How-To-Make-Friends.org 
Transformative Support for Lonely People
Dedicated to the 25% of adult Americans who have no close friends.
Dec 12, 2011 - Hello Out There!
Welcome to our new home for friendship education. Keep coming back, as the content and features will
steadily expand. There will be a library of about 50 downloadable videos , featuring caring and wise
insights from 125 down-to-earth people from all around the country. We filmed interviews and compiled
the best ideas into video chapters about many aspects of friendship, relationships, coping with challenge
and learning how to participate in the best of what life has to offer.
In addition to the video collection, the downloadable library will contain detailed ebooks on the process
of change, personal growth, and friendships. We will offer moderated members-only forums as a
supportive place to pose questions, converse, and learn from each other in coping with real-life issues
like shyness, looks, loneliness and boredom.
I am very much looking forward to the new people I meet through this venture. Creating this site (and
with it, areas of fresh growth in my own life) will be my new hobby. I can't wait to show you all the goods,
so I'll be pouring lots of time into this project. I hope you get hooked watching as the library of friendship
information and support grows every few days.
But now, 2AM, I will just stop and savor this beginning. I am imagining remarkable and fun changes
for all of us who keep coming back here in good faith. -Gerry Blue (your host) >>>>>>>> Say Hello
Gerry, Katy,
and Jake
Dec 18, 2011 - This is what we believe to be true about friendship:
1) "Close friends are truly life's treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves.
With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears.
Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone." - Vincent van Gogh
2) True friendship is rare. It has been said that a person is very lucky to have had five true friends
in the course of a lifetime. Today in America, the average adult reports having two close friends.
One in four have zero close friends, and 50% have nobody to talk to outside of the family.
3) Popularity and friendship are two different things. Friends are the people who will come
visit you in the hospital and make you laugh. Friends will stand by your side when you make a
mistake and feel like a fool in front of everyone else. Faces on facebook just won't do when what
you really need is for a friend to put a hand on your shoulder and tell you "it's going to be alright..."
Popularity is fickle; friendship endures. "A friend offers you a hand and touches your heart."
4) Friendship is voluntary. You cannot make someone be your friend. A big part of why we
treasure a close friend is in the knowing that there is a genuine mutual appreciation. A friend is
someone with whom we can stop pretending and just be who we really are...yet still feel appreciated.
Genuine friendship cannot be faked.
5) While it is true that you cannot force friendship to happen, it is equally true that there are many ways
that you can make yourself more available to friendship. If you are suffering loneliness, that is
a sign that you have room to grow in one way or another. The fact that you are reading this now is a
sign that you are, in fact, curious and open-minded to try out new ideas and set growth into motion.
6) As an adult suffering from a lack of close friends, there is a good chance your life has been
colored in a broad fashion by feelings of loneliness, sadness, and a sense of "not fitting in" that
extends back to childhood. For your own unique reasons, friendship has been particularly elusive.
And isolation has taken a toll on your ability to be joyful. .
We do not presume to know your particular friendship obstacles and will not prescribe a
"one-size-fits-all" answer. We are going to provide sophisticated, true-to-life information and
support. There is much to learn, and we have much to share. Literally thousands of good ideas.
Browse the friendship library, and start watching the topics with most personal meaning for you.
Keep coming back, and with an open mind explore what other ordinary people have discovered.
Keep coming back, view all the videos and ebooks; get involved in the members-only forums.
Before you know it, one day you will find yourself in a situation discussed in the friendship library.
One of those fresh concepts you are learning here will pop into your mind. Remembering and
applying that new idea, you find yourself thinking and acting just a little differently...
You are starting to change!
How-To-Make-Friends.org will be providing a fascinating array of information and friendship
insights from a diverse collection of 125 fellow human beings. (It's not just one guy's opinion!)
Their real-life wisdom is remarkably uplifting and thought-provoking. We will cover everything from
"First Impressions", "Talking To Strangers", and "Laughter" through in-depth consideration
of topics like "Inner Strength", "Shyness", "Love", and "The Fun Way". 50 topics in all offer
a fresh approach to all sorts of social and personal concerns.
This website will be a way to try on some new ideas and attitudes that work for other people. If
you have felt isolated, the videos will provide a stress-free window into humanity. From the
comfort of your computer chair, check out the inner experience of 125 ordinary people from
many walks of life. Learn the useful ideas that have led others to friendship and joy in life.
There is no doubt: Some of these ideas can open new doors for you, too.
If you really do want to be available to forming close friendships, take these videos and ebooks to
heart. Your life will begin to change: Moment-by-moment, thought-by-thought. Yes. Yes. Yes.
7) Human beings are social creatures. We are nourished by authentic, understanding, caring,
and fun personal connections. We starve, and we suffer emotionally, spiritually, and physically when
cut off from heart-warming human connections. Loneliness can be hell. It can make us do crazy
self-distructive stuff.
Close friends are essential to being human and loving it. Friendship is worth the effort it takes!
(more to follow.....)
