Ask HN: What do you do to start and develop friendships?
I've been reading Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, which is about the importance of networking and developing lasting relationships, and Keith does talk about preparation (get to know a person before you meet them), about being genuine, about having something to offer, about the importance of being liked, but I think I'm missing something a bit more fundamental. While I cherish relationships I do build, developing a genuine human bond is somewhat of a mystery to me: it happens sometimes, but infrequently, and doesn't seem to be under my control at all.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 41.1 ms ] threadIs it really genuine if youre preparing a strategy?
Or less flippantly....
It's like making a budget before you spend. The money is still real, you simply evaluated where to use it and set ground rules for yourself.
If youre building network to get advantage, then it doesnt feel genuine
If you build network cuz you just like those ppl and the advantage is accidental side effect then it feels genuine
I don't really have many friends. For someone to be my "friend" they'd have to be a person I'd spend time with when I'm bored, and who I could reasonably count on to have my back when I need it.
At the moment, I don't really have any people I can consider "friends" by that definition - I either don't like spending time with people (nothing to do, no place to be, too stressful, etc. etc.) or I'm simply "just another friend" to people. There is a certain type of individuals that like to be friendly with everyone. They radiate an "aura" of deep connection with you and make you feel special... When in fact they're that way with everyone, and you're just another victim of their well-trained manipulation techniques.
I don't really know how to get those "real" friendships. I remember I had some as a kid. I don't even know how I got those - was it just geographical proximity? Being forced to be in the same room for 8 hours a day?
I wish I knew. But solitude is pleasant, too, even though it's not as profitable.
It's important to point out that the starting point is a very shallow relationship that actually has no depth to it. Over time, these shallow relationships may gain depth. Much like a river carving through stone. If you have no patience you are not likely to get to the point if getting deep relationships, and if you do, you'll probably be overwhelming the other person with eagerness and/or desperation and/or being out of touch with social norms. Likewise, the best way to find love is to date lots and get dumped lots that it's no longer a major event and you just move on.
Because much like you, I haven't really kept good friends along in life. I've had periods in my life when I had a "good" friend, that I could talk a lot of stuff with, share my problems, and generally do activities in common, but I moved around, I haven't really kept in touch.
Problem is, without a social circle, it's much more difficult to find a partner, and I'm at an age now where that's the main thing I think I'm missing.
But I understand the issue very well from a theoretical standpoint. At its core, it's about a disordered attachment style, a sort of fear of attachment, or a failure of the brain to regulate the affect resulting from interactions. A result of early developmental trauma. I'm also familiar with some techniques that are supposed to fix the problem (I was building a neurofeedback system based on ADS1299 at one point), but life got in the way. Which is ironic, since I think this is the most important aspect of any life, social functioning.
No, not at the moment.
I've been through several long-term relationships, and I think I'm too emotionally fucked up to actually be in one for real. There's a whole array of issues, and I don't even know how to sum them up. In a nutshell, I don't really like being myself.
It's well worth it to learn how to accept and like yourself. After all, the one person you can count on having the rest of your life, is you! Good luck!
A friend friend of mine with very similar thoughts as me (and, it sounds like, you) recently put it very well. The "workplace proximity associate" kind of friends, while kind of destined to remain shallow and not as deep a connection as any of us might want, are not unimportant. They ground us in a way and help us keep a connection to the world, but maybe not so much individuals.
Networking is complete bullshit because people who are highly social recognize potential areas for self-interest in relationship-building and any behavior that follows that path gets flagged subconsciously as disingenuous. Make friends and treat other people as you would like to be treated.
There is also a need to communicate, in order to give the other person a sense of your investment in the relationship (as represented by your time, effort, and candor) and material with which to formulate substantive responses and reciprocate with their own time, effort, and candor.
You have no control over how other people connect with you, and frankly, their opinion and feelings toward you are none of your business. Don't overtrain your behavior upon your perception of the progress of bonding. Just do what is right, fun, kind, and ethical. The rest falls into place.
I haven't read the Ferrazzi book but my understanding is that he shuns networking to instead reframe the concept as "connecting," and this is more in line with my own viewpoint.
I'd appreciate a better explanation of his viewpoint from someone who has read the book.
I still keep in touch with and meet up with people I’ve not worked with in years.
Once you have kids, it often happens that you only have time to see the parents of their friends. Sometimes you don't have a choice, but sometimes you find like minded parents that turn into friends.
http://zeroprecedent.com/A%E2%9D%AF%E2%9D%AEON%20deck%20v.3....
All it takes is to start talking.
Also not all friendships have to be the same.
Some are in person, some are online, some are not as frequent, some are inactive, and some might be gone.
Oh look there is even a post title that seems to be what you are looking for: https://www.raptitude.com/2021/01/how-to-make-friends-as-an-...
But I joined a language school class and made friends there. I joined a basketball team and made friends there too.
It seems weird but I’m starting to think that it’s as simple as if you interact someone once a week for a decent period of time and their personality is kinda compatible with yours then you become friends.
So if I was looking to make friends now, I’d look for a group activity with a weekly commitment that involves people who are likely to share some common interests.
.. oh, you mean now. Uh. hmm…
If one or both people are mainly trying to make friends, the driving force is transient & non-intrinsic - at odds with that which endures.
Whereas with relationships that "just happen", there is a cascade of circumstance and shared interest, and those rise greater than any desire to connect. The connection is intrinsic and unstoppable as opposed to cultivated.
Pursue your own interests and the truth of your circumstance as fully as possible, as often as possible, and - crucially - for its own sake. Not to meet others, but to meet more of yourself.
Your friends will appear.
But for adults, I would say that this is not the best method. It can work, to be sure. But as adults, when various demands pull at your time (be it your job, your family, etc.) you can easily get in a state where...
> Pursue your own interests and the truth of your circumstance as fully as possible, as often as possible, and - crucially - for its own sake. Not to meet others, but to meet more of yourself.
...just leaves you still without friends because everyone else is also focusing on themselves and their own interests. This is especially rough in 2023 when people spend so much time online, alone, and so much of their hobbies revolve around being online, alone.
I have a lot of friends, and I think I'm pretty good at making and keeping friends. Friendship in adulthood looks different than childhood friendship. One of the ways it does is that it requires a certain amount of concerted effort by both parties to maintain the friendship, at once because you share interests, but also because the reciprocal effort is part of the friendship, it's constitutive of the very loyalty that typifies great friendships. It's about how despite all those competing demands on someone's time, you still decide to spend time together as friends.
It will feel unnatural and like "work" only because the preexisting social context of school or a job does a lot of work in the background. But once you realize that making and maintaining friendships takes a certain kind of effort, you can find it very rewarding. You also have the benefit of making lots of people different from yourself your friend, which people could probably use more of nowadays. I'm far more left leaning than some of my friends, but one thing that I think saves me from going completely off the deep end like some people I know is the exposure to alternative POVs that I get from my more right leaning friends.
Perhaps its similar to this place - I wouldn't necessarily consider folks here "friends", but I yet may just as deeply value some of these interactions specifically for the different ideas and opinions they expose me to.
Thanks for this one :)
This is especially true because (I forget where I read this), statistically, most of your friends will be less socially assertive than you.
I know personally, if I stopped putting in effort to friendships -- positive friendships which bring net value into my life! -- all but maybe one or two would wither away, simply for want of ever seeing or interacting with each other.
Finding potential friends, I agree with your advice. Following your own interests makes you an interesting and attractive person, and finding people who share your interests sets you up for healthy friendships.
No effort is required to begin a friendship that happens automatically. Both naturally organise a next meet, and/or already have reason to and/or happily can't avoid it. Relationships often begin at work/edu for this reason.
The times I've been assertive and essentially built a connection out of what was nothing, it's been interesting, even exhilarating - but less reliably enduring. It's tended to be better to begin with a bigger "spark".
And if that spark isn't enough to create a shared excitement that automatically leads to a next step, without requiring effort, it may mean it's not worth such effort.
(Not always, though.)
Genuine friendship comes with shared interests (which is why it's easier to find friends in common activities that you are genuinely interested in), but also the simple chance of meeting interesting people. The best predictor of friendships in student dorms seems to be the relative distance of their rooms - see Kurzgesagt's "Why You Are Lonely and How to Make Friends" at https://youtu.be/I9hJ_Rux9y0 for some more interesting facts.
It's completely normal to have different level of friends - some to party with, some to nerd around certain topics with, some to have deep meaningful talks but you only can stand a meeting once a quarter... And you are only able to actively maintain a certain number of friendships.
I found that I don't have nearly as many "friends" as many of my peers have (being a 40-something doesn't help much either), but the friends I got are rock solid. They are kinda lopsided because I'm offering too much help most of the time without accepting much help from them - that's what I need to work on.
There was a similar thread to this a couple years back, and I had a number of people contact me. I honestly tried and I just didn’t connect with any of them.
I think it comes down to the specificity of our interests and having trouble even finding a shared vocabulary.
I think that is part of why so many of us rally around fandoms so fervently, it’s a strong shared interest and culture. For better or worse I have just never cared about a fiction enough to have much to say.
Correct. You don't control someone else, and it takes two to become friends.
I don't think there is a secret trick. You can try to increase the chance to meet someone. Take up a new sport, charity work, etc.
The time spent together is significant and often underrated in my observations. No: I don't believe you can maintain, even less build, a friendship with only a few hours of occasional monthly talks over coffee. This is no surprise why BJJ courses are renowned for being so efficient at creating and solidifying friendships; you have similar people meeting regularly and struggling toward improving a specific skill.
The amount of time spent and the quality of that time will vastly influence the likelihood of friendships forming.
These things tend to occur less naturally later in life for most people, so you have to go out and find them. I'm just approaching the age where my kids will be entering a school system and sports of their own soon, so I expect some relationships will form with other parents through that shared experience. I'm fortunate to have maintained great relationships from high school and college though...not everyone is as open to adding new people to their circle at this stage of life.
tldr: find other people to share passions / challenges with. Don't worry about moving on if it doesn't click.
For those that you know would enjoy it, get a rhythm of regular correspondence, and that should turn into quality friendships.
This rhythm IMO is the missing part