Friendliness is Appreciated

I realized tonight that I have participated/attended/held three gatherings this week and it's only Friday night. I'm really not a social butterfly especially around large groups of people so I am impressed with this number. In going to all of these events, I realized tonight that there are definitely some people that try harder to be friendly than others and I really appreciate those people. I can be one of those people on most occasions, depending on the situation and how much I decide to put forth a strong effort (and I really do mean decide and I really do mean strong effort) which is most occasions, but it's really difficult for me to just start up a conversation with someone if I don't know them very well, but I still do it. Even making the decision to go to gatherings is hard for me at times, but what makes my mind up in the end is convincing myself that there will be someone there that I can be friendly to or that maybe someone there will be friendly to me. You see, I have this rule that I started a year or so ago (especially in dealing with ward activities)...after the main activity of the evening is over, I tell myself that I HAVE to stick around for at least five minutes. If no one talks to me or I don't have the opportunity to start a conversation with someone after five minutes, I can leave, but if I do, I then have to start the five minutes over after the conversation ends. It's my safety net that ends up convincing me to go, the permission to leave if it's really bad.

So you see, friendliness is appreciated and I'm sure I'm not the only one that agrees.