The Science of Making Friends

Teens and young adults have a long list of conversational topics often covered but general questions such as “What have you been up to lately?” or “What did you do over the weekend?” or “What are you doing this weekend?” can provide useful information about a person's likes, interests, and hobbies.

The goal of any good conversation is to trade information and find common interests.

The fundamental practice of having a good conversation involves informational exchange. We call this social behavior trading information. Trading information involves at least two partners exchanging information back and forth about one another. I tell you something about me. You tell me something about you. I ask something about you. You ask something about me, and so on.

The three most commonly used perspective-taking questions are as follows:

What was that interaction like for the other person?
What did they think of me?
Are they going to want to talk to me again?

Signs of Acceptance and Lack of Acceptance from Social Groups

characteristics described in the following have been identified as important to teens and young adults seeking friends

Fortunately, the clues for identifying which social group someone belongs to are very much on the surface and easy to identify if you know what you're looking for.

For teens with social challenges attempting to combat and overcome a bad reputation, two things need to happen: they need to follow the steps toward changing their bad reputation in their current social environment (see chapter 14) and they need to find another source of friends outside of their current social environment where no one knows or cares about their reputation.

your teen or young adult's social group will be determined by his or her interests and reputation