Meet more people, but make fewer friends.
People nowadays like to get relationships very close, believing “one more friend, one more path.” In recent years, peers I’ve met, after knowing “big shots” with social value and status, try to communicate enthusiastically, arrange “dates and visits,” and strive to get close, hoping to become “close friends” in the short term.
But interpersonal relationships are inherently phased, inevitably going through unfamiliarity, closeness, indifference. Looking back on life, besides family, even lovers who swore eternal love, bosom buddies who would go through fire and water, eventually fade. A person with long-term wisdom understands that premature closeness, overly hot intimacy, is poison to relationships, unsustainable, too much is as bad as too little.
Learn to take it slow, learn to delay the closeness phase. Socializing is to gain sufficient support at critical moments, so before fully growing, before life’s key opportunities arrive, learn to restrain the desire to make friends, usually show your growth, accumulate upward “momentum” in circles. When the time comes, “rise with momentum,” most people are willing to get close to you, no rush.
Learn persistence, learn to lower the intimacy level. Friends are essentially a responsibility, actually a burden. So one must grasp the heat of relationships, giving others a comfortable interaction distance, also helping oneself maintain this goodwill longer.