I. Introduce your friends to each other
Similar to building a self-reinforcing life, it works well to introduce your friends to each other. When your friends become friends with your friends, each friend independently makes an effort to stay in touch with the others, thus strengthening the overall network and lessening the burden on yourself.
For example let’s say you have friends A B C D and E. If you have to keep in touch and reach out to all 5 individually, you will be exhausted. However if everyone is friends with each other, then next time you hang out with A you might hear about the latest with D.
You don't have to worry about losing touch with D even if you haven't spoken in months because you are somehow keeping in light touch through hearsay from other friends. When you do finally hang out with D you have "kept up" with their lives through other friend hang outs.
(Example) So even if you've been slacking off on catching up with Claire, you might run into Dan who mentions that Claire recently started doing poetry readings at the downtown cafe, and that might prompt you to reach out to Claire to go to her next poetry reading. You might hear that Sally went hiking with June and they excitedly send you photos of them together, and that further reinforces the mutual appreciation/sense of liking each other. When someone you like likes another person you like, it reinforces your initial evaluation.
Having friends who are friends with each other, a self-reinforcing friend network, will make things significantly easier for you. Thats why I am thrilled whenever my friends hit it off with my other friends— a dense social network allows everyone to chill out with Catching Up™️.
II. On the importance of third spaces for creating accidental regular interactions
It is a lot harder to make friends in the city compared to on a college campus. I attribute this largely to the non-existence of third spaces.
When you are on a college campus, you do not need to reach out and make plans to meet up. You just run into each other on the quad or at the dining hall or at the library.
In the city, you have to reach out and schedule and then meet up for coffee/dinner/whatever. After you get coffee, you’re like bye! And then it’s silent unless you reach out again. If you think about it, reaching out/messaging someone directly on a 1:1 basis can be quite intimate. DM’ing someone on social media is considered a fairly strong move, compared to things like liking their instagram story or otherwise engaging with publicly posted content.
After college you need to find new third spaces that allow for accidental regular interactions. I recommend twitter and climbing gyms. I know some people also make friends on instagram.
With twitter, I can get coffee with a friend, and after they leave I don’t have to worry about the connection being broken. I will likely see them tweeting about craving tacos late at 2am and I can respond “lol”. It’s so easy.
With the climbing gym, I don’t have to make explicit plans to hang out at all, I will just run into them on a somewhat regular basis at the climbing gym and we will proceed to hang out together in a low commitment environment where we are free to talk or drift apart as we please.
Whether it’s a local coffee shop or run club or pottery class, having a regular place you frequent will make it much easier to make friends through accidental regular interactions.
III. Some questions/activities are better for bonding
Not all activities are effective for deepening friendships. I bet that 1 outdoor camping trip = 5 happy hours. Creating things together, going on a roadtrip, doing something out of the ordinary— all of these can deepen the friendship at a higher level than grabbing dinner.
Another thing that helps deepen friendships is encouraging people to talk about their perspective and human experience. Shooting the shit is great but can lead to a decade-long friendship without ever hearing about a friend’s struggles.
Ask questions about how they make decisions, what they find beautiful. Take a swim in each other’s worlds. What revelations significantly changed their outlook on life or life trajectory? What was it like to live in their home, with their parents and siblings? How do they see the universe? What are the frames or edges around which their universe coheres… what colors their perception… and do they play with that, is there any more meta thinking around their life principles or norms, some emotionally resonant theme, a recurring mood?
These are also things you can glean without firing off direct questions, but this is the realm that I find fascinating and helpful for understanding someone and building trust.
IV. Choose friends who care about you
The kinds of friends that last are the ones that care about you. Not the ones who think you’re cool, or think you’re talented or good or interesting or successful or useful or social. You want friends who care about you.
And they should care about YOU, not how you make them feel or what favors you can do for them… and ideally you care about them back, because you see that they are beautiful and delightful souls.
One aspect of a caring friendship is constructive criticism. There’s a sense of, because you truly care about each other, you are also not blindly loyal nor quick to abandon… you care enough to tell them when you think they’re changing for the worse or making bad decisions.
I can tell if someone is my friend primarily for economical reasons, eg social connections, convenience/circumstance, beauty or skill. It’s not that this is bad— if it’s useful both ways then it works out great. However I am skeptical of economical friendships for when shit goes down and you lose your glamour or usefulness or convenience.
A relevant thread by @jessicamalonso:
That’s all I have for now on friendship, hope you enjoyed! As always feel free to send thoughts/feedback/suggestions.