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Someone has to ask first
Why nobody asks
Many people hold back out of fear of rejection and anxiety about meeting new people: Will they like me? Am I being too much? The only way to find out is to be the person who suggests coffee, dinner, a Zoom call, or a FaceTime.
Small first moves
Small first moves work best, such as asking someone from a run club how they found it or what other fitness routines they do. Specific questions about a shared experience make it easy to get to know someone.
Where follow-ups fail
Conferences, retreats, and networking events show the pattern most clearly. Socializing is the point of those rooms, so handing out a business card and talking about yourself feels easy. Afterward, a connection made two weeks ago often never gets a follow-up, or a follow-up goes unanswered. Assuming a friendship will form naturally without more time and effort is part of why those relationships don't deepen.
A good connection at a networking event calls for an email asking about a Zoom call, a phone call, or a cup of coffee. Someone at the run club who keeps catching your eye calls for a hello and a question about exchanging numbers.
Why do people expect others to like them less?
In a 2018 paper in Psychological Science, Erica Boothby and colleagues had strangers talk in pairs, then asked how much they liked each other and how much they thought their partner liked them. Participants consistently underestimated how much their partners liked them, a pattern the researchers named the liking gap. The gap showed up after short lab conversations and also among first-year college students living in the same dorms, where it persisted for months.
Why do people underestimate how welcome a message is?
Peggy Liu and colleagues published a 2023 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled The Surprise of Reaching Out. Across experiments, people who sent a note to someone they hadn't been in touch with recently underestimated how much the recipient would appreciate it. The researchers attributed the gap partly to senders underestimating how pleasantly surprised recipients would be. The effect appeared in studies of notes, cards, and short messages.
Why do follow-up questions make people likable?
Karen Huang and colleagues at Harvard analyzed conversations in a 2017 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled It Doesn't Hurt to Ask. People who asked more questions, particularly follow-up questions, were better liked by their conversation partners. In a speed-dating sample, participants who asked more follow-up questions were more likely to get second dates.
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