How To Make Friends Without Having To Influence Them

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is one of the only books that exist on how to make friends. And it’s wildly successful, selling millions of copies.
But after reading the book and the reviews, I realized there were critical components on how to make friends that were missing. People complained about the following in the book:

* Short-term manipulative tactics are used that can destroy your long term success with making friends.
* Some of the tips are focused on ways of getting people to like you for business and networking, which is different from making friends because you’re encouraged to be someone other than your true self.
* The tips to smile more, be nice, and be interested fail to account for the female gender. When women do this, it can be misinterpreted as a sexual advance and encourage harassment.
* Pretending to be interested in something you’re not and being too agreeable can cause you to end up with friends you don’t really want and you don’t actually connect with because you’re lying about your interests, overlooking their glaring faults, or befriending selfish people who drain your energy.
* A lot of the advice is generic or repetitive and focused on common sense tactics to be a decent, average person.

I want to address these issues and give some advice on how to actually make friends without having to put on a fake persona or manipulate. My advice is based on what I have learned from my own experiments and/or asking people who seem to naturally good at making a lot of high quality friends.
I think most people are unaware of all the great benefits of creating an established network of healthy, supporting friends. Many are also unaware that social skills are an acquired skill that almost everyone can develop with practice.
This topic means a lot for me because I struggled immensely to make friends growing up. I even sat alone at the cafeteria often in school.
I believe you can make quality friends that have similar values and hobbies — who will support you — who you will be a lot of fun to hang around even if you’re starting from scratch. It won’t be easy but you can do it. And I’m going to teach you how to do it without having to manipulate, lie, or influence others.

If you prefer listening to reading, here’s my podcast episode on this topic:
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
What is a Friend? A Real-World Definition
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a friend as “one attached to another by affection or esteem.”
There’s more to it than that.
A more modern definition would be “someone you enjoy hanging around who shares similar hobbies, goals, experiences, and/or values.”
I would define a best friend as “someone who you enjoy hanging around, shares similar values, experiences, hobbies, and who you can trust to share deeply personal information with. This is someone who supports you and cares for your well-being. You talk to each other at least once a week (if not every day) and both feel the same way about each other.”
You don’t need many best friends but having at least 1 to 3 is important for your mental health and success.
Now, keep in mind that there is no strict, rigid definition of what a friend that has been handed down by the Universe or God. Therefore, there is room to bend the definitions mentioned.
Understanding what a friend versus a best friend versus and acquaintance is important because not defining them properly can lead to not letting potential friends in.
I didn’t truly know what a friend was and I treated many friends as acquaintances. If I had only recognized that they were willing, let them in, and classified them as friend,