Many people think the reason they don't have successful conversations or good friendships is because they aren't interesting. The real secrets to having better conversations and better friendships involves improving social skills and empathy.

"There’s nothing about me that is interesting. I’m completely average in every way. Nobody is interested in me because I’m not interesting. Tell me what I can do to become a more interesting person so I can have better conversations."

Over the years I have received several similar heartfelt letters from my readers who complained to me that they weren’t interesting enough.

They thought that the fact they were quite average was the reason that they weren’t able to make conversation with other people or make any friends.

They wanted to know what they could do to become more interesting people, because they believed that this was the key to being a better conversationalist and the key to making more friends.

I had to write them back saying that being an interesting person has nothing to do with how many friends you make. Being interesting has nothing to do with how much people like you, or with how successful you are at making conversation with other people. In fact, if you are quite average, you should rejoice. Being average can be a great asset when it comes to making a lot of friends.

Nobody should try to become a more interesting person just to impress other people. It’s not possible and it’s not a worthwhile goal.

If you think you are too average to make friends, you are forgetting that being average means that you are a lot like a lot of other people. Being average means you have a very large group of people to make friends with.

In fact, being too different is a more common reason for loneliness, while being very much the same as other people means you have a large pool of people you have a lot in common with.

To make conversation successfully and to make good friends, you don’t have to be very interesting or very different. In fact, those qualities can sometimes get in the way of easily making friends.

The real key to making conversation successfully with others and making friends is to have good social skills and empathy. You need to work on your ability to keep a conversation going and to find common ground with the person you are talking with. You need to learn to show your genuine interest in other human beings.

Instead of worrying about whether you are too average, or too different, make an effort to work on these social skills:

Listen more than you talk. Other people are looking for someone who wants to listen to them. They want to feel that someone finds them interesting.

Learn to follow up with previous conversations. For example, if a person told you six months ago that they were going on a vacation to Europe, ask them if they went and ask how the trip turned out.

Don’t put other people down or make fun of them even if you are joking.

Don’t be too reserved or too forward. Different people have different opinions about what kinds of conversations are too personal, so you will have to judge by their reactions whether you are being too personal or too general.

Ask your conversation partner some open ended questions to keep the conversation going and to show that you are interested in them.

Show genuine curiosity about the other person. Let them know you value their opinions and their point of view.

Show some empathy in your talk. Let yourself be lighthearted when the other person is talking about something amusing, and let yourself be sympathetic when they are talking about something sad.

Be willing to reveal a little bit about yourself but don’t talk too much about yourself.

Look for things to genuinely like in the people you are talking with. Don’t look for reasons to dislike them or to put them down.

If you follow the suggestions above, you will find that your ability to make conversation with others, and your ability to make friends will greatly improve.