How to Be Friendly

Friendly people are excited to meet new people, appear approachable to friends and acquaintances, and are the kind of people who can just start chatting up a person on an airplane, in line at the drugstore, or when they're stuck on the bus. Sound hard? It doesn't have to be. Being friendly is all about making people feel comfortable in your orbit -- like you actually like talking to them. So how do you pull it off?

1

Smile more. You don't have to give every person you see a huge grin to be more friendly. However, making a goal to smile at least 30% more on a daily basis, whether you're smiling at people you know, complete strangers, or acquaintances who cross your path, will make you look like a much more approachable, friendly person. Remember when you passed that guy you met that one time and he looked in the other direction and pretended you didn't exist? How did that make you feel? If you want people to feel good about talking to you, then you should smile more at them.

• You can also make a goal of smiling more during the course of a conversation.

2

Have open body language. If you want people to feel like you're approachable and open to talking to them, then you have to master open body language. Here are the things that you can do to make people want to talk to you more:

• Keep your legs together instead of crossed
• Have good posture instead of slouching
• Keep your arms at your sides instead of crossing them
• Lean forward toward other people

3

Drop the distractions. Another way to be friendlier is to notice everything that's going on around you instead of trying to beat the new level of Candy Crush on your iPhone. If you're tapping away at your phone, burying your nose in a book, staring at your computer, or even just picking at the paint on your fingernails, then people will think you have better things to do than to talk to them. Instead, look ahead, smile, and be ready for what the world has to offer you. You'll be surprised by how many more people think you're friendly and how quickly they come your way.

• Tapping away at your cell phone is rude especially when you're actively engaging in conversation with people.

4

Make eye contact. This is something you should work on whether you're just saying hi to a person who is walking by or talking to someone face-to-face. You don't have to stare into a person's eyes 100% of the time to be friendly, but you should work on making as much eye contact as possible with people you're talking to so that they feel like you care about them and that they're actually worth your time.

• If you're walking down a hallway and it's just you and another person, why not look that person in the eyes and say hello instead of staring at the floor or pretending to be fascinated by your own fingernails?