort. Give many compliments. That which is rewarded is continued. If you laugh at their jokes, you’ll hear more jokes. If you find their thoughts insightful, they’re going to share lots of thoughts. You should highlight what you like about other people and tell them about it. Letting people know what you like about them is a superpower because most people when they feel liked, aren’t going to want to dislike the person enjoying them.
You also want to compliment people behind their backs. Interestingly, recognizing virtues in others makes it easy for others to recognize the same virtues in you. People who feel that you have a sense of honor are more likely to stick themselves out for you because it’s cognitively and emotionally easier to relate to people who want to see them succeed.
Be generous. Those who take care of other people are looked after themselves. People feel an intrinsic urge towards reciprocity, and doing above the bare minimum establishes you as a person worth building a relationship with.
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