E. Unloading your life story on the other person without any reciprocity
If you get impatient, ask someone else instead. That way your potential friend who doesn’t want to meet up right now won’t feel pressured into meeting with you. You never want someone to feel pressured to be with you because then they’ll start associating you with that bad feeling of neediness and desperation.
Opening up is good, it’s even essential to form a close connection. But opening up needs to be mutual. If you’re the only one sharing, you are going to feel a lot closer to your friend than they feel close to you.
Make sure you also focus on getting to know the other person and open up more about yourself at an equal pace as they are.
Tip: The opposite mistake (that’s just as common) is to not open up at all. If you relate to that, here’s a great guide on how you can learn to open up to others.
F. Talking too much about yourself
Two of the most important principles to become friends with someone is to make them feel heard and appreciated. If you talk too much about yourself, you deny both those principles.
G. Writing long novel-like answers to your friend
This mistake goes in line with the principle of investing equally much into your online friendship. It’s not wrong to write long answers, but make sure it’s mutual and that your friend is writing about as much.
For example, if your friend replies with a few sentences, and you reply with a small novel, your friend might feel overwhelmed. It demands a lot for them to reply thoughtfully, which they might not have the time or energy for, and then that makes them avoid you or try asexual singles dating site to cut the conversation short.
That way you build your friendship on an equal basis where you both feel like you’re on the same level. You won’t feel resentful because their replies are too short, and they won’t feel pressured into writing more than they have energy for. Finally, it’s impossible to win them all. You will get rejected and some relationships will never amount to anything. But all it takes is a deep connection with one person and you got a friend for life.
5. How to make an online conversation more interesting
The secret to making a conversation interesting is to find commonalities. A commonality could be anything from growing up in the same city, to sharing the same passion for role-playing games.
If you want to improve your social skills, self-confidence, and ability to connect with someone, you can take our 1-minute quiz.
The advantage online compared to real life is that you usually know a lot more about the other person from the start. You can often read their online profile to see what interests you have in common before you even start talking.
- Who’s your favorite character in the show?
- What did you first feel about the show when you saw the first episode?
- What do you think about the latest episode?
By focusing on your common interests, the conversation becomes more interesting for both of you. And then, you start getting a connection which we’ll talk more about in the next point. Click here to read our full guide on how to find commonalities and make interesting conversation.
6. How to connect and bond with someone online
By asking about someone’s relationship to the subject, you make a deeper and more meaningful conversation. This is what I call Personal mode. When you’ve switched to personal mode, it gets easier to ask more personal questions which helps you bond even faster.