TMLife

Great question!

I always recommend group exercise. (Crossfit, weightlifting, BJJ, Muay thai, MMA, bike/spin, yoga, cardio, run club, sports league).

The reasons why I recommend group exercise are the following:

• You always have something fun to do, which takes the pressure off. (Playing a sport vs sitting down with someone for dinner has two completely different levels of pressure.)
• Exercise acts a social lubricant the same way that alcohol does (minus all the bad stuff).
• Exercise will get your body and brain into shape, which does wonders for confidence and mood.
• Most importantly, it gives you and the other members something to talk about, instead of trying to make conversation out of nothing, like say at a dinner.

My advice would be to pick one group exercise (sample list above), and go to it consistently (at least once a week, ideally more). Then get as comfortable as possible there. You don't need to talk to everyone and be the life of the group. Talk to the instructor, give people compliments about the exercise, say hello, ask for help. Soon enough, you'll have friends in that class in no time. Repeat with other group classes if you'd like.

Hope this helps!

- Tak

This is a really solid question that many people can relate to!

There isn't one clean answer, so I will do my best to name all the variables I can. Assume that any person or friendship/relationship that struggles in adulthood has at least one, if not multiple of the following:

• Time: Adults have work, responsibilities, dating, hobbies, and other things that take up their time. Children only have school and homework.
• School: If you're a kid and you go to school, you're surrounded by hundreds or thousands (tens of thousands for university/college), so making friends is as easy as talking to the people in your class. No other time in your adult life will you be surrounded by hundreds or thousands of people your age doing the same thing.
• Dating life: If you have a significant other, many people in those relationships use their one partner as their social life. Although this is quite unhealthy, it is super common. Kids don't have the same commitment to one person.
• Established friendships/groups: Adults, especially if they stay in the same city/town for their entire lives, may have friendships or groups that they've been a part of for decades and may not be as eager to make new friends. In childhood, these relationships are less tightly held and they tend to be more open to new friendships.
• Social ability: It's not crazy necessarily to have good social skills as a child. It's not like you're having full conversations as a child anyway. If you don't develop those necessary skills by adulthood, it can get much harder.
• Complacency: Children are not nearly as complacent in their social lives or lives in general because they're still young and want to explore and expand. Once you graduate school and start a job, weeks or even years can go by in a blink of an eye because we get sucked into our schedules and routines.
• Locations: In order to meet friends, they need to be somewhere they can be interacted with. If your weeks are spent going back and forth from work and school, it's hard to be in places where you can be social.
• Willingness to make friends: This is similar to complacency but it's pretty uncommon for kids to have no friends because they are so eager to talk to the other kids. With all the distractions present in adulthood, it's easy to have the willingness to make friends diminish.
• Threat/discomfort: It's pretty hard for a child to make other kids feel uncomfortable unless they're a blatant bully. Adults are more complex, and drama, manipulation, and other threats are more present.

These are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I really enjoyed answering this question because this is exactly why I wrote my book. Making friends in adulthood can be difficult, especially if it's not taught properly (which it usually isn't).

I hope this answered your question!

- Tak

Healthy relationships should involve fulfilling social lives that aren't exclusively centered around your spouse. Of course, if you can involve your spouse in these events, definitely do so but a spouse shouldn't be the only source of social connection one has.

For example, girls night/ guys night or weekend trips with the friends exist for this reason.

Now of course, it would make sense to communicate these things with your partner before they turn into potential resentment or future problems but unless there are other problems (insecurity, anxiety, etc), it shouldn't hurt the relationship. It should help it, because you will be a happier person for having an enriching social life!

- Tak

Great question!

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan at all. But my opinion about pick up artists as a man isn't nearly as important as what the women think about pick up artists. Across the board, most emotionally healthy women also don't like pick up artists.

This is a subject I can write an entire book on but I'll try to summarize it as much as possible. The biggest problem with pick up artists is 90%+ of their tactics are not socially calibrated or intelligent. This happens because the people who teach pick up advice or the advice itself tend to have sociopathic tendencies (not saying they're sociopaths though), and the people who get drawn to them are people who are usually unsocialized growing up and don't understand women (totally understandable, not their fault.) Add on top of that, pick up business models usually center around paid courses or programs (nothing wrong with this) but it just usually propels the cycle of odd behavior.

Using goofy pick up lines, worrying about your "close ratio" or "field reports", "going out solo", or using "escalation tactics", to anyone with any sense of social calibration makes no sense and turns people off.

But don't take my word for it, ask a bunch of women who are honest enough to answer.

- Tak

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** Great books, if you're looking to improve your dating life as a man, is Mate by Tucker Max & Dr. Geoffrey Miller, and Models by Mark Manson. Both are quite scientific and non-gimmicky. (Not affiliated with either book/authors)

Great question!

Without a doubt: Smile!

The single most important thing to know when meeting a person for the first time is to understand they are still evaluating whether you're a friend or foe (threat level). A smile is the best and easiest way to convey you're a friendly person in a good mood.

It's so important that I make it a point to never talk to someone for the first time without smiling. Or at least I do my very best.

Keep smiling!

- Tak