A second misconception about making friends to dispel is the notion that opposites attract.
Perhaps you’ve heard this or have had friends, family members, or partners who are different from you in key ways. Maybe these differences have even deepened your relationship or expanded your horizons. I’ve always tended to be a little on the quiet, introverted side, and when I was younger, it was good for me to have a couple of really outgoing, gregarious friends. These friends opened up opportunities that I wouldn’t normally have pursued.
That said, in general, opposites don’t attract as much as birds of a feather do. Social psychologists have studied liking and attraction and found that we’re more likely to like people who are similar to us. In fact, there’s been so much research on this topic (attraction and similarity) over the past 60 years that it’s hard to know what papers to cite here. If you want to know more about the research on this, you might consider searching for articles on the similarity-attraction hypothesis. The basic idea is that we’re more likely to like people who are similar to us in terms of demographics (socioeconomic status, ethnicity, culture, gender, etc.), personality traits, attitudes, and other characteristics.
One area where similarity doesn’t always breed liking is when the similarity is based on a characteristic that we believe is undesirable. If we think it’s undesirable that we have had a criminal history, we might be less likely to like others who have had a similar history. In this case, the similarity might be kind of threatening rather than desirable.
In any case, if you’re hoping to connect with more people and make friends, it can help to make use of the idea that birds of a feather flock together. As suggested in the previous blog, it can help to join or get involved in activities where you’re likely to encounter people with similar interests and attitudes. If you really enjoy fitness, cooking, crafts, woodwork, board games, and so forth, perhaps gravitate toward group activities where others might share these interests. If you’re a member of a marginalized group, it might help to try to spend time with others with similar characteristics.
There’s no guarantee that everyone you encounter will be all that similar to you, or that you will become friends. You might, for example, meet people with different heritages and cultures, ages, personalities and so on, but at least you’ll all be starting off with some common ground. In fact, if you’d like to get to know people with more diverse backgrounds, it might help to spend time with them, working on some common goal. You might learn to notice your similarities and welcome and celebrate your differences. ~Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.