Wants to Know How to Make and Keep Friends

QUESTION:

Will you recommend a book on friendship and courtship? I am in my late teens and have trouble making and keeping friends. Boys date me once or twice and that is the end of it. Sometimes I feel like giving up. I have been a student of piano for seven years…play many classics well…and have taken part in several recitals. It was my hope to make good friends through music. My mother says it will all come out well, but I think she says that just to keep me from breaking down.

ANSWER:

I gather from your letter that you have trouble making friends of both sexes though your main concern is that you cannot keep a boy friend. Perhaps you are trying too hard. Boys generally are attracted to girls who are a bit hard to get. You may be too eager to go steady. Then too, you may be looking in the wrong direction—the direction in which your musical tastes and abilities take you. It is fine that you keep up your music, but don’t become one-sided. Do not limit the area in which you seek friendships to music. Do you participate in church activities? Is there a young people’s society in the church you attend? There is much truth in the old saying that the way to make friends is to be one. Put yourself out for other people. Try to be interested in other things besides music. Ask God to show you weaknesses in your personality to which you may be blind. Your mother is right when she says, “It will all come out good,” provided you are yielded to the Lord.

A good little book has just been published bearing the title, Life’s Intimate Friendships. The author is L.J. DuBois. It is published by The Warner Press, Anderson, Indiana. Note especially chapter 4 on The Personal Preparation for Friendship.

Leonard Greenway