Simply put, having fun is a good social skill. People will enjoy being around you if you can be fun. Additionally, you’ll enjoy yourself more at the gatherings you attend.
But having fun has its right time and place. If you can have a good time at a party or with a group of friends who are having lighthearted fun, that’s great. The best time to try to be fun, fun, fun isn’t when you’re out for a quiet, reflective walk with a friend. In general, I think that having fun is just one social “mode” that a lot of people can engage in. Depending on the situation, it may or may not be the best choice. This article covers the idea in more detail:
Ordinary Logical Mode vs. Light Fun Mode In Social Interactions
Being more fun, in my opinion, has two components. There are the behaviors that actively make you more fun, and there are the traits to avoid that make you less fun.
Table of Contents
How To Be Fun?
Practice Being Relaxed Around People
You need to make people feel at ease around you if you want to be enjoyable to be around. Only if you are at ease with who you are can you do that.
You can be who you are when you are at ease and secure around others. Without fear of criticism, you are free to crack ridiculous jokes and behave however you please. We all have characteristics that set us apart and make us special; when we are completely at ease and genuine, we can be all of those things.
Show Others That You’re Relaxed And Easy-going
If you feel stiff, there are a few things you can do to appear more easy-going:
- If someone says something clever or humorous, respond by laughing.
- Make lots of comfortable, friendly eye contact.
- Keep your body language open.
- Be cordial and give lots of compliments. Instead of focusing on the negative, highlight the positive aspects of people or situations.
- Avoid self-censorship. Provide suggestions for where to go, what to do, and your thoughts on a situation. It aids in getting to know you.
- Find out some witty advice.
Be Non-judgmental
Accept yourself and everyone else. Remind yourself to give everyone a chance if you have a tendency to pass judgment quickly. Others will feel more at ease around you if you decide not to judge them.
Think of everyone as a potential friend. Ask questions to learn more about the other person while maintaining an approachable, relaxed demeanor. Believe that you can learn something from everyone and that everyone’s choices can be justified, even if you would have done things differently.
If others perceive you to accept them and their actions without showing any signs of judgment, you’ll be more enjoyable to be around.
Be A Good Listener
Through your body language and a friendly tone of voice, you can convey your acceptance of others.
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That means putting away all distractions and listening to who you are talking to, nodding, smiling, and saying “uh-huh” when appropriate. Avoid looking around the room and maintain eye contact. That may be a sign that you would prefer to be somewhere else.
Open Up
Laugh out loud and share humorous anecdotes about your life and experiences, such as odd jobs you’ve held, a disastrous blind date, or funny things that happened when you were a child. Avoid sharing incredibly private details with your audience that might make them uncomfortable. You want to share amusing anecdotes that everyone can understand.
By telling you about themselves, people can get to know you better and feel more at ease. Remind yourself that in order for two people to feel like they know each other, they must both know certain things about one another.
Be Able To Laugh At Yourself
Usually, it’s more enjoyable to be around people who aren’t afraid to act a little foolishly. You can become more likable and human by making a small error. It is referred to as the “pratfall effect.”
Another way to increase your relatability is to make a joke about yourself. Don’t go overboard, though; constantly making jokes about yourself can get old fast. If you trip and fall, it’s more endearing to be able to laugh about it rather than pretend as if nothing happened. People enjoy spending time with those who can laugh at life and the absurd situations it puts us in.
Being funny entails exposing the world to your ideas, inner weirdness, hobbies, and intellect. You won’t always hit a home run, and that’s okay. Your jokes will only be remembered if eight out of ten of them are funny.
Find Your Type Of Humor
Start with humor that makes you laugh if you don’t think you’re funny. Is it puns and inane language? Dry sarcasm? body movements or funny faces used in physical humor? Whatever it is, research it and try to duplicate it first with your friends and family. Once that is done, bring it up in conversations you have regularly.
Be The Glue That Holds People Together
Introduce your friends to one another to make it simple for everyone to get along in a group. Aid them in identifying commonalities between one another.
- Discuss shared interests you all have.
- Mention a cool thing a group member has accomplished and invite them to share it with the rest of the group.
- Bring together new acquaintances or friendship circles for activities that everyone will enjoy, such as game nights, theme parks, ultimate frisbee, soccer, and bowling.
Do Things That Scare You
If you frequently stay in your comfort zone, try pushing a few of your boundaries. In spite of your fears, try new things. If someone invites you to try something new, such as a cooking class or a speed dating event, and your gut tells you to say no, go ahead and accept the invitation. Your self-assurance and capacity for spontaneity gradually increase as a result. People who are courageous in that way often have interesting stories to share, which can make them enjoyable to be around.
Be Positive
Being optimistic is a choice, just like choosing to eat more vegetables or put the phone down more often. Making the choice to adopt a positive outlook can both enhance your quality of life and make you more enjoyable to be around.
If something is bothering you, try to look at it from a different angle. Remind yourself of positive things you can appreciate if something negative is stealing your attention. Being healthy, and safe, having a close family or good friends, taking in the beauty of nature, or watching a fun movie are frequently the things we take for granted.
Being able to acknowledge and deal with unpleasant feelings is still crucial. Consider going to therapy to help you process all of your emotions if you don’t have a healthy outlet for your negative emotions.
Focus On Others
Make others feel at ease by asking questions about them if you have a tendency to talk about yourself. Alternatively, look up interesting questions to ask people to learn more about them. Everyone should talk for about the same amount of time in order to maintain a balanced interaction.
Rest
There are limits to how far you can push yourself. When you need to maintain your level of emotional and physical energy, recharge your batteries. Taking care of yourself is just as important as taking care of others and making new friends. To succeed, you must be in good health.
How To Be A More Fun Person To Be Around?
Let’s discuss how you can increase enjoyment and entertainment in a group setting.
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Be Original
We are all original and distinctive. Accept your uniqueness. Open up to others and have those conversations if you enjoy death metal music and anthropology.
If you don’t step on anyone’s toes, feel free to express your opinions. As you proceed, enquire what others may think. As long as you are open to hearing the opinions of others, having different points of view can be entertaining and educational. The quality of being open-minded is admirable. In other words, you get along with everyone.
Use Your Facial Expressions To Tell The Story
There is a lot of nonverbal communication between people. When used to their full potential, facial expressions, and brows, in particular, are so expressive that they have an impact on other people.
Eyebrow expressions include anger, surprise, fear, joy, and confusion. They can be thought of as exclamation points in our conversations because they reflect our emotions. Faces that are animated tell fascinating stories. The delivery can improve a story even if its content isn’t perfect. Therefore, practice telling stories in front of the mirror both with and without brow furrows and facial expressions. See the difference!
Find Mutual Interests And Focus On Those
People will reveal their interests to you as you get to know them through conversation. To nudge the conversation in that direction, use what you’ve learned. Finding shared interests will increase the enjoyment of the conversation for both of you.
For instance, if I find out that someone is a history nerd like me, I’ll be sure to bring up a history documentary I enjoyed. That’s probably going to start a conversation we’ll both enjoy having. Here’s more information on how to come up with conversation starters.
Bring Energy & Enthusiasm Into All Your Conversations
There are methods you can employ if you frequently find yourself in circumstances where you are more reserved than others.
Let me start by issuing a warning: if you don’t feel enthusiastic or energized, don’t pretend to. It takes a lot of energy to fake something, and it also appears and feels unreal. As an alternative, seek it out in a manner that speaks to you. Consider a time when you were enthused to share a story or talk about an exciting topic. See if you can get that feeling back. Other methods to get there include listening to upbeat music and consuming caffeine prior to social gatherings.
You should address your shyness or social phobia first because being timid can occasionally be a sign of those issues.
When you speak passionately, the atmosphere in the room may change in your favor. This can be heard through your voice and laughter. Also, you are animated, expressive, and hugging or touching people in a friendly manner. Others may enter your orbit as a result, curious to learn more and join the conversation.
Here’s how to be more fun to talk to:
- Don’t just give yes-or-no answers. – Give more details and a personal example. “Despite being extremely exhausted, my morning was good. I did, however, manage to prepare oats and eggs.”
- Answer any inquiries that you get. – “I had a morning like that. How was your morning?”
- Ask follow-up questions. – “So what did he say after learning what had occurred?”
- Be positive. – Only occasionally bring up issues and negative topics.
- Give compliments. – Tell someone you appreciate what they did if you like it.
- Keep in mind the advice you receive. “Do your daughter’s symptoms—a cold she had yesterday, you said—have subsided?”
Know A Little About A Lot Of Things
Be current on hot topics to keep the discussion going. Do your best to stay up to date on memes, movies, and television. When you do, it’s simpler to participate in general discussions groups might have on those topics. Being in the moment, immersing yourself in it, and sharing your thoughts are what matter.
Be Present And Personal During The Conversation
By concentrating solely on your friend while they are speaking, you can make a conversation feel more intimate. Be sure to speak before waiting for someone else to. Instead, pay attention to your partner’s words to understand what they mean. If you believe they will improve the conversation, add pertinent ideas and thoughts to it. Make thoughtful, topical comments.
Make the conversation more personal by contributing your thoughts and feelings to the subject. Ask them where they would live if money weren’t an issue if you’re talking about how expensive it is to live in the city. Or where they would reside if they were able to uproot themselves and move anywhere in the world right now. When you do, you switch from a general discussion to an intimate dialogue.
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Tell A Great Story
Storytelling is an art. For a thorough explanation, see How to be Good at Telling Stories: Six Storytelling Principles.
Here’s the gist in the short:
- As you speak with the group, share a story that relates to your topic.
- It takes relatability for a story to be enjoyable. More people enjoy hearing about our struggles than our victories.
- First, describe the background of the story and why it is exciting.
- Aim to keep your audience interested by not including too many details. Emphasize creating the emotional context. Why you felt afraid, surprised, angry, or happy about it?
- Tell a tale that your audience can identify with. For your coworkers’ benefit, work-related tales. To tell your grandmother, family tales
- As you tell the tale, create tension by including all the pertinent details and the emotional context before dropping the punchline at the conclusion.
Command Attention With Your Body Language
Your body language should convey that you are an assured and legitimate member of the group. You want your posture, tone of voice, and gait to say “I enjoy being here.” People will perceive being around you as more enjoyable if you show signs of enjoyment.
The best speakers in the world have mastered the art of using body language to consistently project the message they want to get across. Look at these speeches by Tony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, and Barack Obama on YouTube to see how their body language commands the room.
Animation, vitality, and total attention to the present. That is, they give their full attention to the people they are speaking to.
You can hone your body language in front of the mirror. Keep at it because it won’t happen instantly. Then go on the road with your delivery while being accompanied by loved ones and close friends. Or, if you’d rather, act in the opposite way: Sometimes it’s simpler to try out new behaviors around people you haven’t met before. Consider your words, your delivery, and how you can make an impact as you get comfortable being the center of attention.
Pick Your Team
As a result, you are socializing and mingling outside. Numerous people are encountered and spoken to. However, you’ll see that not everyone is amenable to and open to your charm. No issue; you arrived, chatted, and then departed. Not everybody belongs on your team. Not everyone will enjoy your company, even if someone else doesn’t.
The population of the world is enormous. Connecting with some people and not others is common. We are all made in that way. When it comes to friends, there is no one size fits. But most people we meet are amenable to a friendly conversation. Sometimes, that conversation develops into a true friendship.
Warnings
- Don’t make fun of other people. It’s good to laugh at yourself, but it’s also good to laugh with them. You must if you want to remain joyful despite your errors and failures.
- Because your current friends are the ones you have best, don’t alienate them. In order to avoid offending them, keep them in your life as well.
- Keep in mind other things besides just having fun. You should always maintain a more somber side and display it when necessary. If your friend turns to you for help during a difficult time, you must accept responsibility for that and prove to them that you are a friend worth keeping. The same is true of your parents; prove to them that you deserve more freedom by respecting their advice and acting responsibly.
- Don’t try to make people think you are fun. It appears phony and intrusive.
- Always remember that the fun you’re having is safe, and legal, and doesn’t harm anyone—not even you.
- Close proximity makes it acceptable to engage in overtly flirtatious teasing. But if you’re just meeting someone, be polite at first.