Making friends is an important part of human development, human experience and ultimately human happiness. It begins in very early childhood. Some children are born with personalities that are naturally gregarious, and other children suffer shyness from a very early age. In most cases children outgrow their shyness, but sometimes it lingers into adolescence and even into a lifelong impediment to making friends.

New parents and grandparents, who joyfully cannot keep their eyes off the new arrival, search for hints of personality. They do so only after making claim (wishful thinking) that the child “looks like me,” driven by the same ego that incentives reproduction in the first place.

After resolving that issue (not), they move on to the next characteristic of early personality detection, “the smile.” While a baby’s first smile is an exciting moment for parents and grandparents, I am told by those far wiser than me, that it is more likely attributed to gas! It is the smile itself and not the underlying cause that invites the excitement!

This is interesting because it is generally the smile at any age that is the first step in broadcasting an intent to make a friend. This appears to be generally true in infancy as well as in every phase of our lives. The smile is an introduction of the person we are to the person to whom it is directed. As we mature however, our life experience teaches us that a smile can also be an instrument of a more complex nature and sometimes even a malevolent motive.

As parents, we understand the importance of friendship and begin to encourage our children, even at the toddler stage, to make friends whether on the playground, in preschool and anywhere they interact with other children.

Young children and family pets are catalysts for making friends as we are attracted to people with common interests. Every one of these friendship connections begins with mutual smiles as parents and their children come together at school assemblies, children performances and sports activities.

I would also bet many friendships and romances begin at dog parks with a smile and a compliment as to the attractiveness of one’s pet, with a subtle but unspoken compliment to the owner as well. It is an effective and safe approach, especially in the current era of private space invasion and charges of harassment.

As we get older it seems our social skills and smiles make it a bit easier to make friends. Do you remember those awkward days of adolescence and dating when a great smile was followed by clumsy comments that killed a budding romantic friendship even before it got started? I do!

Friendly family relationships will always be desirable, and historically have been much more important in our daily lives. However, the fact that families are now more dispersed and don’t see each other as often as when they lived nearby, makes day-to-day connections with friends more important to our health and social well-being.

As older people who have developed many friends in the course of our lives, we are becoming increasingly isolated from many of these relationships. As we move away from our life-long homes to different parts of the country for health and retirement reasons, making new friends becomes increasingly important for our health and happiness.

The one sure way to making new friends is to keep on smiling!

If you wish to comment or respond you can reach me at melpearlman322@gmail.com. Please do so in a rational, thoughtful, respectful and civil manner.

Mel Pearlman holds B.S. & M.S. degrees in physics as well as a J.D. degree and initially came to Florida in 1966 to work on the Gemini and Apollo space programs. He has practiced law in Central Florida since 1972. He has served as president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando; was a charter board member, first vice president and pro-bono legal counsel of the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Central Florida, as well as holding many other community leadership positions.