A Guide to Making Friends!

Before you run straight into befriending everyone you meet, there are a couple of general tips that you should consider. You must be patient, because it may take a while to find the people you really click with. Waiting is worth it! As well, you should ensure that your inbox isn't full, because your friends won't be able to contact you. You should check your site preferences to determine if you can accept Neomails from people who aren't your Neofriends. This also goes for Neofriend requests, accepting items, and guild requests: you can block or allow these based on your personal desires.

1) Join a guild! This is the best way to make new friends because guilds are all about building communities. Depending on what sort of guild you join, such as account improvement or pet trading, you will meet a lot of people who share your interests and encourage deep, fun conversation! Of course, it will be up to you to make an effort to chat, be friendly, and other things we'll talk about later in this article, but finding a community you're interested in is a great first step!

2) Meeting members of a particular community also happens on one of the most important places in Neopia: the Neoboards! Do you love to customize? To trade pets? To draw or make chibis? To code? Consider posting on the boards or offering your services to people! If you have time, offer to draw someone's pet or spruce up someone's customizations. This way, you're offering your generosity, encouraging conversation about things you're interested in, and showing off your craft!

3) Making boards doesn't have to stop there! Another way to show your consideration for other people is by making boards to alert them of site events such as Snowager, Trudy, Turmaculus, and Obelisk battles, or linking someone to a perfectly-aged Darigan Pteri for the avatar. You get the idea. This is a great way to get a lot of people in one place to talk about goals and gameplay! Help yourself by helping others!

4) The advice so far has made it very clear that if you want to make friends, you'll need to be spending a lot of time on the Neoboards. Because of this, it can be very helpful to be recognizable and memorable on the boards, which you can do with your font via a creative signature, using a unique avatar (consider one that a lot of people don't tend to use, such as an easy clickable like the Yurble Forefitor avatar), or having a unique active pet customization or name! This way, as you can make yourself known right when you enter a board like the superstar you are! This tip can be particularly useful in the very early stages of new friendships.

    5) At this point, you should have met quite a few people! If you've found someone that you've had good conversation with and you're interested to talk to them more, send them a NeoFriend request! You can keep track of them under your NeoFriends tab, keep notes about them there while you're in the early stages of friendship.

And there you have it! These are five of the best ways to find and begin friendships here in Neopia. It's going to take effort on your part, putting yourself out there, but you'll be happy when you do and you have NeoFriends to call your own all over the globe! Maybe you can find one in every time zone, and you'll never be NeoLonely again. That is, if you do your part to be the best friend you can be! Let's talk about that next...

Well… now what? Maintaining your friendships is just as important as creating them. This involves being kind and considerate towards your friends and letting them know how much you appreciate them.

1) After starting your friendship, you must remain active. This involves replying to your friends' mail, posting on their boards, and talking in your guild. Even just dropping in once a day to say hello and see how their doing can brighten up they day. It may also be helpful to tell your friends what days and times you tend to be on, as this can help them schedule their Neo time around yours. It's extremely rude to make friends and then stop talking to them, so make sure you keep up with your communication!

2) Friends support each other and don't tear each other down. Offer your help and encourage your friends in their endeavours. If they want to start up a custom font page, don't tell them that there are already too many. Instead, help them format the page, make fonts, or advertise. Even if what they're doing isn't your strong suit, you can always find a way to assist them if you try. Soon, they'll be the most popular font-maker in Neopia! The best way to help your friends is by being honest and giving positive but constructive feedback. With this, they will be able to improve and grow their talents.

3) A great way to demonstrate how much you love your friends and acknowledge their kindness is to send them gifts. For example, if your friend helps you out (such as by doing some of the tips mentioned above), it would be nice to send them a Thanks Card.

    You can also send them an item they've been seeking. You can find what items they want in wish lists, posted on their lookup, or simply by being an attentive listener. Of course, you aren't obligated to send gifts to your friends, no matter how close you are or how long you've known each other. Gifts are just a nice way to demonstrate that you want to help your friends and make them happy.

4) A more simple but thoughtful touch is creating a thank you page. These keep track of everything that your friends have done for you, from giving you items to offering avatar tips to reading pet applications. Thank you pages help you organize and remember your friends' generosity as well as exhibit how appreciative you are. Other information you might want to include on your page is screenies of side-by-side kad feeds or inside jokes that you know will make them laugh.

5) Another way to demonstrate that you are always thinking of and grateful for your friends is putting links to them on your lookup. First, let them choose an item that they feel represents them or an aspect of your relationship. Then, create a clickable image on your lookup that links to their profile. This allows your friends to explore your other friends' profiles as well as makes it easier for you to check up on them.

We saved this last piece of advice for the very end, because we don't want it to seem like this article is a strategy guide for making friends. The most important thing you can do for yourself and others is to be BE YOURSELF! Friendships are based on trust, and you're not going to grow and maintain a friendship with someone else if you're worried about putting up an act. Be you, and that will be enough. What we're recommending in this article are ways that you can meet new people, foster conversation, and build communities, and hopefully you'll be introduced to lots of people from different walks of life that can encourage you in Neopia and beyond. Now go out there and make some friends! Good luck!