Hey man,
Priority #1 is to learn to provide massive value.
One of the EASIEST ways to do this is to look for things people do well, then compliment them on those things.
Whatever people are doing well, it is pretty much always something they have worked on or fixated upon, and they tend to have a lot of pride wrapped up in it. People love, love, LOVE being recognized for what they have worked hard at to develop -- whether that is their sense of style, sense of humor, social skills, athletic talent, physique, artistic talents, etc.
Get good at observing and
making genuine compliments. It is a super simple way to become everyone's favorite person. Deliver 2-3 genuine, insightful comments to someone and that person will think you're the smartest, coolest guy ever.
Another way to provide heaps of value is to
learn to deep dive. If you can
elicit values from people then relate back to them on those values they will start feeling like you are one of those few rare people who connects with them at a deep, almost spiritual level -- and that is the kind of bond people want to continue with.
Besides that:
just be cool. The cooler you are, the more you ooze that "guy I'd like to have around" energy.
MENTAL MODEL ADJUSTMENT
The other thing is to separate your logical mental model about making new connections from your emotional/intuitive one.
When I got started I had an emotional/intuitive mental model probably similar to yours: "I have nothing to offer, I have no life, no one would want to hang around me, I don't even know how to have conversations. People will just feel like I am a taker and tell me 'no'."
But logically, I knew that:
- People are a lot more complex than we tend to give them credit for
- We're a lot less good at reading others wants and intentions than we assume
- Even very cool people can be lonely, or going through the funk, or in need of new friends
- Even if most people aren't interested, sooner or later a few are likely to be
So I started seeing if people wanted to hang out, emotionally assuming everyone would say no, but logically assuming most would say no (they already have established friend circles; they don't have much motivation to add new people to their lives; etc.) but that now and again I would probably meet people who'd be unexpectedly down.
It turned out my logical mental model was the accurate one, and the emotional one was the inaccurate one.
People I never thought would hang out with me, because they were (in my opinion) much cooler and more connected than I was at that point, would sometimes be excited to hang out with me, very welcoming toward me, to the point where I'd be going, "Why is this person so excited to hang out with me? Isn't he way cooler than me in every way? Am I a charity case or something here?" (Turns out they are lonely, or they see some specialness in you that maybe you didn't realize other people could pick up on but they did, etc.)
IT'S THE SAME REGARDLESS YOUR VALUE
Also, I will tell you a secret:
It doesn't really change even as you go up in value.
I have pretty high social value at this point. I run a successful business, I am reasonably financially successful, I have a fair bit of reach in terms of my network, online clout, etc.; I have skills people are very interested in, from woman skills to business skills to making money skills; and I have led a pretty interesting life.
Even still, there are plenty of dudes who can't be bothered to hang with me even if I invite them to, or girls who aren't interested in hanging out or going out if I ask them. I'm not talking like decamillionaires or anything; I include folks here who are less successful than me on pretty much every measure.
Most people are just not going to hang with you!
It doesn't affect my self-image any because it's still easy for me to find more cool guys and cool girls to hang with, and I've gone through the process enough that I know at any given time, MOST people simply do not have the "open slots" in their lives to be able to fit you in somewhere. You take it less and less personally with time and experience.
(I have multiple times watched successful, popular people try to put together activity groups because their close friends had all drifted away... only for few/no people to join them for their activities. You look at it and you are like, "Sheesh, here is a wealthy, cool, value-giving person who MOST people would claim to love to have in their lives, and here is a SUPER easy way to gain LOADS of access to this person, and no one is taking it." Really drives home the fact that friendship formation is much more complicated than just "be valuable.")
VALUE VS. SLOTS
At this point, I even think it is less about "how much value do you have to offer" and more about "is this someone who is looking to fill a slot in his/her life?"
If that person has an empty slot (for "friend", "lover", whatever the case may be), you basically just need to be not weird or annoying and not making any major mistakes and there's a fair chance you can get in there.
If that person has no empty slots, even if you come in with a lot of value that person will think something like, "Oh yeah, I should definitely make time for that guy... I really should... really... but oh man I just don't have the time... I totally should sometime though..." and you end up not connecting anyway.
(And btw, you will end up being in both positions -- you will also be the guy with no free slots, with a bunch of people trying to get some of your time, some of them quite cool/valuable, and you just won't be able to swing it because you're all full up.)
There is a role here for SEDUCTION, btw. Just like you can seduce women into being lovers who are not "actively looking", you can manage to form friendships with men who aren't actively seeking new friends (by 'seducing them into' friendship). But, again, it is a lot of focused work, and you will not get it simply by asking.
Anyway, rather than think about "Am I valuable enough?" (and value DOES play a role, of course), I think it is generally more helpful to think in terms of "I wonder if this person is actively looking for friends/lovers/etc.?"
(Then, if not, and that person is really worth connecting with, you can decide if you want to break out the seduction BIG GUNS -- or not!)
Chase
