I love audio books. Especially right now because I spend about an hour driving each day.
When I really like an audio book I end up purchasing a physical copy or Kindle version. Since I don’t catch everything when listening, reading the book helps me gather the nuggets of knowledge I previously missed.
The Like Switch by Dr. Jack Schafer was one of these books. Dr. Schafer is a retired FBI agent who was assigned to the FBI’s National Security Behavioral Analysis Program. He spills his knowledge and tales of human behavior, recruiting spies, and the answer to the elusive questions, “How do I get people to like me?”.
The rest of this post is a mixture of my notes and thoughts from The Like Switch, how I relate it to my world, and some actions for putting it into use.
The Friendship Formula
The Friendship Formula, as detailed by Dr. Schafer, is simple to understand yet profound in it’s implications. The formula goes as follows:
Here are some depictions of each function in the formula:
- Proximity is the physical distance between you and another person. For example, if you sit next to someone at work, you will have a better chance of connecting with them than if they sit on the other side of the building.
- Frequency is the number of encounters between you and the other person. If you go to the grocery store every Saturday and see the same checkout clerk, you two will create more of a relationship than the clerk you see at Target once a month.
- Duration is the length of time you spend with the person each time you see them. You’re more likely to build a stronger connection with the person sitting next to you if your class that meets once a week is 3 hours long as opposed to 1 hour.
- Intensity is how well you are connecting (physically and psychologically) with the other person through verbal and nonverbal communication. The more intellectually and emotionally stimulating a conversation, the closer to each others’ core values you get, the more you can make a person laugh, and the more comfortable the social touching, the more you will connect the with other person.
In short, the closer you are to someone, the more often you see them, the longer you are with or near them, and the more intense your interaction with them, the better friends you will become.
You don’t even have to meet the person for this to start working. If you introduce yourself after two months of being in a class with someone, chances are they will like you more just because of the increased proximity, frequency and duration. Of course, if you do things during class that annoy the person or make them think less of you, this will not work.
So, you can’t blindly follow the above. If I just find a stranger and cling to them for no reason, that will totally creep them out. Definitely not a good friendship strategy. Therefore, you need to follow a few rules.
The Ground Rules
You need to follow these three ground rules in order for the friendship formula to work:
1. No Red Flags
You need each encounter to take place in a nonthreatening environment and you need to be seen as a nonthreatening person. Even better, you want them to see you as a potential friend (more on this below).
Here are some examples to clarify the importance of this.
Our friend Greg recently moved to a new city and wants to meet people. He doesn’t care how. He is willing to talk to strangers whenever he gets a chance to improve his odds of making new friends.
This is a pretty good mindset to have, but let’s see how a different environment and different set of actions can impact his attempts at friendship.
Scenario 1:
Greg is in line at a coffee shop, getting ready to run some errands. While waiting, he asks the woman in front of him if she’s tried the new espresso drink. From there they have a conversation until it is her time to order.
She sees Greg as nonthreatening because nothing about the situation raised any red flags – everything he is doing seems normal and would be expected behavior from anyone who just wants a cup of coffee to start their day.
Scenario 2:
It’s night time and Greg is walking down the street to grab a snack from a nearby liquor store. He lives in a mostly residential area and there are not many people on the streets. While he is walking he sees a girl by herself walking his direction on the other side of the street. He sees her and immediately changes direction to cross the street to go talk to her.
Even though Greg has good intentions and by no means wants to scare her or inflict any harm, she does not know this. She sees Greg as a potential threat because:
- It’s night time (less people are out and it is dark, making it easier to commit crimes)
- Greg’s behavior was not expected (someone going to a liquor store doesn’t typically b-line across the street to talk to a stranger)
The sight of a stranger shouldn’t change what you are doing, especially if they aren’t trying to draw attention to themselves.
But if they are juggling flaming swords, they are knowingly drawing attention. They won’t be surprised if you stop what you are doing and come over.
And if you’re in a social setting and you’re near some strangers, cool. Strike up a conversation. That’s normal.
If you’re walking past someone and like their shirt, right on. Compliment them on it. That’s nice, honest and sincere.
But if someone is on the complete other side of the restaurant and you walk all the way across just to say you like their hairstyle, it’s going to seem like you have an agenda. It’s not common to put that much effort into complimenting a complete stranger on something pretty small like that.
The point? Don’t give the other person a reason to question why you are near them or trying to talk to them. There is nothing special about a stranger, so don’t put them on a pedestal. Otherwise it will seem like you have an agenda, which is exactly what you don’t want. Here’s more info on how to start a conversation with a stranger.
2. Send Friend Signals
At all times throughout the day you are sending nonverbal cues to the people around you.
Maybe you’re bummed out. Your head is lowered and you’re looking at the ground.
Maybe you’re excited and pumped. You clench your hand into a fist of victory and have a beaming smile across your face.
Or maybe you just have a tiny little scrunch in your eyebrows because you are confused.
Even when you aren’t displaying anything, you’re showing that you don’t have any strong emotions flowing through your mind.
Some signals are friend signals. They convey to the other people that they can trust you, that you are probably a positive influence and that you’re more likely to be fun than annoying.
Some are foe signals. Think of how a person looks right before they fight someone. Those are extreme foe signals. They send signals that shout, “Stay away from me!”.
Here are the three most important friend signals when your first run into someone:
- The Eyebrow Flash – This is when you quickly (1/6 of a second) flash your eyebrows up and down right before you engage with someone. You will notice you probably already do this with your friends. When you are walking up to go talk to them you will make eye contact and do an eyebrow flash. Doing this to a stranger or someone you already know sends the message that you are open to connecting with them, and sends them a positive signal. For people you don’t know, use this with brief eye contact to add some confidence.
- The Head Tilt
The head tilt is a strong friend signal. When talking to people, if you tilt your head slightly to the side (kind of like dogs do, just not as dramatic), it is a signal that you are open to them and trust them. Also, people who head tilt are seen as more trustworthy and attractive. It makes you much less threatening, especially for a man talking to a woman in a public setting. - The Real Smile – Putting on a real smile for people shows that you are upbeat and positive, and incites positive emotions. It shows you are focused in the moment (which includes them because they are there with you) rather than in your own head thinking about something else that doesn’t include them. People also find those who smile to be more attractive and trustworthy.
A few other friend signals include eye contact and open body language. With eye contact, just make sure you aren’t staring. It’s OK to look away to hone a thought and just to keep from weirding them out. But eye contact shows that you are listening, engaging and confident.
Open body language shows that you are open to them and makes you appear more trustworthy. So keep your arms open rather than crossing them and face the person as you speak with them.
It may not seem like much, but these friend signals make a big difference in how people perceive you.
3. Physical Touch
One of the best ways to build comfort and trust is through physical touch. It will typically start off slow and build as the relationship deepens. It often starts off with handshakes, high fives, shoulder claps, and touching between the shoulder and elbow. As the relationship develops, there will be more hugging, more putting your arm around their shoulders, short back massages, leg touching, and more.
A lot of what you do depends on how comfortable the other person is with you and your touching. So start off small and slowly build. Make sure to pay attention to how comfortable the other person is. If they show any signs of discomfort, back off.
It is good to understand that some people are much more comfortable with social touching than others. Watch how they interact with other people and get a feel for their baseline level of comfortable touching.
As long as they think you are doing it because that is how you naturally communicate (to emphasize points, build connection, and show emotions), then you’re set. Again, you don’t want them to think you have an agenda.
Next, you need to put this into action.
Putting the Friendship Formula into Action
In simple terms, the friendship formula says that the more time you spend with someone, the more they will like you. And the more intense (deep) those interactions, the more they will like you.
And it makes sense. Take parenting for example. Kids who spend a lot of time with their parents are much more influenced by them because of the relationship they’ve developed. Unfortunately, not all parents have the opportunity (or concern) to spend a lot of time with their children. In these cases, kids spend more time with their friends, and sometimes even gangs, moving the needle of influence from the parents to their friends or gangs.
When you want to get closer to a specific person, you need to spend more time around that person. But the other person can’t know that you are spending more time around them just to get closer to them. In that case, they will feel like you are trying to manipulate them, or get something from them, which will put up red flags.
Fortunately, people don’t find it weird to see people more often. Try to figure out what they do in their free time and show interest in doing one or more of those things. Just make sure you can actually get interested in it because it will be weird if they see you doing something you don’t like.
To be honest, this is not my favorite approach. It is the way the FBI recruits spies and does get people to like you, but it’s not as natural as the typical friendship. It can work though.
The more natural way to make new friends is to do more group activities, especially ones that meet up consistently, and meet new people through those. My favorites are adult-league sports teams and hobby/interest groups and clubs.
Then, each time you meet up you will be strengthening the relationships. You will realize you like some of the people more than others and can work to build those relationships further.
You can try to hang out with these people outside of the organized event and move it forward from there.
With the friend signals, do your best to be self-aware of how much you are or are not using them. When you realize there is one specific one you want to work on, focus on it and work to incorporate it into your life.
Once it becomes natural, you can focus on a second one.
Moving Forward
There’s a lot more in the book that I didn’t even touch on. It’s an outstanding book and if this stuff interests you, I would recommend reading it.
I will leave you with one more bit of knowledge from Dr. Jack Schafer, which he calls The Golden Rule of Friendship:
“If you want people to like you, make them feel good about themselves.”
If you aren’t making people feel good about themselves, then they will have less reason to keep you around. Because people love to feel good about themselves.
In addition to the friendship formula and the friend signals, make sure to be a good friend and to be someone people like being around.
Then, people will want to start hanging around you more often.
Test it out and see for yourself.